Ma chi te l'ha fatto fare?

Struggling financially, a young couple needs quick cash to invest in pork bellies, prompting the wife to concoct a series of wild schemes to raise the cash. This is basically a vehicle for Streisand to engage in some zaniness, trying to duplicate the success of "What's Up, Doc?" a couple of years earlier. Unlike the latter film, however, this one does not have a particularly inspired script. Babs tries hard, but is unable to raise the material beyond a level of mild amusement. To pay off loan sharks, she goes through a series of jobs, including prostitution (taken rather lightly), each meant to setup hilarious situations but the payoff isn't there.

Barbra was 31 when she made this film. Her hair (a poor short-haired wig) was done by her then boyfriend,

Jon Peters, and her outfits remind me of her "stoney end" phase (remember that?). This movie was released in 1974. Her co-star is 'ok' but he's no Brad Pitt. He does have one sexy bathtub scene. If you look quickly when he pulls Babs into the tub you'll see he is wearing a pair of white bikini briefs (poor editing, they should have cut that).

Now a little outdated (I'm writing this in the year 2000) the film is funny overall with some greater funny moments.

Barbra shows a real flair for comedy. I wish she had done more character acting in other films because in this one she dons a blond curly wig, big yellow hat and oval sunglasses then screams and runs like a little girl. She literally had me laughing uncontrollably several times.

The plot is sort of hokey: her husband's brother and pompous wife insinuate Babs (Henry) conned her husband into an early marriage which robbed him of a good college education and a decent job (he's a taxi driver). They get an inside stock tip on 'pork bellies' and she borrows $3,000 from the mob. The tip doesn't pay off at first and her contract is sold to more and more crooks - and with each sale she screws up her assignments. She goes to work for a little old lady (Mrs. Cherry) who sends men clients to her apartment and Babs accidently breaks the nose of her first client then nearly kills the second, a judge who is taxi'd to the N.Y. apt by her husband. This second client is hidden in a trunk and revived in the back of a flower delivery truck then placed back in the taxi when Henry's husband isn't looking.

The whole movie goes on like this - and she ends up in several funny situations, even unwittingly carrys a bomb (the wig, hat and glasses). She turns the package over to an undercover cop and is promptly arrested but runs away screaming through Central Park claiming he is a pervert (the cop is dressed in identical women's clothing)

Eventually her contract is sold to a cattle rustler who fills up a motor-home with stolen cattle for delivery in downtown N.Y. She has an accident and the one lone bull and all the cows get lose running through New York streets and into shops. By the end of the picture the stock tip pays off and they end up rich and happy.

If you like Barbra you'll like this movie. I say 'thumbs up'!

Pete (Michael Sarrazin) and Henrietta Robins (Barbra Streisand) are a Brooklyn couple with money problems. Cab driver Pete hears a tip on pork bellies from his dispatcher and the couple decides to buy the futures. Nobody is willing to lend them the money and Henrietta goes to a loan shark in secret. When the debt comes due, she has to work in increasingly weirder jobs while hiding it from her husband.

It starts poor. Henry is not particularly that appealing. The pork bellies McGuffin does not taste good. I didn't like this movie at first and didn't know where it was going. Then it starts to get edgier and then it gets weirder. The silliness gets funny. Streisand is able to do stupid comedy and she eventually gets there. The movie should start silly and forget about the pork bellies. Pete is a bit of wet blanket but he does get into a funny screwball situation with a judge. This is good for a few giggles in the second half.

Barbra Streisand shines as a woman helping her husband (Michael Sarrazin) get through school, whatever it takes. What takes place is very funny because he has no idea what she does all day as he's working as a cab driver in New York City. She keeps all of her hilarious misdeeds from him, hoping to be able to make the money he needs for school. She'll do anything...all for Pete's sake. My rating: 8

The first 30 minutes or so of "For Pete's Sake" are amusingly on-target: Brooklyn housewife Barbra Streisand drops her husband off at work on their motorcycle and then pops a wheelie; she proceeds to forge a battle of the bills with the grocery store cashier, the insurance company, the banker, and the telephone company exec (Anne Ramsey, pre-"Throw Momma From The Train"). All this time, Streisand is in terrific comedic form, her expressions more and more incredulous. A dinner with her husband's relatives is equally funny, but "Pete" starts to give out somewhere after this. Barbra can't pay back loan sharks and has to work as a prostitute, a bomb deliverer and a cattle rustler. This last job gives the movie its big slapstick scene, which was a groaner even in 1974. Clearly a rip-off of Streisand's "What's Up, Doc?", it features a stampede of cows down the Columbia backlot accompanied by some of the silliest "country" music I've ever heard. If the filmmakers had kept the movie on a grounded level--and kept Streisand as the perfect Everywoman--this might have been a dead-on satire of the ailing economy. As it is, it's passable fluff. **1/2 from ****