On a Clear Day You Can See Forever (film)
Encyclopedia
On a Clear Day You Can See Forever is a 1970
American
musical
/romantic fantasy
film
directed by Vincente Minnelli
. The screenplay
by Alan Jay Lerner
is adapted from his book
for the 1965 stage production of the same name
. The songs feature lyrics by Lerner and music by Burton Lane
.
and clairvoyant
Daisy Gamble attends a class taught by psychiatrist
Marc Chabot for help in kicking her habit. While undergoing hypnosis
, it is discovered she is the reincarnation
of Lady Melinda Winifred Waine Tentrees, a seductive 19th century coquette who was born the illegitimate daughter of a kitchen maid. She acquired the paternity records of the children housed in the orphanage
where her mother worked and used the information to blackmail their wealthy fathers. She eventually married nobleman
Robert Tentrees during the period of the English Regency
, then was tried for espionage
and treason
after he abandoned her.
As their sessions progress, complications arise when Chabot begins to fall in love with Daisy's exotic former self and Daisy begins to fall for him, and his university colleagues demand he either give up his reincarnation research or resign his position with the school. While waiting for Chabot in his office, Daisy accidentally hears a tape recording of one of her sessions; and when she discovers Chabot's interest is limited to Melinda, she storms out of the office. When she finally returns for a final meeting with him, she describes fourteen additional lives, including her forthcoming birth as Laura and subsequent marriage to the therapist in the year 2038.
n Mark Bruckner. The period of Melinda's life was shifted ahead by a decade or two, her family background is different, and the cause of her death was changed from drowning at sea to unjust execution. In the stage play, the question of whether Daisy really was a reincarnation of Melinda went unresolved, but the film script made it clear she was. The character of Daisy's stepbrother Tad Pringle was added, although most of his scenes and his song "Who Is There Among Us Who Knows?" ended up on the cutting room floor
. Additionally, the future of Daisy and Marc's relationship was altered, and several ensemble musical numbers were excluded from the film.
New York City
locations include Central Park
, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts
, the Pan Am Building
, the Upper West Side
, and Lexington
and Park Avenue
s. Scenes set in the UK were filmed at the Royal Pavilion
in Brighton
, Kemp Town
, and East Sussex
.
Nelson Riddle
served as the film's music supervisor, arranger
, and conductor
.
Cecil Beaton
designed the period costumes. It proved to be his final project.
Paramount Pictures
originally intended the film to be a nearly three-hour-long roadshow theatrical release
, but executives ultimately had Vincente Minnelli cut nearly an hour from the running time . Along with Tad's song, the deleted material included "Wait Till We're Sixty-Five," a duet between Daisy and Warren, and "She Isn't You," Marc's response to Daisy's "He Isn't You."
in the 1965 Broadway musical
. Harris, who had only appeared in two films at this point, was not considered a big enough star to carry the film and so Barbra Streisand
was cast instead. Harris would eventually become a popular and acclaimed film star of the 1970s shortly after.
; one of a limited number of films to be rated as high.
In his review in the New York Times, Vincent Canby
called it "a movie of fits and starts" and added, "because the fits are occasionally so lovely, and the starts somewhat more frequent than Fifth Avenue
bus
es, I was eventually hypnotized into a state of benign though not-quite-abject permissiveness . . . The movie is quite ordinary and Broadway
-bland in most of its contemporary sequences. Miss Streisand, as a 22-year-old New Yorker whose Yiddish intonations are so thick they sound like a speech defect, defines innocence by sitting with her knees knocked together and her feet spread far apart, a mannerism she may have picked up from Mary Pickford
. Minnelli's camera also is hard-pressed to find interesting things to look at in the humdrum settings . . . and a lot of the time it just records exits and entrances, as if it all were taking place on a stage. However, the movie, Minnelli and Miss Streisand burst into life in the regression sequences, filmed at the Royal Pavilion at Brighton. Minnelli's love of décor transforms the movie into very real fantasy, and the star into a stunning looking and funny character who mouths her arch, pseudo-Terence Rattigan
lines as if she were parodying Margaret Leighton. She is so fine, in fact, that if I didn't know she was not terribly good at lip-sync
, I would suspect someone else was reading her."
TV Guide
rates the film 2½ out of a possible four stars and comments, "[It] boasts great sets and costumes, but its script leaves much to be desired, and even the usually reliable Vincente Minnelli is unable to inject much life into the proceedings."
Time Out London says, "Minnelli is able to decorate his material with beguiling visual conceits - the opening time-lapse photography, the colour contrasts between past and present. But he can do nothing to combat the script's length and shallowness, and there are some thumb-twiddling moments in between Burton Lane's delightful songs. The two star performers make an odd team, with their varying kinds of professionalism and vowel sounds."
1970 in film
The year 1970 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* January 9 - Larry Fine, the second member of The Three Stooges, suffers a massive stroke, therefore ending his career....
American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
musical
Musical film
The musical film is a film genre in which songs sung by the characters are interwoven into the narrative, sometimes accompanied by dancing. The songs usually advance the plot or develop the film's characters, though in some cases they serve merely as breaks in the storyline, often as elaborate...
/romantic fantasy
Romantic fantasy
Romantic fantasy is a subgenre of fantasy fiction, describing a fantasy story using many of the elements and conventions of the romance genre.One of the key features of romantic fantasy involves the focus on relationships, social, political, and romantic...
film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
directed by Vincente Minnelli
Vincente Minnelli
Vincente Minnelli was an American stage director and film director, famous for directing such classic movie musicals as Meet Me in St. Louis, The Band Wagon, and An American in Paris. In addition to having directed some of the most famous and well-remembered musicals of his time, Minnelli made...
. The screenplay
Screenplay
A screenplay or script is a written work that is made especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated...
by Alan Jay Lerner
Alan Jay Lerner
Alan Jay Lerner was an American lyricist and librettist. In collaboration with Frederick Loewe, he created some of the world's most popular and enduring works of musical theatre for both the stage and on film...
is adapted from his book
Libretto
A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata, or musical. The term "libretto" is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as mass, requiem, and sacred cantata, or even the story line of a...
for the 1965 stage production of the same name
On a Clear Day You Can See Forever
On a Clear Day You Can See Forever is a musical with music by Burton Lane and a book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner based loosely on Berkeley Square, written in 1929 by John L. Balderston. It concerns a woman who has ESP and has been reincarnated...
. The songs feature lyrics by Lerner and music by Burton Lane
Burton Lane
Burton Lane was an American composer and lyricist. His most popular and successful work is the musical Finian's Rainbow, "the score for which Lane will always be most remembered."-Biography:...
.
Plot
At the behest of her ultra-conservative fiance Warren, scatter-brained five-pack-a-day chain smokerChain smoking
Chain smoking is the practice of lighting a new cigarette for personal consumption immediately after one that is finished, sometimes using the finished cigarette to light the next one. It is a common form of addiction.-Causes:...
and clairvoyant
Clairvoyance
The term clairvoyance is used to refer to the ability to gain information about an object, person, location or physical event through means other than the known human senses, a form of extra-sensory perception...
Daisy Gamble attends a class taught by psychiatrist
Psychiatry
Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the study and treatment of mental disorders. These mental disorders include various affective, behavioural, cognitive and perceptual abnormalities...
Marc Chabot for help in kicking her habit. While undergoing hypnosis
Hypnosis
Hypnosis is "a trance state characterized by extreme suggestibility, relaxation and heightened imagination."It is a mental state or imaginative role-enactment . It is usually induced by a procedure known as a hypnotic induction, which is commonly composed of a long series of preliminary...
, it is discovered she is the reincarnation
Reincarnation
Reincarnation best describes the concept where the soul or spirit, after the death of the body, is believed to return to live in a new human body, or, in some traditions, either as a human being, animal or plant...
of Lady Melinda Winifred Waine Tentrees, a seductive 19th century coquette who was born the illegitimate daughter of a kitchen maid. She acquired the paternity records of the children housed in the orphanage
Orphanage
An orphanage is a residential institution devoted to the care of orphans – children whose parents are deceased or otherwise unable or unwilling to care for them...
where her mother worked and used the information to blackmail their wealthy fathers. She eventually married nobleman
Nobility
Nobility is a social class which possesses more acknowledged privileges or eminence than members of most other classes in a society, membership therein typically being hereditary. The privileges associated with nobility may constitute substantial advantages over or relative to non-nobles, or may be...
Robert Tentrees during the period of the English Regency
English Regency
The Regency era in the United Kingdom is the period between 1811—when King George III was deemed unfit to rule and his son, the Prince of Wales, ruled as his proxy as Prince Regent—and 1820, when the Prince Regent became George IV on the death of his father....
, then was tried for espionage
Espionage
Espionage or spying involves an individual obtaining information that is considered secret or confidential without the permission of the holder of the information. Espionage is inherently clandestine, lest the legitimate holder of the information change plans or take other countermeasures once it...
and treason
Treason
In law, treason is the crime that covers some of the more extreme acts against one's sovereign or nation. Historically, treason also covered the murder of specific social superiors, such as the murder of a husband by his wife. Treason against the king was known as high treason and treason against a...
after he abandoned her.
As their sessions progress, complications arise when Chabot begins to fall in love with Daisy's exotic former self and Daisy begins to fall for him, and his university colleagues demand he either give up his reincarnation research or resign his position with the school. While waiting for Chabot in his office, Daisy accidentally hears a tape recording of one of her sessions; and when she discovers Chabot's interest is limited to Melinda, she storms out of the office. When she finally returns for a final meeting with him, she describes fourteen additional lives, including her forthcoming birth as Laura and subsequent marriage to the therapist in the year 2038.
Production
Alan Jay Lerner made a number of changes in adapting his stage play for the screen. The character of Frenchman Marc Chabot originally was AustriaAustria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
n Mark Bruckner. The period of Melinda's life was shifted ahead by a decade or two, her family background is different, and the cause of her death was changed from drowning at sea to unjust execution. In the stage play, the question of whether Daisy really was a reincarnation of Melinda went unresolved, but the film script made it clear she was. The character of Daisy's stepbrother Tad Pringle was added, although most of his scenes and his song "Who Is There Among Us Who Knows?" ended up on the cutting room floor
Cutting room floor
The term cutting room floor is used in the film industry as a figure of speech referring to unused footage not included in the finished film. In fact offcuts of film are retained in a special cutting room bin and numbered during the editing process in case they are required later...
. Additionally, the future of Daisy and Marc's relationship was altered, and several ensemble musical numbers were excluded from the film.
New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
locations include Central Park
Central Park
Central Park is a public park in the center of Manhattan in New York City, United States. The park initially opened in 1857, on of city-owned land. In 1858, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux won a design competition to improve and expand the park with a plan they entitled the Greensward Plan...
, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts is a complex of buildings in the Lincoln Square neighborhood of New York City's Upper West Side. Reynold Levy has been its president since 2002.-History and facilities:...
, the Pan Am Building
MetLife Building
The MetLife Building, originally called the Pan Am Building, is a skyscraper located at 200 Park Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, New York City.-History:...
, the Upper West Side
Upper West Side
The Upper West Side is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan, New York City, that lies between Central Park and the Hudson River and between West 59th Street and West 125th Street...
, and Lexington
Lexington Avenue (Manhattan)
Lexington Avenue, often colloquially abbreviated by New Yorkers as "Lex," is an avenue on the East Side of the borough of Manhattan in New York City that carries southbound one-way traffic from East 131st Street to Gramercy Park at East 21st Street...
and Park Avenue
Park Avenue (Manhattan)
Park Avenue is a wide boulevard that carries north and southbound traffic in New York City borough of Manhattan. Through most of its length, it runs parallel to Madison Avenue to the west and Lexington Avenue to the east....
s. Scenes set in the UK were filmed at the Royal Pavilion
Royal Pavilion
The Royal Pavilion is a former royal residence located in Brighton, England. It was built in three campaigns, beginning in 1787, as a seaside retreat for George, Prince of Wales, from 1811 Prince Regent. It is often referred to as the Brighton Pavilion...
in Brighton
Brighton
Brighton is the major part of the city of Brighton and Hove in East Sussex, England on the south coast of Great Britain...
, Kemp Town
Kemp Town
Kemp Town is a 19th Century residential estate in the east of Brighton in East Sussex, England, UK. Kemp Town was conceived and financed by Thomas Read Kemp. It has given its name to the larger Kemptown region of Brighton....
, and East Sussex
East Sussex
East Sussex is a county in South East England. It is bordered by the counties of Kent, Surrey and West Sussex, and to the south by the English Channel.-History:...
.
Nelson Riddle
Nelson Riddle
Nelson Smock Riddle, Jr. was an American arranger, composer, bandleader and orchestrator whose career stretched from the late 1940s to the mid 1980s...
served as the film's music supervisor, arranger
Arrangement
The American Federation of Musicians defines arranging as "the art of preparing and adapting an already written composition for presentation in other than its original form. An arrangement may include reharmonization, paraphrasing, and/or development of a composition, so that it fully represents...
, and conductor
Conducting
Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance by way of visible gestures. The primary duties of the conductor are to unify performers, set the tempo, execute clear preparations and beats, and to listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble...
.
Cecil Beaton
Cecil Beaton
Sir Cecil Walter Hardy Beaton, CBE was an English fashion and portrait photographer, diarist, painter, interior designer and an Academy Award-winning stage and costume designer for films and the theatre...
designed the period costumes. It proved to be his final project.
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
originally intended the film to be a nearly three-hour-long roadshow theatrical release
Roadshow theatrical release
A roadshow theatrical release was a term in the American motion picture industry for a practice in which a film opened in a limited number of theaters in large cities like Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Houston, Atlanta, Dallas, and San Francisco for a specific period of time before the...
, but executives ultimately had Vincente Minnelli cut nearly an hour from the running time . Along with Tad's song, the deleted material included "Wait Till We're Sixty-Five," a duet between Daisy and Warren, and "She Isn't You," Marc's response to Daisy's "He Isn't You."
Principal cast
- Barbra StreisandBarbra StreisandBarbra Joan Streisand is an American singer, actress, film producer and director. She has won two Academy Awards, eight Grammy Awards, four Emmy Awards, a Special Tony Award, an American Film Institute award, a Peabody Award, and is one of the few entertainers who have won an Oscar, Emmy, Grammy,...
..... Daisy Gamble - Yves MontandYves Montand-Early life:Montand was born Ivo Livi in Monsummano Terme, Italy, the son of poor peasants Giuseppina and Giovanni Livi, a broommaker. Montand's mother was a devout Catholic, while his father held strong Communist beliefs. Because of the Fascist regime in Italy, Montand's family left for France in...
..... Marc Chabot - Larry BlydenLarry BlydenLarry Blyden was an American actor and game show host, best known for his appearances on Broadway and as the host of the game show What's My Line?-Personal life:...
..... Warren Pratt - Bob NewhartBob NewhartGeorge Robert Newhart , known professionally as Bob Newhart, is an American stand-up comedian and actor. Noted for his deadpan and slightly stammering delivery, Newhart came to prominence in the 1960s when his album of comedic monologues The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart was a worldwide...
..... Dr. Mason Hume - Simon OaklandSimon OaklandSimon Oakland was an American actor of stage, screen, and television.-Early life and career:Oakland was born in Brooklyn, New York City. He began his performing arts career as a musician . He began his acting career in the late 1940s...
..... Dr. Conrad Fuller - John RichardsonJohn Richardson (actor)John Richardson is an English actor, who appeared in movies from the 1950s until the 1990s.He appeared in many Italian films, including Mario Bava's Black Sunday...
..... Robert Tentrees - Jack NicholsonJack NicholsonJohn Joseph "Jack" Nicholson is an American actor, film director, producer and writer. He is renowned for his often dark portrayals of neurotic characters. Nicholson has been nominated for an Academy Award twelve times, and has won the Academy Award for Best Actor twice: for One Flew Over the...
..... Tad Pringle - Roy KinnearRoy KinnearRoy Mitchell Kinnear was an English character actor. He is best remembered for playing Veruca Salt's father, Mr. Salt, in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.-Early life:...
..... Prince Regent
Soundtrack listing
- "Hurry! It's Lovely Up Here" ..... Barbra Streisand
- "On a Clear Day" ..... Orchestra and Chorus
- "Love with All the Trimmings" ..... Barbra Streisand
- "Melinda" ..... Yves Montand
- "Go to Sleep" ..... Barbra Streisand
- "He Isn't You" ..... Barbra Streisand
- "What Did I Have That I Don't Have" ..... Barbra Streisand
- "Come Back to Me" ..... Yves Montand
- "On a Clear Day" ..... Yves Montand
- "On a Clear Day" (Reprise) ..... Barbra Streisand
Trivia
The role of Daisy Gamble was originally played by Barbara HarrisBarbara Harris (actress)
Barbara Harris is an American actress who was a Broadway stage star and later became a film actress. She appeared in such films as A Thousand Clowns, Plaza Suite, Nashville, Family Plot, Freaky Friday, Peggy Sue Got Married, and Grosse Pointe Blank...
in the 1965 Broadway musical
On a Clear Day You Can See Forever
On a Clear Day You Can See Forever is a musical with music by Burton Lane and a book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner based loosely on Berkeley Square, written in 1929 by John L. Balderston. It concerns a woman who has ESP and has been reincarnated...
. Harris, who had only appeared in two films at this point, was not considered a big enough star to carry the film and so Barbra Streisand
Barbra Streisand
Barbra Joan Streisand is an American singer, actress, film producer and director. She has won two Academy Awards, eight Grammy Awards, four Emmy Awards, a Special Tony Award, an American Film Institute award, a Peabody Award, and is one of the few entertainers who have won an Oscar, Emmy, Grammy,...
was cast instead. Harris would eventually become a popular and acclaimed film star of the 1970s shortly after.
Critical reception
Upon its release, the film received mixed reviews. However as of July 2010, the movie has a 100% fresh rating on Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
; one of a limited number of films to be rated as high.
In his review in the New York Times, Vincent Canby
Vincent Canby
Vincent Canby was an American film critic who became the chief film critic for The New York Times in 1969 and reviewed more than 1000 films during his tenure there.-Life and career:...
called it "a movie of fits and starts" and added, "because the fits are occasionally so lovely, and the starts somewhat more frequent than Fifth Avenue
Fifth Avenue (Manhattan)
Fifth Avenue is a major thoroughfare in the center of the borough of Manhattan in New York City, New York, United States. The section of Fifth Avenue that crosses Midtown Manhattan, especially that between 49th Street and 60th Street, is lined with prestigious shops and is consistently ranked among...
bus
Bus
A bus is a road vehicle designed to carry passengers. Buses can have a capacity as high as 300 passengers. The most common type of bus is the single-decker bus, with larger loads carried by double-decker buses and articulated buses, and smaller loads carried by midibuses and minibuses; coaches are...
es, I was eventually hypnotized into a state of benign though not-quite-abject permissiveness . . . The movie is quite ordinary and Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
-bland in most of its contemporary sequences. Miss Streisand, as a 22-year-old New Yorker whose Yiddish intonations are so thick they sound like a speech defect, defines innocence by sitting with her knees knocked together and her feet spread far apart, a mannerism she may have picked up from Mary Pickford
Mary Pickford
Mary Pickford was a Canadian-born motion picture actress, co-founder of the film studio United Artists and one of the original 36 founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences...
. Minnelli's camera also is hard-pressed to find interesting things to look at in the humdrum settings . . . and a lot of the time it just records exits and entrances, as if it all were taking place on a stage. However, the movie, Minnelli and Miss Streisand burst into life in the regression sequences, filmed at the Royal Pavilion at Brighton. Minnelli's love of décor transforms the movie into very real fantasy, and the star into a stunning looking and funny character who mouths her arch, pseudo-Terence Rattigan
Terence Rattigan
Sir Terence Mervyn Rattigan CBE was one of England's most popular 20th-century dramatists. His plays are generally set in an upper-middle-class background...
lines as if she were parodying Margaret Leighton. She is so fine, in fact, that if I didn't know she was not terribly good at lip-sync
Lip sync
Lip sync, lip-sync, lip-synch is a technical term for matching lip movements with sung or spoken vocals...
, I would suspect someone else was reading her."
TV Guide
TV Guide
TV Guide is a weekly American magazine with listings of TV shows.In addition to TV listings, the publication features television-related news, celebrity interviews, gossip and film reviews and crossword puzzles...
rates the film 2½ out of a possible four stars and comments, "[It] boasts great sets and costumes, but its script leaves much to be desired, and even the usually reliable Vincente Minnelli is unable to inject much life into the proceedings."
Time Out London says, "Minnelli is able to decorate his material with beguiling visual conceits - the opening time-lapse photography, the colour contrasts between past and present. But he can do nothing to combat the script's length and shallowness, and there are some thumb-twiddling moments in between Burton Lane's delightful songs. The two star performers make an odd team, with their varying kinds of professionalism and vowel sounds."