Barbra Streisand’s third film, On A Clear Day You Can See Forever, was based on a 1965 Broadway show that closed June 1966 starring Barbara Harris and John Cullum.

The idea came from Broadway team Alan Jay Lerner and Richard Rodgers as early as 1962. “The subject is extrasensory perception in a contemporary New York setting,” they told the New York press.  They first called the show I Picked a Daisy but after delayed scripts, Lerner chose to work with composer Burton Lane instead of Rodgers.  The show shifted and changed during previews and eventually opened on Broadway October 1965.

Paramount Pictures reportedly paid $750,000 for the film rights to On a Clear Day in 1966.  Paramount producer Howard W. Koch hired Streisand at that time, too, before she’d even come to Hollywood to make Funny Girl.  Then, Paramount announced in April 1967 that Vincente Minnelli would direct the screen musical.

Minnelli recalled, “It was mystical, and Lerner has been interested in that since he was a child. He was trying to say something, I dug into the story and that was what came out. Lerner had read all these books and followed the fantasy as he saw it completely. I didn’t subscribe to it, not at all.”

Koch made some changes transferring On A Clear Day from Broadway to film: Alan Jay Lerner revised his original story; Minnelli requested that the past-life sequences be changed from a Restoration to a Regency setting. He told writer Henry Sheehan, “I felt that was what was wrong with the play. It was white wigs and writing with feathers which gets to be very boring. I wanted to make it Regency, because the world was more inviting. That’s particularly why we changed it. Then I wanted to come in on a climax where she didn’t know what was happening and it was explained later on. Whereas it couldn’t matter less in the play.”

PICTURED: John Cullum and Barbara Harris in the Broadway play, 1965.

PICTURED: Actor Richard Harris

Arnold Scaasi was brought on board to create modern costumes for the film; Cecil Beaton would fashion Streisand's regression wardrobe.

The Nov. 4, 1968 edition of The Hollywood Reporter announced: “Neal Hefti has been signed by Howard W. Koch to arrange and conduct Paramount's On a Clear Day You Can See Forever.” Hefti was most known for his title theme to the Batman TV show, the music for The Odd Couple movie, and Barefoot in the Park.

Several male stars were considered for the role of Dr. Chabot, the musical's male lead. The late Richard Harris (Arthur in the film version of Lerner and Loewe’s Camelot) was announced in the role late-1967 into 1968, but didn’t pan out. “Lerner and Streisand stitched me up,” he explained. “They wanted it their way. Lerner never liked my singing, and he took out the best songs from the original Broadway show. Streisand wanted to be Queen Bee. I told her to bark up someone else’s tree.” 

By August 1968, Yves Montand, 47 years old, the French actor who starred with Marilyn Monroe in Let’s Make Love, was cast as Chabot, opposite Streisand in the film.

Actor William Daniels (1776 on Broadway, and, later, on the T.V. show St. Elsewhere) was cast as Streisand’s finance, Warren.

Producer Robert Evans wrote in The Kid Stays In The Picture, “... I couldn't help but turn down everybody I had seen film on who was a contender for the part of Tad, Barbra Streisand's stepbrother in the flick ...” 

Jack Nicholson—a casting suggestion that peaked Evans interest—was out of the country attending the Cannes Film Festival. Once he was tracked down and a meeting arranged, Evans offered Nicholson ten thousand dollars for the role, and Nicholson, according to Evans, negotiated until $12,500 was agreed upon.

PICTURED ABOVE: A rare shot of Sue Mengers (Streisand's agent), Fred Glaser (Streisand's hairdresser in the 1960s) and Barbra in costume as Colette.

PICTURED RIGHT: Marty Erlichman and Barbra Streisand are in costume for the Reincarnation Ball.

It was the Reincarnation Ball (“come as the person you would like to have been in a previous life”), and Hollywood's egos were out.

Groucho Marx came as Groucho. 

Raquel Welch was Katharine Hepburn in plaid slacks, white socks, and Buster Brown shoes, wisps of red hair showing below the scarf around her head.

Polly Bergen was Queen Elizabeth I.

The affair was admittedly a publicity stunt—a party to publicize Paramount's multi-million dollar musical, On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, which started shooting this week with Barbra Streisand and Yves Montand.

The place was supposed to look like a Nineteenth Century ballroom with its lace tablecloths and planted urns. The recreation of a resort took two weeks, 15 men, and cost close to $10,000. 

Alan Jay Lerner came dressed as a character from the Moulin Rouge, but he confused everyone by wearing a 10-gallon hat. His lovely, dark-haired Karen was Jane Avril, of Toulouse-Lautrec time.

Miss Streisand was dressed as Colette in a short blond brillo-coiled wig and dress resembling the lace tablecloths, but oh, so turn-of-the-century.

Barbara Perkins was there in a high-throated dress (as Eliza Dolittle), but she wasn't with either Bob Evans or Omar Sharif. Omar came alone, wearing his Che Guevera costume, beard and all. He was accompanied by a blonde in a see-through dress.

Looking devilish was producer Howard Koch, in wide leather gaiters and buckskin. Howard was Tom Mix, hero of his childhood. His wife, Ruth, all but stole the show in flapper chiffon and bee-stung lips as “it” girl Clara Bow.

Director Vincente Minnelli cut a dashing, all-but unrecognizable figure as Garibaldi.

Guest of honor Yves Montand wore a top hat and carried a cane as the infamous French thief Arsene Lupin, and designer Cecil Beaton was a standout, all in white, as a French pastry chef, with penciled eyebrows.

— from Joyce Haber's Jan. 9, 1969 column

Minnelli began by filming  Chabot's office, Daisy's roof and apartment, and some interior scenes set at  Chabot’s college on soundstage sets in Hollywood. With a total budget of about $10 million dollars, the film’s rooftop set cost $170,000!

Streisand’s trailer at Paramount – which was created by production designer John DeCuir and included Regency furniture, and silk wallpaper in a daisy motif – cost $40,000.

The part of Daisy’s fiancé had to be recast in February 1969 when William Daniels decided to leave the movie to take a starring role in the musical 1776 on Broadway. Actor Larry Blyden was cast as Warren.

March 28, 1969, Barbra Streisand arrived in England to film scenes for On A Clear Day You Can See Forever in the seaside town of Brighton.

The Royal Pavilion in Brighton, England, a baroque palace created by King George IV, was the setting for On A Clear Day's flashback scenes. “At one time we thought we would build it on the set in Hollywood,” production designer John DeCuir told the L.A. Times. “But then it got up into millions of dollars. It wasn't just duplicating the Pavilion, it was all the fixtures and fittings. I think this is kind of a wild place, when you think of it for what George IV guilt it for—he called it his bath house.”

Barbra explained her feelings about the Pavilion to the newspaper. “It's a combination of the grotesque and the beautiful. And it's grotesquely beautiful.”

The Brighton Herald reported that the Pavilion lawns “had been greatly changed to preserve the Regency atmosphere. A screen with trees painted on it hid the traffic, and a cobbled road was put down to give the illusion that the entrance to the Pavilion faces Pavilion Parade.”

Instead, the University scenes were filmed at Exposition Park Rose Garden in Los Angeles. The movie’s opening scene, a student protest scene, and the final number were all filmed in front of the park’s Wallis Annenberg building, located on its east side. The filmmakers added a statue in front of the large columns.

In late July 1969, Streisand recorded, then began rehearsals for a new song added to the Clear Day score – “Go to Sleep.”  When filming resumed August 13th, this song replaced a bigger (and costlier) musical number (see “Cut Scenes”).

By December 1969, musical director Neal Hefti was replaced by Nelson Riddle.  The entertainment columns did not report an explanation for the change, but producer Koch suggested that Hefti and Streisand did not get along. He recalled that “[Barbra] and Nelson were like a team from the time we switched.” 

Riddle’s job was to rescore the already recorded songs with arrangements that pleased Streisand and Minnelli.