Be Yourself!

I think this might be the first film I've ever seen with Fanny Brice and though it's perfectly watchable, it's really only designed to be a showcase for her engaging talents. She's successful entertainer "Fannie" (keep it simple) who has two potential suitors at her nightclub. One night tempers flare and some fisticuffs ensue between "Jerry" (Robert Armstrong) and the more substantial "Mac" (G. Pat Collins). The former comes off the worst but manages to further endear himself to the singer who decides that she is going to become his boxing trainer. He is keen, enthusiastic and successful - even if he does care for the odd nap mid fight, but as he starts to make the money he starts to attract the gals and their relationship starts to become just a little strained. There's a lovely scene towards the end with them having the daftest spat together with his new affianced "Lillian" (Gertrude Astor) that you know can only go one way and Harry Green chips in nicely as her somewhat dodgy lawyer brother "Harry". It is, though, really just an excuse for Brice to rattle her vocal chords and there are a couple of decent Billy Rose numbers to help her along too. It's a film that's part of the fabric of cinema history and as such, is worth a watch. Anything else? Well, no - not really.

Just watched this Fanny Brice movie on YouTube. While she's better known as a comedienne who portrayed Baby Snooks on the radio, she was also a fine singer whose first husband Billy Rose wrote many of her standards during this time. This picture showcases many of those songs to good effect and also provides some of her sense of humor but most of the plot is more of a melodrama about her romance with a boxer played by Robert Armstrong who then falls for a gold-digger played by Gertrude Astor after winning lots of bouts. So there's not much time for the comedy sense Ms. Brice is known for and that was a disappointment for me. At least the film is only little more than an hour's length. So on that note, Be Yourself! is at the least worth a look once. P.S. If you're a film buff, you probably know the Robert Armstrong here is the same one that would eventually portray Carl Denham in the original King Kong.

"Be Yourself!" is only one of a handful of films made by Fanny Brice. Despite being a bit of a sensation for the Ziegfeld Follies, she never hit it off in movies. And, as an astute reviewer already pointed out, the Fanny Brice we all are familiar with is really Barbra Streisand PLAYING Fanny. Here, you get a rare chance to actually see her as she really was in films. Sadly, what I saw was NOT good at all. Fanny's Jewish ethnic humor is off-putting today, though it might have played better back in 1930. The same can be said DOUBLE for that of Harry Green as her brother. His routine is completely one-dimensional and dumb. And, THE joke was that he was a shyster Jewish lawyer--a nasty stereotype that, again, played well back then but which is painful to watch today.

When it comes to plot, it's pretty limp. Robert Armstrong is a nasty guy who loves to punch people, so Brice and her on-screen brother decide to become his boxing managers! Despite knowing nothing, the guy inexplicably wins---and none of this makes any sense. On top of the plot, there are some songs (not good ones) and some very ethnic humor which falls flat. Frankly, there's just not much to like about this film--it's terribly written, dull and the humor is so incredibly awful. Not worth your time--even if you want to catch a glimpse of Fanny.

After seeing this film, I think I understood why Brice did few films. She just wasn't enjoyable in the least and you wonder what Ziegfeld and the audiences of the 1920s saw in her. Painful and awful.

Fanny Brice is one of those old-time performers who remains well-known only indirectly, through an impersonator: nowadays, most people who think they're familiar with Fanny Brice's style as a performer are actually recalling Barbra Streisand in 'Funny Girl' and 'Funny Lady'. (A similar problem exists with George M. Cohan, whom most people know only through James Cagney.) Personally, I've never understood the appeal of Fanny Brice, and I suspect that most of the people who claim to be Brice fans are really thinking of Streisand's two movies, which do NOT depict Brice's life or her personality with any accuracy. If you want to see a movie which tells the true story of Fanny Brice's life, watch Alice Faye in 'Rose of Washington Square' ... a movie which is so accurate in its depiction of Brice's romance with Nick Arnstein, the characters' names had to be changed to prevent Brice from suing.

Fanny Brice made very few films; late in her career, she starred in a popular radio sitcom as Baby Snooks, a bratty little girl. When performing this role, Brice would actually dress up in costume as a small girl, thus creating the misperception (which I still encounter) that radio actors often dressed up as the characters they played, for the benefit of the studio audiences. Brice was the only radio actor who did this. (Although a few other radio actors occasionally wore costumes for publicity photos.)

'Be Yourself!' is a poor film, although the underrated director Thornton Freeland does his job well with weak material. Part of the problem is that this movie is almost but not quite a musical: Fanny sings a couple of numbers, but they're spaced very thinly through the movie, so the transitions are jarring. And the movie isn't really a comedy either; Fanny makes a few wisecracks, but this film is basically a character study (of the male lead, not Fanny Brice's role). Although Brice gets top billing, the plot of the movie is really about the washed-up boxer played by Robert Armstrong. The make-up man has equipped Armstrong with a severely flattened nose, which looks quite realistic and is appropriate for his character ... but it also looks very distressing. Every time Fanny Brice looked at Armstrong, I expected her to sing "Second-Hand Nose".

This movie suffers from the presence of Harry Green, an actor who portrayed Jewish stereotypes in much the same way that Stepin Fetchit played Negro stereotypes. Harry Green's "Yiddisher" schtick grew so annoying that he eventually became unemployable in Hollywood, and he landed up in England ... giving exaggerated portrayals of pushy American Jews for British audiences who had no frame of reference for these characterisations.

Some parts of 'Be Yourself!' are so weird, I can't even guess if they're intentionally strange or merely inept. When Robert Armstrong's Irish-American boxer first becomes attracted to Fanny Brice's character (named Fanny Field, but clearly meant to be Jewish), he moves in with her. A few minutes later, Fanny Brice is screeching her way through a ditty: "My baby wants bacon, so that's what I'm makin', and I'm cookin' breakfast for the one I love." Nobody connected with this movie, including Brice herself, seems to find any irony whatever in the idea of a Jewish woman cooking bacon (which she just happens to have handy). I can't even tell if the irony is intentional: maybe the lyricist just needed a rhyme for "makin'".

At one point in this movie, Armstrong calls Fanny Brice 'a funny girl', which in post-Streisand hindsight looks like a deeply significant line, but wasn't meant to be.

I'll rate "Be Yourself!" precisely one point out of 10. Fanny Brice really didn't have the right sort of talent for movies.

BE YOURSELF! (United Artists, 1930), directed by Thornton Freeland, stars Fanny Brice, popular comedienne from burlesque to Ziegfeld Follies to popular radio character of "Baby Snooks," in one of her very rare motion pictures in which she starred. As much as Brice, with her odd facial structure, would be somewhat hard to cast, here she plays a self-sacrificing nightclub entertainer with a soft spot for a hapless prizefighter. Billed in the credits as Fannie, BE YOURSELF!, somewhat mistitled, offers the original "funny girl" herself a chance to be both funny in her manner and sentimental through her feelings. With little evidence to the popularity she gained on stage, this is one opportunity getting to see the one-and-only Fanny Brice on the motion picture screen.

The story opens with prizefighter, Jerry Moore (Robert Armstrong) losing to McGloskey (G. Pat Collins) in the boxing ring. Next scene finds both boxers, seated in separate tables, being entertained by nightclub singer, Fannie Field (Fannie Brice), who very much favors Jerry. Because of his reputation as a boozing fighter who loses his matches, Fannie feels Jerry has potential to become a heavyweight boxing champion. She has her lawyer brother, Harry Field (Harry Green), to give up his practice by acting as his manager. Fannie invests her own money is $200 in fees and $1500 for Jerry's training, but shows no improvement in his boxing style. In time and with the proper training, Jerry wins six successful victories. All goes well until Fannie's showgirl rival, Lillian Wilson (Gertrude Astor), changes her affections from McCloskey to Jerry, even to a point of having his nose fixed and engagement to be married, causing Fannie to feel miserable and betrayed, until she comes up with an idea. Also in the cast are Buddy Fine ("Step"), and Rita Flynn (Jessica).

Fanny Brice, who made her movie debut in a part-talking musical titled by her signature song, MY MAN (Warner Brothers, 1928), currently unavailable for viewing, makes BE YOURSELF! The earliest filmed document to the Brice legend available today. With her acting style a mix between that of comediennes Winnie Lightner and Mae West, Brice does what she can with the material documented. Though she handles both comedy and sentiment convincingly, BE YOURSELF makes one wish this were a solid screwball comedy showcasing Brice's comedic talents. Though the story is rather ordinary, it's highlighted by some good song and dance interludes, including "When a Woman Loves a Man" (sung by Fanny Brice, Gertrude Astor, Marjorie Kane, and chorus); "Cooking Breakfast for the One I Love" "Stasha the Passion of the Pasha" (both sung by Fanny Brice) "Cooking Breakfast for the One I Love" (reprise by boy singer, Jimmy Jolson, dressed in bellhop uniform); "Kicking a Hole in the Sky" (a Satan number with lyrics of "Lovely ladies down in Hades," performed by Brice and others); "It's Better to Be Grateful" and "When a Woman Loves a Man." Of the lively tunes, only the final rendition of "When a Woman Loves a Man" is sentimentally sung with feeling by Brice in the "My Man" mode, but not quite as legendary.

One of the many musicals produced during the 1929-30 era, BE YOURSELF is one of those rare treats that would be of interest today due to the presence of Fanny Brice, or an early look of Robert Armstrong, three years before his iconic adventure film, KING KONG (RKO Radio, 1933) opposite Fay Wray. Harry Green's acting style, which could be annoying at times, is better structured this time around. Though this 65 minute edition of BE YOURSELF might be a shorter reissue edition to a longer original theatrical showing, this is what's circulating today. Briefly distributed on video cassette and DVD through KINO Home Video, BE YOURSELF did broadcast years ago on cable television's American Movie Classics (1997-2000) during the early morning hours. For what it's worth, BE YOURSELF entertains due to Brice's "be yourself" personality along with well-staged production numbers to help move it along. (***)