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"You're a funny girl, Fannie." No, that's not a line from some old Barbra Streisand musical. It comes from a little-known 1930 talkie named Be Yourself! [Kino]. Said line was spoken by the leading man, a prizefighter, to none other than Fannie Brice (playing a nightclub singer called Fannie Field). She was a funny girl, no doubt; but Barbra Streisand (of Funny Girl) is as close to Fannie Brice as, say, Julia Roberts is to Martha Raye.

Think about it; cast Ms. Roberts in "The Martha Raye Story," and within a few years the vast majority of filmgoers would assume that Ms. Raye did, indeed, look and act kinda like Julia. (This might be a slight exaggeration, but then again it might not be.) But I digress.

The subject at hand is "Be Yourself!," which has been rescued from the land where negligible talkies go by Kino. This is not a great film by any stretch of the imagination, nor a good one for that matter. Even so, it provides us with one of our few celluloid glimpses of the great Fannie. Dramaturgy aside, we get a fairly complete picture of what was apparently her performing style — lots of smirks, and more rolling eyes than Eddie Cantor — and not two but five musical numbers that demonstrate her specialties. Or at least try to demonstrate her specialties, as the songs — written by the star's then-new, overly ambitious husband — are NSG. (That's an old phrase from vaudeville days, I think, which means not-so-good.)

But the songs nevertheless give us the opportunity to watch Brice doing what she did so successfully on the stage during the first third of the last century. The ballet dancer act — patterned, apparently, upon an Irving Berlin number she performed in the Music Box Revue of 1924 (in which she sang "I Want to Be a Ballet Dancer," pronounced "belly dancer") — comes across both best and worst. Worst, in that the song is mirthlessly unfunny. Performed in the context of a nightclub packed with patrons, there is not a laugh from the house, which might be what kills the number. (One supposes that in those days of early sound, the equipment couldn't pick up the singer, the orchestra and the audience.) If the number lies there, Brice does a wonderful job in her swan costume. The star was approaching 40 at the time, but that bathing cap on her ears makes the years roll away. This is most probably the type of clowning that made her famous, although few remain who actually saw her on Broadway.

The film itself tells of a nightclub singer — apparently a successful one — who falls for a prizefighter. (He is played by Robert Armstrong, who four years later would star opposite a gorilla in "King Kong"). This guy tends to lie down on the job, so Fannie and her lawyer/brother become his managers. If Fannie comports herself in an overly ethnic manner, Harry Green — as the brother — is almost offensive in his ministrations. The prizefighter becomes a champ, leaving Fannie for a golddigging chorus girl in the process. Fannie fixes this by arranging for her beau to lose a championship battle. His surgically straightened nose is broken once more, which brings him back to his Fannie. Simple enough.

Not much of a movie, this "Be Yourself!," but here is the authentic funny girl. A far cry from Barbra's rendition of Fannie. (Or Fanny, as they spelled it in the Streisand musical. Brice herself once said that she was billed Fannie on stage and screen but signed her checks Fanny. Her daughter Frances, wife of the producer Funny Girl, presumably made the call.) At any rate, "Be Yourself!" is highly interesting, and a must for anyone who wants to see the real Fannie Brice. Continued...