The Barbra Streisand Collection - What's Up Doc / Up The Sandbox / Nuts / The Main Event (4 Disc Box Set) [DVD] [1972]

In What's Up, Doc?, director Peter Bogdanovich tipped his hat to the classic screwball comedies of the 1930s, and especially the most glorious of them all, Howard Hawks' Bringing Up Baby. Barbra Streisand plays a charming flake who distracts a self-absorbed musicologist (Ryan O'Neal). He's engaged to be married, but soon Streisand's character has him chasing after stolen jewellery and getting into one madcap fix after another. --Tom Keogh

Up the Sandbox springs from the early 1970s, when Streisand's career was in full stride. She stars as Margaret, a stay-at-home mum in the middle of New York who's feeling the strain of her narrow life. Frustrated by her self-involved husband and the mentally unstimulating tasks of motherhood, she escapes into fantasies--such as being chatted up by a cross-gendered Fidel Castro, bombing the Statue of Liberty with black militants and having a furious catfight with her overbearing mother. The movie's strength lies in these fantasies' slippery nature; some are over the top, but others are so subtle you're not always sure where they start and stop, making the portrait of Margaret's psyche intriguingly complex. --Bret Fetzer

The Main Event is a comedic misfire from the mid-1970s, a futile attempt to bottle the same lightning that struck when Streisand teamed with Ryan O'Neal in What's Up, Doc? Here, Streisand plays a spoiled rich girl, the head of a bankrupt cosmetics company, who discovers she's lost everything--except her ownership of the contract of a washed-up boxer (O'Neal). So she tries to rally this dispirited pug into a comeback that will earn the kinds of purses that will put her back on her feet. Naturally, in the process, romantic sparks are kindled. But despite a loud and energetic performance by Streisand, the comedy doesn't add up to much. --Marshall Fine

In Nuts Streisand is a mad high-priced "escort" accused of murder, but whether she's mad as hell or mad as a hatter is the question in this courtroom drama, adapted from the play by Tom Topor. While her doting, wilfully uncomprehending mother (Maureen Stapleton) and stepdad with a secret (Karl Malden) try to have her judged incompetent and sent to an asylum, she fights for her day in court with the help of a hapless legal aid attorney (a refreshingly understated Richard Dreyfuss). James Whitmore presides over the hearing with a compassion and sense of justice that gives one faith in the system, and la Streisand (who developed and produced the project) sinks her teeth into the tempestuous role like a starving actress. The plot holds few surprises, but the drama lies in the characters; veteran director Martin Ritt brings out the best in a top-flight cast. --Sean Axmaker

Special Features
English
Region 2


See all Reviews

• DVD & Blu-ray > Comedy
• DVD & Blu-ray > Drama > Comedy
• DVD & Blu-ray > Sports

• Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?