Roadshow Funny Girl

I vaguely remember seeing Funny Girl on the big screen for the first time (For reference, I was born in 1960). The only thing I can remember is commenting to my parents that I liked the tug boat scene. I was too young to really appreciate it at that time.

My next Funny Girl memory was seeing part of it on network television in the early '70s. Again, too young to appreciate it.

By 1976 when I became a Streisand fan, I was reading any books and old articles that I could find about her. My first book was Barbra: The First Decade. I seem to recall reading somewhere around this time that Funny Girl played for over a year at the Criterion theater in Times Square! I found that hard to imagine.

I lived in a small town near San Antonio, Texas and we had only one theater- an old neighborhood type theater. Movies weren't released like they are now where they open wide everywhere. If it was an American International Picture or a Burt Reynolds movie, we might get it opening week. If it was a major motion picture, like Posideon Adventure or Towering Inferno, it would literally be six months before it played in such a small market like our town. And when they did, it would only play for a week. So I just couldn't phantom any movie playing for such a long period of time.

It would be decades later before I researched "roadshow" films and their history. I missed out on that period of exclusive 70mm screenings in 6-track stereophonic sound. Born too late, in a small town.

There are great websites that can give you more insight into that era: http://www.widescreenmuseum.com/ and http://www.in70mm.com/.

Back in the late '70s and early '80s there were some retrospective theaters that showed old movies on the big screen (before the rise of videotape) in Texas. They would show double features and change the schedule every day or every other day. In the early '80s, I had the chance to see a double feature of Funny Girl and Funny Lady in Austin, TX. Imagine my surprise seeing Funny Girl in widescreen Panavision (instead of cropped on TV). I remember watching My Man and comparing it to seeing it on TV. I didn't know she had her hands in view when she sings "when he takes me in his arms".

It was disappointing in the early '80s when the VHS tape of Funny Girl was released. It was pan and scan. Not counting a limited laserdisc version in the early, it wouldn't be until 2001 that a widescreen version was available for home viewing.

A limited re-release of Funny Girl played in theaters during this time. Living in South Florida now I hoped and prayed it would make an appearance down here. Unadvertised, it had a one week engagement in Delray Beach and Boca Raton (no display ad, no review). Needless to say very few people were aware of it and attendance was dismal.

Above is an image of the Egyptian theater in Hollywood, CA during the roadshow engagement of Funny Girl. Photo is from the Los Angeles County Library website.