The film stars Barbra Streisand, James Caan, Omar Sharif, Roddy McDowall and Ben Vereen.

Fanny Brice, now finishing her Broadway show after its success has come and gone in the midst of the Great Depression, finds only flowers and a divorce decree from her estranged husband Nicky Arnstein.

Despite having a big number for Fanny in “I Found A Million Dollar Baby In A Five And Ten Cents Store”, opening night proves to be a disaster in terms of collapsing sets and more.

The improved show opens in New York to applause and great reviews before Fanny sees Nicky backstage with a ring on his finger from a rich woman, to whom he's now married.

The wedding party finds Billy treated roughly by Fanny's society friends before the honeymoon in Texas turns to bickering between the newlyweds.

Later on, Fanny encounters Bobby Moore and Norma Butler in Los Angeles and sees Nicky on the field of a polo game in Beverly Hills and feels that her friends tricked her.

Years pass and in the 1940s Fanny is starring in The Baby Snooks Show on radio while Billy works as a writer of popular songs and plays.

Although contractually bound to make one more film for producer Ray Stark (Fanny Brice's one-time son-in-law), Streisand balked at doing the project.

"[6] Stark, unhappy with the scenes shot by original cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond, lured an ailing James Wong Howe out of retirement to complete the film.

Much of Vereen's performance ended up on the cutting room floor, together with a recreation of Brice's Baby Snooks radio show and dramatic scenes involving her and her daughter.

Streisand, Caan and Vereen all received Golden Globe Award nominations, as did Kander and Ebb and the film itself, but it was shut out of any wins in both competitions.

"[14] Roger Ebert gave the film one star out of four and called it "a big, messy flop of a movie that's almost cruel in the way it invites our memories of Funny Girl and doesn't match them.

"[15] Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune awarded two and a half stars out of four and wrote, "It takes few chances and delivers mostly what you'd expect ... What was missing, for me at least, was a sense of surprise, of unpredictability—the sort of wit or pacing that separates a memorable musical like Cabaret from the merely tuneful.

Kael also criticized the plot as "right out of those terrible forties movies in which couples who break up spend a lifetime thinking about each other, with encounters every five or ten years.