mike48128 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.

funkyfry In some ways I felt like I enjoyed this movie in spite of myself, or itself. Equally drawn to the film by my admiration of the director Vincente Minnelli and repulsed by its leading lady Barbara Streisand, I find that in the end neither artist contributed his/her best or worst work, and that the whole package itself is mostly lacking in the necessary charm. Yves Montand presents far more problems than Miss Streisand, and Minnelli trips over his own staging to try to make the modern sequences all too modern and the historical sequences all too romantic.Streisand plays Daisy Gamble (a name only a musical comedy doyenne could possibly be saddled with), a young would-be wife who comes to a college psychologist (Montand) in hopes that he can use hypnotism to cure her excessive smoking habit. Instead, the good professor uncovers a whole past life involving a seductress called Melinda, a persona whom the professor promptly and unconvincingly falls in love with.At first it seems refreshing to have Minnelli directing this movie, with his gloriously excessive bouquets conjured up to bring some portion of artificial magic to Daisy's wistful rooftop escape. His style quickly becomes overbearing, especially since he seems to have little taste or comfort with the modern settings and styles he's using. His use of the zoom lens, the only time I can remember him using it, is garish and obvious. An ascending helicopter shot of Montand warbling atop the Pan Am building only manages to distance us from any possible emotion that could be squeezed from his continental charmer. Only in the historical sequences with their incredibly elaborate costuming and real location shots of the Brighton pavilion, does Minnelli momentarily come alive, to live again in the romantic past for one more brief moment.Montand is the glaring problem with the film. His character is completely unappealing and the way he plays him makes it much worse. The more we see of him, the less we appreciate him or can understand why Gamble is becoming infatuated with him. Likewise it's hard to see why Montand is becoming fascinated with the past life Streisand. His whole scheme is very underhanded, since he hasn't told Gamble that he's been recording all her sessions or that he's investigating a past life at all. His motives are supposed to be cleared up thanks to a series of distracting conferences with a professorial colleague oddly played by tough-guy character actor Simon Oakland.When the "good professor" becomes desperate to get Gamble back on his couch and begins sending her psychic messages to "Come Back to Me", the result is less romantic than stalking. Psychic stalking -- it's something that belongs more in a Phillip Dick nightmare sci-fi story than a musical comedy. It's hard to not get a really bad taste in your mouth, especially since the film-makers have already provided a suitably obvious and suitably compatible well, uh, suitor in the person of Daisy's ex-brother-in-law played by Jack Nicholson. We first see Jacko on the roof brazenly strumming his sitar, as if he walked out of the J.C. Penney catalog of hippies. Made-to-order hippy Jack Nicholson apparently got a solo but it was cut when a decision was made not to roadshow this film. Thus even the film's relatively satisfying conclusion seems to be drawn in abstract lines, thanks to Minnelli's liberal style of shooting and the subsequent edits that cripple the film's continuity.As for Miss Streisand herself, she does her best to play the character in a rather sophisticated way but is often undone by her own energy. I didn't feel that she carried off the multiple characters particularly well, and in her solo numbers she heaves and bellows through without any hint of real human vulnerability. She has some good moments as Daisy, but in the Melinda personality she's outclassed by her own headgear.The film itself doesn't really ever rise to the level of its ambition. What should be a fun evening of musical comedy becomes a mere distraction. The story and its characters never really become anything human or convincing. A stifling aura of artfulness prevents the film from taking off -- it's as if all the performers and the director are standing a few feet away from the film they're making. Montand barely seems to know what movie he's in. Lerner and Lane's songs are ponderous and barely memorable. The story itself seems to revisit Lerner's past artistic life, with its Henry Higginsesque professor remonstrating himself and mistreating his naive leading lady in a way that strangely manages to evoke absolutely none of the charm that lifted his Fair Lady above the fray. The film is saved from outright artistic failure thanks to a few imaginative sequences staged by Minnelli, Nicholson's goofy and fun cameo, and a few moments of inspired clowning by Streisand.

rzajac Just saw it, and I loved it! What struck me was the beauty of the writing; truly intelligent and exciting dialog, solidly worldly and then suddenly transcendent. There was this one moment near the end where Montand is giving Daisy his impassioned pep talk, leading to a capstone pronouncement. He pauses.... And I knew exactly what he was going to say before he said it; and not because it was melodramatically predictable, but rather because it was magnificently true.My only qualification is a "drat it" regret that not all the songs were great. Half were well crafted, and the other half are poor-to-middling, with one having truly cringe-inducing lyrics. That's too bad; dropped the ball there. But the blockbuster songs are excellent. I'd always wanted to hear more Montand, and there he was giving the songs the timing and smooth delivery one expects from a great entertainer.I can see why some folks think of this as a lesser period piece. But, like I said, I feel the writing lifts this out of the period and invites us to listen and watch with everything we have. And isn't that what art is supposed to do? Watch it.

Neil Doyle There are times in ON A CLEAR DAY YOU CAN SEE FOREVER where you know Vincente Minnelli had a firm hand on the proceedings and there are moments when BARBRA STREISAND does an outstanding job on the vocals. But there are just as many dull spots in the long-winded musical that is stronger when it's showing flashbacks to Victorian England than it is in getting us involved in the modern day story.Once again, Babs has the spotlight while the men around her are insufficiently used--men like YVES MONTAND (did he ever find a good role in an American film?), JACK NICHOLSON and JOHN RICHARDSON. She's adept at playing a girl who undergoes psychosis and reveals to her doctor (Montand) that she has another veddy British lady, Melinda, inside her, who has much more class than her modern personality. Naturally, the doctor falls in love with her other persona.The Broadway musical by Alan J. Lerner was never an overwhelming success and the movie fails to maintain steam once the basic plot is set in motion. It's a lush looking affair, especially the Victorian scenes with Streisand in some stunning Cecil Beaton outfits, but the overall effect is one of emptiness at the heart of the story.Summing up: No doubt Streisand's fans will probably welcome it with open arms as it does showcase her own brand of talent.