Funny Girl (film) wrote, "The story of the actress whose dramatic rise from rags to riches is accompanied by the discovery that suffering lies on the flip-side of success has provided the basis of many an American musical. But William Wyler manages to transcend the clichés of the genre and create—largely through Barbra Streisand's characterisation of Fanny Brice—a dramatic comedy in which the musical numbers illustrate the public aspect of the star's life without once interrupting the narrative." David Parkinson of "Empire" rated the film four out of five stars in a retrospective review and called it "one of those films where it
The Great Ziegfeld of the performers of the earlier Broadway version of the Ziegfeld Follies were cast in the film as themselves, including Fanny Brice and Harriet Hoctor, the ballet dancer and contortionist. "The Great Ziegfeld" marked Rainer's second Hollywood film role after "Escapade" (also with Powell). Fanny Brice appears as a comedian in the abridged song sequence "My Man" and played an effective version of herself in addition to her routine comic role as the funny girl. Nat Pendleton, a freestyle wrestler who had won the silver medal at the 1920 Summer Olympics in Antwerp and had appeared alongside Powell in "The