if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity

In New York, the housewife Henrietta Robins (Barbra Streisand) and the taxi driver Pete (Michael Sarrazin) have financial difficulties since they got married very young and Pete has not concluded the college education. When Pete receives an inside information from a coworker that the pork bellies will raise their price since the Americans and the Russians are negotiating a great business transaction, Pete needs US$ 3,000.00 to invest in the market. Henrietta decides to help Peter and secretly makes a loan with a mobster. However the price of the pork bellies fall and she is not able to pay the loan. The loan shark promises to kill Pete and Henrietta accepts that her debt be sold to a madame by a higher amount. After many problems, her debt is increased and sold to mobsters and then to a cattle thief. What will happen to Henrietta and Pete?After forty-four years from its release, "For Pete's Sake" is still a very funny comedy. Barbra Streisand shows great talent performing the role of Henrietta Robins, who gets in a sequence of troubles trying to help her beloved husband. There are many hilarious situations and the film has not aged. My vote is seven.Title (Brazil): "Nossa, que Loucura!" ('Wow, What Madness")

This romantic comedy from 1974 features Barbra Streisand as she was reaching her stride as an acting and comedy talent. Her husband is 1970's star Michael Sarazzin as the tall, long-haired, bell bottomed jeans taxi driver who fills the role as the romantic interest. The other talent on display is Estelle Parsons as the social climbing sister-in-law who delivers a long list of catty remarks aimed at putting the couple down; no doubt resulting from jealousy over their hot sex life. The 1970's produced a lot of great movies, including comedies, and this is certainly one of them. It is full of belly laughs from start to finish. Streisand is the harried housewife trying to make ends meet in the inflationary 1970's. Her interactions with her friends and business people in her Brooklyn neighbourhood will delight viewers. When she gets involved in a crazy scheme to raise money for her husband's foray in the futures market, the gags come in rapid succession. Lots of fun, it's a look back at the 1970's with anxieties that now seem somewhat homespun by today's standards. I saw it when it first came out and seeing it again was well worth the time.

Barbra Streisand's 1970's comedies were a mixed bag, from the loud and obnoxious "The Owl and the Pussycat" to the hysterically funny "What's Up Doc?" to this funny but somewhat labored comedy about a young wife's determination to make her husband do better no matter what it takes. She's even co-erced into attempting to become a homebody hooker (with Molly Picon as a hysterically funny madam), deliver a surprise package, and eventually even transport stolen cattle (including a very butch bull) through the streets of Brooklyn. "It's not nice to fool Mother Cherry", Picon snarls after Streisand's failed attempts to turn tricks end up breaking one client's nose and with a passed out one locked in a trunk which Streisand's husband (Michael Sarrazin) helps being taken out of their apartment. This is all because Streisand borrowed $3000 from a mobster/loan shark, and in order to avoid being bumped off by them has to do all these strange jobs (causing the money she owes to be raised $1000 each time) which get odder and odder and even may lead to prison time for her character.An odd follow-up to Streisand's outstanding Oscsr Nominated performance in "The Way We Were", this is a comedy of moments, and some of it misses the mark. William Redfield and Estelle Parsons are Sarrazin's extremely obnoxious brother and sister-in-law whose wealth has forced Streisand to take drastic measures to help her save face in the wake of possible bankruptcy. In the opening minutes of the film, Streisand has a truly bad day, being short on her grocery bill, denying a call on her bill to telephone clerk Anne Ramsey ("Throw Mama From the Train", yes that mama....) and dealing with a bad check returned from the bank. Each of the people she encounters comments on how she can afford pot roast while having financial issues, and it's odd to see the obviously Jewish Streisand pretend to be craving pork bellies so she can convince Sarrazin to invest. Barbra gets to ride on a bull, play hide and seek with a doberman in the subway (check out those 70's subway cars!), and haphazardly get rid of a bomb.With the comedy a hit and a miss, this still managed to be a hit, because in the mid 1970's (other than possibly "Up the Sandbox"), every film Babs made was a box-office smash. She would make one more in this mold ("The Main Event") before turning to a more artistic path in her sporadic film career. She gets some great cracks in at Parsons' expense, shows a great sense of humor and romantic side with husband Sarrazin (even when yelling at him to get out so she can deal with the tricks Picon is sending over), and is very funny in a curly blonde wig, hat and sunglasses delivering a secret package. And when the cows and bull invade a china shop, the movie gets its one moment of comic genius. If she had not been in it (only Goldie or Liza might have done it a similar justice), the film would have been second rate at best. She does get to sing over the opening credits, but unlike "The Way We Were" and "Evergreen", the movie song is one that has not stood the test of time. The movie itself comes off as very dated, but the Brooklyn locations (Streisand and Sarrazin obviously live right across the street from Prospect Park) are fun, and a few moments are more than just mildly amusing. To see Streisand and Picon (the Queen of the Yiddish Theater) working together is another treat which makes this worth seeing.

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.