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hyped garbage

Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

There is so much to like and dislike about this movie. It opens and closes with "Babs" singing and a colorful hypnotic "infinity" title sequence similar to the one used on TV's "Night Gallery". She goes to college Prof. Cabot to be hypnotized into quitting smoking. She "regresses" to past lives under hypnosis. Her past lives are fascinating and Daisy Gamble, in present day, is a chain-smoking 22-year-old with an inferiority complex. Her modern day outfits range from cute to ridiculous, with that big white "baby-doll" hat. Yves Montand should have taken better diction lessons, as his broad "French" accent is annoying at times and unintentionally funny. His singing is OK and much smoother, as he "croons" his songs and it is pleasant enough. Several great and haunting songs and her first song (after the titles), "Love with all the Trimmings", deserves a PG rating as she is quite provocative with a plunging neckline. The other well-known songs are cleverly humorous or ironic. Besides the title song "Clear Day...", "What Have I Got I don't have Now?" is so good that it was a break-out "single" for Eydie Gorme. "Come Back to Me" is extremely clever and shot "on-location" all over NYC. Jack Nicholson plays "Tad", her second love interest. His part was shortened and his song was cut. Her fiancé "Warren" is a total bore. Bob Newhart, as the college president performs his role as a "stand-up routine" and it isn't all that funny. Like many musicals, it only seems to come-to-life during the production and song numbers, which are beautifully filmed at an English palace with "Oscar-worthy" set decoration and period costumes. Look for it on cable, Netflix, or Amazon Prime. At the moment, it's not available on disc except for a few $50+ overpriced rare copies.

Vincente Minnelli's direction is as impressing as the performances of Barbra Streisand and Yves Montand - everything is perfect, and especially the script by Alan Jay Lerner, the man behind all the greatest American musicals through three decades, like "My Fair Lady", "Gigi", "Camelot", "Paint Your Wagon" and so on. Even the music is outstanding, by the uncredited Nelson Riddle, enhanced by Barbra Streisand's fantastic musicality, and Yves Montand sings as well. In brief, many ingredients of superior quality make this film far ahead of its time, importantly spiced by Streisand's very personal and irresistible humour - and even a bit of Jack Nicholson. There is almost any number of unforgettable highlights - the roulette scene is just a small hint - in something that almost amounts to the reincarnation revolution as a hilarious social satire.

When Broadway and Hollywood's "Funny Girl" takes on a character who seems to have more lives than Disney's "Thomasina", you know she's going to not only sing out a storm but wear some delightfully lavish costumes, both period and modern. Ms. Streisand didn't just get another big vehicle to show off her enormous talents, but a legendary director who knew a thing or two about movie detail: Vincent Minnelli. Having just completed work with Minnelli's old MGM pal Gene Kelly on "Hello, Dolly!", Barbra added, for her third movie, another movie version of a Broadway musical to her film credit, and if "On a Clear Day" wasn't the smash of the first two on stage, it was certainly a vehicle worthy of her talents."Climb up, geraniums!", she sings gregariously as she dances her way through a flower garden. Is this a music video, movie musical or nature show?, you may wonder as the film begins, but after hearing her voice initially, you wait for the big star entrance, and boy, is she given one. She's on her way to Columbia University to see psychiatrist Yves Montand in an effort to stop smoking, and with their meeting, more is revealed than meets the Marlbrough. Take us back to Charles Dickens era England where we discover one of Streisand's previous lives: She's a female Oliver Twist, brought up in an work house (even seen eating gruel) yet ends up the wife of a wealthy aristocrat clad in a gorgeous beaded and hooded gown which looks like something out of "Metropolis". "Love With All the Trimmings!", she sings over the action as her manicured goddess makes her lust towards a handsome visitor obvious to everybody but the cuckolded husband.Back in 1970 Manhattan, Streisand and psychiatrist Montand have instant rapport, even though Montand is more interested in Streisand's past lives than helping her quit smoking. This leads to the amusing revelation of his true intentions, and Montand is faced with possibly losing his greatest psychiatric discovery once Streisand learns the truth. "Come Back to Me!", he sings from his office window, and this, combined with the fact that she has gained E.S.P. from her meetings with him, makes her unable to sleep. One of the people she encounters during this song is the adorable Judith Lowry ("Phyllis's" Mother Dexter) who must mouth Montand's words to her while Streisand desperately tries to get Montand's voice out of her head.There's plenty of comedy here, but the romantic chemistry between Streisand and Montand is nill. For the most part, he's a handsome but dull partner, giving the impression that perhaps somebody like Louis Jourdan would have been better in this role. Other cast members are wasted, and they include a young Jack Nicholson and a pre-TV Bob Newhart. Amusing with her few scenes is "Bewitched's" Mabel Albertson as Montand's secretary, quite ironic considering her larger part in Streisand's comic masterpiece "What's Up, Doc?".While not perfect, and certainly nowhere near faithful to the original Broadway play (it is certainly a lot better than a recent Broadway revisal), this is at its best when Streisand is either singing, clowning, or clad in outrageous outfits. Minnelli shows he still has a flair for great detail, and even with this not being the smash he had hoped it would be (or the unfortunate misfire of his badly edited "A Matter of Time"), he shows that the magic of his triumphant MGM years had not wained.

I'm not a big Barbra Streisand fan. I've seen a couple of her films and I never liked them, so when I watched ON A CLEAR DAY YOU CAN SEE FOREVER, my expectations were low. After seeing ON A CLEAR DAY, I'm still not a Streisand fan but I have to say that it's the first time I enjoyed one of her films. It's not altogether successful and some of Streisand's usual shtick was annoying from time to time.The main problem with ON A CLEAR DAY was the structure of the story. It's very uneven and because there are several different timelines, one taking place in the present, and two or three during the past, plus the myriad of songs sung by Streisand and the great Yves Montand, sometimes in different styles, the whole thing just didn't jibe. To make matters worse, the movie is filled with an endless number of incongruous ideas and themes, many of them borrowed from other musicals of the 1960s (MY FAIR LADY, CAMELOT, OLIVER, etc), or original to this musical but still conflicting with each other, like ESP, reincarnation, hypnotism, regression, multiple personalities, making plants grow faster, blackmail, court cases, death penalty, Streisand's square boyfriend, smoking, etc, none which are fully explored and with everything ending up muddled for nothing.There are even more problems with ON A CLEAR DAY. The story is never clear over what we're supposed to feel for Streisand and Montand. Are they supposed to fall in love? Were they supposed to be lovers or were they always supposed to remain platonic because of the doctor - patient relationship? Does Montand only love Melinda? Where were they going with all the conflicts between the two? The resolution of their relationship is not satisfactory at all.Then there's the whole tedious part when Montand is in trouble with the university and he might lose his job. This plot point served no purpose at all and should have been left on the cutting room's floor. And the film is painfully dated during the contemporary scenes. There was just too much going on. Like DARLING LILI, another ill-fated musical released in 1970, ON A CLEAR DAY suffers from a clear case of multiple personalities. Unlike LILI, this Streisand musical is not a disaster. It's just that the story and direction were all over the place. There was no focus and if there was a story that needed focus, it's this one. With better direction, and without the dated set-up in the contemporary scenes, this film could have been amazing. There are still nuggets of greatest to be found here and there amidst the beautiful mess. My favorite scene is the one when we hear Streisand singing "Love With All The Trimmings" while Babs, as Melinda Tentrees, flirts with the ridiculously handsome John Richardson. It's so over-the-top in it's depiction of romance novel lushness that the only thing you can do is admire this bit of nonsense. In fact, if you don't think too much about ON A CLEAR DAY and follow it for what it is, the movie is pure escapism. You're sorta whisked away into an adventure that takes place in the mind. I just wished it knew what it wanted to be and that Streisand wasn't wearing those dated & scary 1960s clothes.