An interesting case of the old meeting the new here as veteran Hollywood director Vincente Minnelli and old-school Broadway songwriter Alan J Lerner attempt to come up to date as the 60's cross into the 70's and they have to contend with the new girl on the block Barbra Streisand and even the emergent Jack Nicholson in a minor supporting role.
The result unsurprisingly is a win on points for experience as the end result comes out more conventional than controversial. Streisand is the suspiciously old-looking 22 year old college student Daisy Gamble who has a life of conformity all set up and ready to go for her by her controlling cold-fish business-minded fiancé Warren.
That is, until she attends one of college professor Yves Montand's Dr Chabot's lectures on hypnotism and turns out to be a super-susceptible subject. More than that, she soon afterwards appears to be the perfect specimen for the prof's pet subject of reincarnation, bringing to life a previous self as a scandalous Regency duchess named Melinda who not only left her bumbling, aged and corpulent husband for a dashingly handsome ne'er-do-well but in fact was executed at a young age for giving away naval secrets to the enemy.
Montand is confounded and resistant to what he thinks is Daisy's elaborate charade but succeeding sessions convince him that she's for real, causing him to rebel against his college board's views on the subject and worse, he's strangely attracted to the confident and worldly Melinda into the bargain. The not-so-big questions to be resolved boil down to will the real Daisy take inspiration from Melinda to stand up and rebel against her future life as a doormat and will the professor overturn the college board's conservatism and in the process, modernise the college curriculum.
The plot of course is strongly reminiscent of Lerner's biggest hit "My Fair Lady" and even has Streisand attempt a plummy English accent in her Melinda persona. I guess I wasn't aware that reincarnation was such an emotive subject in educational circles at the time, but really the movie is just an excuse to give Babs an outlet for her kooky comedienne schtick as well as getting her into elaborate period costume and act the grand dame.
I found I wasn't convinced however. The film runs too long for one thing and while there are one or two smart one liners in the script, many other things just don't work, in particular the embarrassingly unfunny over -the-top scene when Daisy goes crazy on her New York rooftop.
Montand does his best as a French Professor Higgins but never seems really comfortable in the role. Further down the cast, besides Nicholson's negligible contribution you'll find Bob Newhart practice for his future TV sitcom roles as the stuffy college principal.
As for Hollywood great Minnelli's direction, I found it to be an awkward mix of the old and the new. He's fine when he goes back in time but is much less convincing when employing all sorts of camera tricks to presumably display his modernity. The songs were passible with the title number probably being the best known of them, although the lip-synching was at times jarringly obvious, but on the whole I'd say that the outlook for this feature was more overcast than clear at least on the day that I watched,
The result unsurprisingly is a win on points for experience as the end result comes out more conventional than controversial. Streisand is the suspiciously old-looking 22 year old college student Daisy Gamble who has a life of conformity all set up and ready to go for her by her controlling cold-fish business-minded fiancé Warren.
That is, until she attends one of college professor Yves Montand's Dr Chabot's lectures on hypnotism and turns out to be a super-susceptible subject. More than that, she soon afterwards appears to be the perfect specimen for the prof's pet subject of reincarnation, bringing to life a previous self as a scandalous Regency duchess named Melinda who not only left her bumbling, aged and corpulent husband for a dashingly handsome ne'er-do-well but in fact was executed at a young age for giving away naval secrets to the enemy.
Montand is confounded and resistant to what he thinks is Daisy's elaborate charade but succeeding sessions convince him that she's for real, causing him to rebel against his college board's views on the subject and worse, he's strangely attracted to the confident and worldly Melinda into the bargain. The not-so-big questions to be resolved boil down to will the real Daisy take inspiration from Melinda to stand up and rebel against her future life as a doormat and will the professor overturn the college board's conservatism and in the process, modernise the college curriculum.
The plot of course is strongly reminiscent of Lerner's biggest hit "My Fair Lady" and even has Streisand attempt a plummy English accent in her Melinda persona. I guess I wasn't aware that reincarnation was such an emotive subject in educational circles at the time, but really the movie is just an excuse to give Babs an outlet for her kooky comedienne schtick as well as getting her into elaborate period costume and act the grand dame.
I found I wasn't convinced however. The film runs too long for one thing and while there are one or two smart one liners in the script, many other things just don't work, in particular the embarrassingly unfunny over -the-top scene when Daisy goes crazy on her New York rooftop.
Montand does his best as a French Professor Higgins but never seems really comfortable in the role. Further down the cast, besides Nicholson's negligible contribution you'll find Bob Newhart practice for his future TV sitcom roles as the stuffy college principal.
As for Hollywood great Minnelli's direction, I found it to be an awkward mix of the old and the new. He's fine when he goes back in time but is much less convincing when employing all sorts of camera tricks to presumably display his modernity. The songs were passible with the title number probably being the best known of them, although the lip-synching was at times jarringly obvious, but on the whole I'd say that the outlook for this feature was more overcast than clear at least on the day that I watched,