William Wyler

by Gabriel Miller

  The film received some glowing reviews and some that were more reserved. Stanley Kaufman, in the New Republic, found the film version superior to Fowles's novel. Andrew Sarris (Wyler's nemesis) characterized Wyler's direction as “impersonal,” yet he still called it “the most erotic movie to come out past the production code.” He went on to say: “Yet I can't think of anything more exciting and more cinematic than locking up a boy and girl in an old house and an intriguing situation. Just as the human voice is the most sublime musical instrument, the human face and body are the most sublime visual subjects, and one shot of Samantha Eggar's elongated leg turning on a water faucet is worth every shot of every antelope that ever roamed.”8

  Wyler took the film to Cannes, where he gave numerous interviews and conceded that he did not like the film's French title, L'Obsede, because it revealed too much of the story's central theme before it could be developed onscreen. The Cannes jury awarded its best acting prizes to Stamp and Eggar—the first time in the festival's history that both awards went to actors from the same film—and Cahiers du Cinema called it one of Wyler's best films. Wyler was also nominated for an Oscar as Best Director for the twelfth and final time. (Eggar was nominated as well, as was the screenplay.) Ironically, however, the Best Director prize for 1965 went to Robert Wise for The Sound of Music.

  After making three bleak films for Paramount between 1949 and 1952, and weary from the HUAC battles, Wyler had escaped to Rome, where he directed the charming Roman Holiday and made Audrey Hepburn a star in the process. Now, after making three films devoted to examining man's inhumanity to man, followed by the deeply pessimistic The Collector, Wyler took another break. This time, he flew off to Paris to make another trifle, How to Steal a Million, again with Audrey Hepburn. Wyler was especially pleased by the French shooting schedule. He told a reporter, “It's a miserable life in Hollywood. You're up at five or six o'clock in the morning to be ready to start shooting at nine. The working hours aren't arranged to suit the artists and the director; they're for the convenience of the technicians.” In Paris, though, “you start at noon. Then you work right through to seven-thirty. It's much less exhausting that way. Anyhow, who can play a love scene at nine o'clock in the morning?”9

  How to Steal a Million (originally titled Venus Rising) would be Wyler's first caper film. The opportunity to explore a new genre, work with Hepburn again, and direct Peter O'Toole, who was a hot young star at the time, made the project irresistible to Wyler. The top supporting role, Hepburn's father, went to Hugh Griffith, who had won an Oscar as Sheik Ilderim in Ben-Hur. The plot revolves around Hepburn and O'Toole's attempt to pull off a museum heist. Hepburn's father, a successful creator and purveyor of art forgeries, has loaned a replica of Cellini's Venus (made by his own father) to the museum. When they learn that the museum intends to authenticate the statue for insurance purposes, Hepburn hires O'Toole to help her steal the Venus. O'Toole turns out to be a private detective who is investigating Hepburn's father. Naturally, they fall in love in a very Wylerian spot—a cramped broom closet, where they are waiting for the museum to close so they can steal the statue. After a variety of complications, all ends well for the two lovers.

  When the shoot for How to Steal a Million was almost over, Wyler was honored with a retrospective at the Cinémathèque Française. He attended the first film, The Little Foxes, but was too busy tending to the final details of his current project to participate in the homage. The program notes, written by Henri Langlois, state that “toward the end of the 1930s [Wyler] created a new style. It is fitting to associate with Wyler the turning point which—by error of judgment now corrected by the passage of time—postwar critics attributed to Citizen Kane, when in fact, Welles in this film, was still groping and being influenced by Wyler.”10

  How to Steal a Million, an old-fashioned Hollywood comedy, was quite out of step with many of the films being produced in the 1960s, and it got a less than enthusiastic reception from critics and the public. Nevertheless, Fox wanted Wyler to remain with the studio. The Zanucks offered him a four-picture deal that called for Wyler to direct two films at $500,000 each and to produce two more at $300,000 each; he would also receive a percentage of the gross revenues for the four films. His first project was to be Patton, which Darryl Zanuck would produce (hoping to replicate the success of his recent megahit The Longest Day). For Wyler, the subject matter offered a step back into the past and an opportunity to rethink aspects of the war. He had never made a studio film dealing directly with World War II, and as such, the project presented him with some interesting challenges.

  Making a film about George S. Patton was a pet project of producer Frank McCarthy, who had first proposed it in 1951. McCarthy, a retired brigadier general, had been a top aide to Army Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall and had at one point actually worked under Patton. The film was going to be made in Spain because it had all the necessary architecture and landscape to duplicate the various battle scenes; in addition, the Spanish army still maintained World War II hardware in working condition. Patton was budgeted at more than $10 million, and filming was set to begin in February 1967. McCarthy had commissioned a script from a recent film school graduate, Francis Ford Coppola, but there were some problems with its narrative structure. (Coppola did, however, pen the film's famous opening speech with the American flag in the background.) To work out the problems, Wyler wanted James Webb, a World War II veteran who was familiar with Patton and had worked with the director on The Big Country. Webb's hiring, however, delayed production, for he could not begin script revisions until March. With no starting date in sight, Wyler was free to pursue another project in the meantime. So he accepted when Columbia asked him to replace Sidney Lumet as the director of the big-budget musical Funny Girl, which was to be Barbra Streisand's film debut.

  Funny Girl was originally intended to be a film, but it ended up being a film version of a successful Broadway show. The whole enterprise was the creation of Ray Stark, an agent turned producer who formed Seven Arts Productions with Eliot Hyman in 1957. Stark, who was married to Fanny Brice's daughter, wanted to produce a sanitized, laudatory film biography that would please the family. He had commissioned a screenplay from Ben Hecht as early as 1948, but that effort was deemed unsatisfactory by the family, as was a revision by Phoebe and Henry Ephron three years later. The project was eventually turned over to Isobel Lennart, who had written the screenplay for Love Me or Leave Me, based on the life of singer Ruth Etting. Her working titles for the screenplay were “Fanny” and then “My Man.” No studio showed any interest in the project, but when stage director Vincent Donehue read the script, he was convinced it would make a great stage drama. He contacted Mary Martin, who was then enjoying success on Broadway in The Sound of Music. She expressed interest, so plans got under way to turn the Fanny Brice story into a big-budget Broadway musical.

  It was Barbra Streisand, however, who eventually won the role of Fanny Brice. Mary Martin, citing problems with the book, withdrew early in the process. Stark's wife then wanted Anne Bancroft, while Jerome Robbins, hired to choreograph and direct, wanted Carol Burnett. Jule Styne, who composed the music, wanted a singer—not an actress who could get by as a singer. He had seen Streisand, who had a featured role in the musical I Can Get It for You Wholesale, starring her then-husband Elliott Gould and directed by Styne's collaborator on Gypsy, Arthur Laurents.11 Streisand eventually convinced everyone that she was perfect for the part of Fanny Brice. Her performance made Broadway history.

  When the show's Broadway run ended, Streisand was signed to reprise the role in London, and Ray Stark announced that she would make her film debut in Funny Girl. Columbia wanted to buy the film rights but balked at signing Streisand, whom the studio heads considered too Jewish, too unattractive, and too inexperienced to carry a film. They wanted Shirley MacLaine instead. Stark, however, was adamant. Streisand had signed a four-picture deal with him in 1965, guaranteeing her the movie version of Funny Girl for a salary of $250,000,
plus a small percentage of the box office. Stark ultimately convinced Columbia president Mike Frankovich to accept both the project and Streisand by agreeing to a modest budget for a musical: $8.5 million. When the Starks threw a party at their home to welcome Streisand to Hollywood in May 1967, she had already been signed to appear in two other highly anticipated big-budget musicals—Hello, Dolly! and On a Clear Day You Can See Forever—and she had not yet made a single film.

  After considering Gene Kelly (who would later direct Streisand in Hello, Dolly!) and George Roy Hill, Stark, at Streisand's request, decided to choose a director associated with dramas rather than musicals. Convinced that the weakest element of the stage production had been the development of the relationship between Fanny and Nicky Arnstein, he wanted a director who could effectively handle the personal drama at the heart of the story. In the summer of 1967, Stark announced that he had signed Sidney Lumet (Twelve Angry Men, Long Day's Journey into Night, The Pawnbroker) to direct his film. By January, however, Lumet was no longer associated with the project, which led to the hiring of Wyler.

  Stark had been interested in hiring Wyler to direct the film as early as the Broadway run. Like Streisand, he appreciated Wyler's flair for dramatic material and his ability to help actors bring nuance to their performances. Indeed, Streisand saw Funny Girl as essentially a dramatic film with musical numbers and was “thrilled when Wyler accepted.”12 Wyler, who at first turned the film down because he felt he was too hard of hearing to direct a musical, eventually accepted the assignment, largely because of Streisand's participation: “I wouldn't have made the picture without her. She's an interesting performer and represented a challenge for me because she's never been in films, and she's not the usual glamour girl.”13 Wyler was being a bit disingenuous here, since he had stipulated a number of conditions before agreeing to direct his first musical. He insisted that the film be billed as a “William Wyler–Ray Stark Production,” that his work be completed in time for him to shoot Patton, and that a first-rate choreographer be found to stage the musical numbers. To satisfy the last condition, Stark hired Herb Ross, who had staged the musical numbers for I Can Get It for You Wholesale and had choreographed the dance sequences for Dr. Doolittle.

  As late as the spring of 1967, no costar for Streisand had been found, and shooting was scheduled to begin in a few weeks. Some big names were bandied about to play Nicky Arnstein, including Sean Connery, Gregory Peck, and Tony Curtis. For a while, it seemed that David Janssen would play the role, but that deal fell through as well. Jule Styne wanted Frank Sinatra, who agreed to take the part only if he were paid $750,000 and received top billing; Stark said no.

  Wyler had seen Omar Sharif regularly at the Columbia cafeteria when Sharif was under contract to that studio, and he finally recommended the actor. Sharif was an established male lead (Doctor Zhivago), looked great in a tuxedo, and, like Arnstein, was an accomplished gambler and card player. He could even sing well enough. Stark was convinced to sign him when he learned that, under the terms of his studio contract, Sharif could be had for only $20,000.

  Funny Girl is not a great American musical. Its book, which narrates the simple story of Fanny Brice and her meteoric rise as a vaudeville star and the leading light of the Ziegfeld Follies, is not dramatically notable. Fanny suffers no setbacks on the road to the top—she even comments at one point that everything has come too easy. She is a hit in her first performance, “Roller Skate Rag,” even though she cannot skate, and almost immediately thereafter, she is starring in the Ziegfeld Follies. The second half of her story charts the disintegration of her marriage to gambler Nicky Arnstein. As her career continues to blossom, his life spirals out of control, culminating in his imprisonment for embezzling. The score produced two theater standards—“People” and “Don't Rain on My Parade”—but otherwise is not memorable. Indeed, Funny Girl's main claim to musical theater immortality is that it made Barbra Streisand a star; its status as a Streisand vehicle rather than a substantive work in its own right is confirmed by Stark's conception of the play as no more than a dry run for the film version.

  Nonetheless, despite the mediocre material, Funny Girl is a better film than the adapted versions of far superior Broadway musicals such as West Side Story, Guys and Dolls, South Pacific, Kiss Me, Kate, and Gypsy. Indeed, it is one of the best examples of musical adaptation to film in the history of the medium, and it is a testament both to Wyler's ability to present the story effectively and to the intelligent staging of the musical numbers (here, much of the credit goes to Herb Ross). By insisting that Streisand remain front and center, Stark also ensured that the Broadway show's major asset was in place for the film as well. In doing so, he rejected the prevailing wisdom that movie stars have to replace Broadway stars to make a successful film—even though Frank Sinatra and Marlon Brando had not saved Guys and Dolls, Rosalind Russell merely undercut Gypsy, and Lucille Ball was miscast in Mame. Streisand was the raison d’être for Funny Girl, and Wyler knew that going in.

  The dramatic arc of Funny Girl resembles that of Carrie: each charts the rise of a young, lower-class woman and the fall of a debonair, sophisticated man. Each film ends with a final meeting in a theater dressing room. In Carrie, Hurstwood, unemployed and sick, comes asking for a handout; in Funny Girl, Nick, just out of prison, wants a divorce. In each case, the heroine is successful but alone at the end.

  Funny Girl opens with a framing device—an enormous theater marquee on which Fanny Brice's name is prominently displayed above the show's title but below “Ziegfeld Follies.” As a woman in a leopard coat and hat walks into the camera's view, the lights go bright on the marquee, lighting the names of Fanny, Ziegfeld, and the show's title, “Glorifying the American Girl”—which could well serve as the film's subtitle. The opening is a stylized gesture, announcing that the film will be, in part, an homage to the vanished world of the theater. The well-dressed woman proceeds to walk through an alleyway toward the stage door, followed by the camera. At a certain point, the camera stops moving, and this woman is framed in a long shot by the walls on either side of the alley and a wooden staircase. This elaborate prologue announces that this film is about the theater, about Fanny Brice, and about the catastrophe of success. It is the first of many such compositions in which Wyler imprisons Fanny in the frame.

  The alley functions as an important backdrop throughout the film, along with stage doors and Wyler's signature staircases. Fanny continues to walk through the alleyway and is again framed between two brick walls before turning left into a space dominated by props, including a large mirror. As she looks into the mirror and says, “Hello, Gorgeous,” her smile is replaced by a glum look—she is not convinced by her own bravado. Next, she walks into a dark, empty theater, Wyler's camera emphasizing both its size and its emptiness. She begins to play “People,” the show's signature song, on the piano but then slams down sharply on the keys. At this point, Wyler cuts abruptly to a high-angle shot of the empty theater from above, dwarfing Fanny. As he cuts back to her, she is facing stage right, listening to imagined applause; then she pretends to machine-gun the imaginary audience. Wyler cuts to another high-angle view of the side of the theater, watching as Fanny takes a seat by herself and looks at the stage. After a brief exchange with her assistant, who tells her that Mr. Ziegfeld would like to see her at her convenience, Fanny says, “Did you hear that Mrs. Strakosh, Mr. Ziegfeld is waiting for me.” The camera moves in for a medium profile shot of Streisand's face, emphasizing her un-star-like nose, then moves forward and into the past as a young Fanny is again seen looking into a mirror.14

  This cinematic tour de force is Wyler's acknowledgment of the opening of Citizen Kane, as he utilizes spatial framing, expressive editing, close-ups, and mirrors to herald his story of an “American Girl” who is not gorgeous, who achieves great acclaim but does not win the love of the man she so desperately wants. If “people who need people” are “the luckiest people,” she is not one of them. In Sister Carrie, Dreiser concludes with a
n image of his heroine in a rocking chair, where she sits successful but alone and muses, “shall you dream such happiness as you may never feel.” Wyler did not use this image in his film version of that novel, but in Funny Girl, he has Fanny sitting alone in the theater thinking much the same thing.15

  Wyler's visual strategy throughout the first half of the film, which deals with Fanny's rise, is intended to emphasize her entrapment. When the plot flashes back to the past, Wyler repeats the frame within a frame—Fanny looking into the mirror—seen in the film's opening. He repeats another visual strategy from the opening when Fanny sings her first song, “I'm the Greatest Star,” to an empty theater. Midway through the number, Wyler again pulls his camera back, isolating Fanny in space.