Hello Dolly on TCM NOW!

What went wrong?

Sp many things Barbra - Too young Matthau - Too yecch Michael Crawford - Too British Gene Kelly - Too much
And who the fuck is Marianne McAndrew!!
Eileen (I created the role) Brennan
HATE this crap!
And what the FUCK does Marianne McAndrew have that I don't? After all...I tested FIRST!
Ann-Margret
And then there's poor Barnaby, killed by a trick gone very wrong.
Ramon%20Novarro%27s%20Dildo
I thought Walter Matthau was kind of handsome in this movie. Michael Crawford and the little gay guy that played "Barnaby" I wouldn't have looked at twice if I saw them at a bar. But if Walter had hit on me and was nice...yeah, I probably would have let him fuck me.
Should've used the black cast
Pearlie Bailey
Over produced
The scene is good in the restaurant towards the end.
[quote]Should've used the black cast. I thought they considered Carol Channing.
I don't know why this "Barbra was too young" idea keeps going. She was the best thing in the movie. It's all the supporting cast that ruins it. Michael Crawford and his annoying mugging and antics, and the ultra boring Miss Malone (whatver her name is), and the unfunny Tommy Tune.
I can never get into the film because it looks so 1960s even though it's set in the 1890s. I do admit the showstopper number is well done and Barbra is amazing singing and acting that number.
[R11] The part of Dolly Levi, nee Gallagher, as written by Thorton Wilder in "The Matchmaker", which was the basis for "Dolly". was an Irish women married to a Jewish man. She is middle-aged and has been a widow for several years. Barbra was a 24 year old Jewish girl from Brooklyn. So the comments from the waiters at the Harmonia Gardens about Dolly being away for so long MAKE NO SENSE!!! Was Barbra there wheh she was 12???? I love Babs. She's an amazing talent. But she was all wrong for this role, and she knew it. But Hollywood tends to push many into the wrong roles (paging Lucille Ball for "Mame")!
What went wrong was it was behind the times. By the time it was made musicals like it were considered corny. It took nearly ten years for the movie musical to catch up with the times.
R13, I agree. They should have used Carol Channing. They love her in the regions.
Everything.
They were going to cast Judy Garland as Dolly but her fifth gay husband talked her out of it.
It was a good film, except for the "It Only Takes a Minute" song and the dancing tennis players---that was absurd. Streisand was hilarious through it all though.
Timing. Musicals were dead at that time. With Midnight Cowboy and Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice around, this movie was considered a dinosaur, in spite of the fact that Funny Girl had wowed a year prior. Gritty reality was in, old Hollywood kitsch was out. Kelly overproduced the shit out of it, too. And, yes, although Barbra was fantastic IN the role, she was too young. And the supporting cast was annoyingly bad. They overplayed everything with silly mannerisms. Kelly did not reel them in. Song of Norway bombed around that time, as did Lost Horizon. But they were dreadfully bad musicals. Hollywood learns lessons the hard way. Dolly is better than critics said and is enjoyable as hell to watch today. All the "bad" stuff is clearly bad and NOW, it's fun!
I'm pretty sure by the time it was made Garland's reputation was so bad she couldn't get cast in a flea circus. She was unreliable, her voice was shit and she looked like hell. No way would they let a multi million dollar picture ride on the shoulders of some washed up crusty old junkie.
They were going to go with Lucille Ball, but The A&P checkout guy talked her out of it.
Barbra did say that you could be a widow in your 20s TCM is showing this movie as part of their 31 Days of Oscar marathon. If that is the case, why are they showing this movie and not Funny Girl?
R20, it's as simple as Garland could not pass the insurance physical. Without that, no job.
They should have just had Channing lyp sinc to Barbra's amazing voice.
20th Century Fox said Carol was cartoonish on screen for the part
I love this movie. I have no idea why so many of you hate it so much. It's fun, with great music.
Dolly is a blast and I like most of the supporting cast. "Contract player" McAndrew is boring, but Crawford, Peaker and Lockin are doing musical comedy schtick 101 which I enjoy. I would look at Lockin and his superb bubble butt at any bar. Streisand sings the shit out of the score and although she's all kinds of wrong for the role, she gives a star performance and delivers on the comedy. What went wrong was the timing alone. If it had come out in the 40's or 50's it would have been a solid hit- not the smash the Broadway show was, but a nice moneymaker.
Barbra's costumes are gorgeous. Her wig, however, looks like it was made of dyed yak hair.
They were trying to replicate the success of Funny Girl, which most people are still surprised to learn was the highest grossing film of 1968.
Despite Barbra's fabulous outfits by Irene Sharaff it just does not have that right period feel. The other girls seem to wear modern makeup, false eyelashes etc and dont look right. Streisand amusingly sends it up like in the hat shop and teaching the boys to dance. Maybe Kelly was trying to recapture that Meet Me in St Louis look with "put on your sunday clothes". It is more charming now though that it was at the time when it was just so old-fashioned in the age of Midnight Cowboy and others.
Face it: Babs was as fat as a house in this movie.
She was padded.
R29 Pre production for Hello Dolly started before Funny Girl was even begun and the film itself was done more than year before it was released. Unless the studio had a time machine, there was no way they would know how successful FG would be when they were in production.
[quote]"It Only Takes a Minute" "Moment" you moron.
Streisand was too young; the others were far far far too old. And couldn't sing. Barbara Eden as a young girl singing about class? Puh-leeze!
Hello Dolly was so bad that it wouldn't have been a hit in the 1950s. There were some very good movie musicals out there in the fifties -- a LOT of competition. People DID like old-fashioned musicals in 1969, except for one demographic: the 18-30s. In 1969/70 movie studios, TV networks and record companies put all of their eggs in that particular basket. People just didn't like the movie versions of Hello Dolly, Sweet Charity or Star because of the MOVIES themselves. Streisand was a cow in Hello Dolly, it was not padding. She made many comments about how fat she was in 1969. The extra bulk on her actually worked for the role.
R35, Barbara Eden was not IN Hello Dolly. Dumbass.
But in a film forum at Lincoln Center this past summer, Carol Matthau claimed her husband was unhappy with the entire thing and a tremendous pain in the ass on the set. Barbra, she said, was sheer professionalism.
It was offered to Shirley MacLaine, but one of her past lives talked her out of it.
Mae West confronted Streisand at a party soon after Hello, Dolly was released and scolded her for stealing her persona. Mae was a mean old bitch.
R21, did the AP checkout guy wisely talk her out if it?
r30: Every 'period' film, musical or otherwise, looks exactly like the year it was made. That's part of the charm. Sharaff's FUNNY GIRL Ziegfeld Girls look right out of Caesar's Palace. What I am most curious to know is - how did Kelly get the director's gig? There were enough solid MGM musical director pros around who could have done a much better job. Stanley Donen or Chuck Walters would have been a far better choice.
"20th Century Fox said Carol was cartoonish on screen" On screen? How about in life?
I love "Love Is Only Love"--a beautiful song no one else would've been able to sing as well as Streisand did. And I agree with those who like the film--I think it's fun enough, though it lags when Streisand isn't onscreen. It's not perfect, but the show wasn't either, and while Streisand is very wrong for the character, you do at least get an indelible, inimitable performance.
The biggest problem with this movie is that its Horace and its Irene would have been better paired with each other than with the impossibly pushy broad and the ridiculously fey buffoon they ended up with. The sorting out of mis-matched lovers is the whole point of the tale. If Dolly and Irene are the same age, there's no conflict. If Horace is a virile man of 45 and Cornelius seems gender-neutral, there's no conflict. Horace is supposed to be 60 and impotent and Dolly is supposed to be post-menopausal. Their happiness is supposed to come from her teaching him how to enjoy his money in his old age. Cornelius and Irene are supposed to be young and eager to get laid with the comic codicil that the woman is coolly experienced and the man is a shy and awkward virgin. Money is supposed to compensate the older couple for lack of sex, and sex is supposed to compensate the younger couple for the lack of money. That is the heart and soul of the story. Take it away and you have a candied apple that is all candy and no apple, cloying sweetness with no natural substance.
[quote]I thought Walter Matthau was kind of handsome in this movie. You must be 90 years-old, blind or both.
All I can think of during the train station scene at the end of "Put on Your Sunday Clothes" is that Streisand says they filmed in Yonkers and it was 90 degrees and humid and they were in those Victorian clothes and they were dancing... I thought Tommy Tune was cute. The only thing is I thought the movie would focus more on him and his gf and then they pretty much vanished for most of the film. I do love the final montage sequence filmed on the Hudson. And I think Barbra was great. Not a good film but she was good. Let's not forget, she was feeling stifled by all the musicals and standards she was singing and within a year, she was doing "Owl and the Pussycat" and preparing her pop career.
That's bullshit, r40, but you already knew that. "But in a film forum at Lincoln Center this past summer, Carol Matthau claimed her husband was unhappy with the entire thing and a tremendous pain in the ass on the set. Barbra, she said, was sheer professionalism." Carol Matthau was a Barbra groupie and extremely prejudiced. I don't doubt Walter was an asshole on the set, but Streisand was scared shitless about doing the role and was at her control-freaky worst. Barbra to Look magazine reporter about Dolly: "Well, I couldn't get out of it..." (I heard the interview on tape).
Terrible movie. They should have used Carol Channing instead, after all she headlined the famous broadway show. Hello Dolly was a bomb at the box office and that's why. People won't go to a movie if they know the real star was shafted. Barbra had her hit in Funny Girl, why not let Channing have her chance. Apparently the producers of this awful film were clearly out to use Babs' name to make a buck and the public agreed. I wish TCM wouldn't show that terrible movie. It was cruel what they did to Carol Channing.
Was Angela Lansbury ever considered for the movie version? Or was this the time period where she was trying to get control of her children and had moved to Ireland?
Oh please, r49. Plenty of people went to My Fair Lady even though the stage star -- Julie Andrews -- didn't get to play the part in the movie.
[quote]Was Angela Lansbury ever considered for the movie version? No, she was not that big of a star at that point to carry such an expensive picture. The best she could hope for at that time was being cast in a Mary Poppins rip off.
Babs is all wrong for the role but she's actually a lot of fun if you forget about how ludicrous the plot becomes with a twentysomething Dolly. She's in glorious voice and sings the score beautifully. Again her phrasing and style are all wrong for the period that the film is set in but Babs is still a pleasure to listen to. If you forget about the plot holes and the miscasting it's one of Babs' most entertaining film roles. Funny Girl, on the other hand, is deadly dull and she's unbearably annoying in that one.
Hmmm....I've never heard this before: [quote]Kelly refused all work that would take him away from Los Angeles, including the offer to direct the film Cabaret in Munich.
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/gene-kelly/anatomy-of-a-dancer/516/
"Funny Girl" forgets that it's a musical and that long, dry, dull middle part is too much. By the time we get to "Swan Lake," I'm ready for it to end.
R54 Thats odd considering how much location shooting was done in New York for Hello Dolly.
Mae West may not have confronted Streisand at a party, but she did go to the press, saying she was thinking about suing Streisand for stealing from her.
I heard that Hello Dolly did well at the Box Office?
R57 Wow, thats pretty ballsy considering how much time West had to spend in a court room defending her stage performances from censors and uptight assholes.
R45's analysis is very astute. Although there are many things wrong with the movie, its two huge, major, inescable flaws are Kelly's inept direction and Crawford's unwatchable and unlistenable performance. If it's true that Kelly was offered the film of CABARET, thank heaven he turned it down. Can you imagine?
R59: I thought it was pretty churlish of Mae. She should have considered it an homage and been flattered.
Hello Dolly trivia: Kelly and Roger Roger Edens arranged a pity job for old Freed Unit member, Lennie Hayton, as musical something or another on Dolly. Hayton, the estranged (and gay) husband of Lena Horne, was drinking himself to death and hadn't worked in years. He somehow shared an Oscar for his work in the movie. He dropped dead a year later. Hollywood and the Oscars just LOVED Hello Dolly -- it got something like ten nominations. Most all of it was filmed in California, very little in upstate NY.
Barbra was cast for the wrong reasons. The entire film is under water slomo.
Mae West was famous for being a twat about anyone who she thought was stealing her act. Supposedly she sent Bette Midler a letter telling her to stop using some of her songs.
[R38] Was this event last summer a film forum seance? Carol Matthau died in 2003.
Maybe it was an impostor? An impostor hired by Barbra Streisand!
Overproduced and as heavy as sweet cement.
Didn't we do this topic about 5 minutes ago?
There are three different threads running currently on "Hello Dolly!" And OP's is the most recent of the three. When other people bumped the other two up last night after he started yet another via this one, he would not take the hint and kept posting to this one anyway. Some people view Datalounge as their own private performance space rather than as an actual discussion forum.
Truman Capote based Audrey Hepburn's character in "Breakfast at Tiffany's" on Carol Matthau. She was responsible for eventually bringing Walter and Barbra together and they ended up friends in the end. Barbra was under enormous pressure during the filming of Hello, Dolly. She had just given birth to Jason, her marriage to Elliot Gould was falling apart, she was the star of a very expensive and high-profile musical that she was too young for, and her co-star was being verbally abusive to her. It's a miracle she didn't have a nervous breakdown from it all.
AND she was under contract!
Funny Lady apologist
The greatest DOLLY SITE that every existed! This will make you forget Barbra:
http://www.callondolly.com/
The problem with that site, r50, it's that it's littered with grammatical and spelling errors. Very hard to read, although fun to see all the different Dollys.
R50????
There's a reason why that site is littered with grammatical and spelling errors: It was created by a very aggressive but pathetic individual with only a tenuous grasp on reality and very little writing ability.
So? I love that kind of thing.
[quote]No, she was not that big of a star at that point to carry such an expensive picture. Angela Lansbury had more credits under her belt than Barbra Streisand did. A few years earlier, she had been nominated for an Oscar for The Manchurian Candidate. Plus she had a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame. True, she hadn't headlined a movie, but neither had Streisand.
What kind of thing, r54? You love misspellings and grammatical errors? That site does reek of uncontrolled fandom. If that's really going to be a book, I hope he gets a really, really good editor.
LOL. Angela Lansbury WAS NOT a box office draw, no matter how many fucking credits or awards she had. She was barely known to anyone under 40 outside of NYC.
R72/77, you have a real problem with numbers.
Who knew Mary Ellen Walton played Dolly?
Are you posting from the future, r58? There is no r72 or 77 yet.
[quote]Was this event last summer a film forum seance? Carol Matthau died in 2003. LOL! R38 was busted!
Carol Matthau defended Babs when she didn't get nominated for Yentl. She was a fan, unlike her husband.
[quote]Barbara Eden was not IN Hello Dolly. Dumbass Oh yes she was! Her scenes were cut a la Anne Francis.
http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mauuuuOn9U1r84iplo1_500.jpg
That's funny because Barbara Eden tried to be a singer in variety shows in the late-sixties, early-seventies. She could carry a tune, I'll give her that and only that.
News Flash!That's the same Michael Crawford who originated The Phantom in Phantom Of The Opera and he was in the film of Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum.I guess he took some singing lessons.
Jett
No R86. They just put about 50 mikes on him when he was in Phantom so that people could actually hear his "singing"
Yeah, Crawford said that Babs went back stage and said, WHAT HAPPENED???? He said, twenty years of singing lessons.
Crawford was also in The Knack and How to get it with the delicious Rita Tushingham:
http://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DY3fpQlbSABM
Barbra should play it on stage now.I hear she is going to do a film remake of Gypsy!She should get Anne Hathaway and James Caan,or her husband.
Jett
Gypsy is beginning pre-production. Lady Gaga is going to be the daughter (will officially announce next month)
OFMG
That Dolly site credits Dora Bryan as appearing as Carlotta in the 1987 London production of Follies. What in the gay hell?!
True or untrue, Gene Kelly was still considered a genius in 1969 Hollywood. He was very much associated and credited with the success of favorite film classics like On the Town, An American in Paris and Singin' in the Rain, even if he only starred in or co-directed them. So in many people's minds, even in Hollywood, he was a very logical choice to direct Hello Dolly. And really....who would have been better?
And Kelly also scored well as the director of FLOWER DRUM SONG on Broadway.
[quote]And really....who would have been better? Me. I would have had the waiters in various states of undress for the Waiters' Gallop (because they're moving so fast, you see, their clothes just come flying off - adds to the fun). And there would have been just a hint that Barnaby was servicing Cornelius down in the cellar.
Josh%20Logan
By the time "Dolly" was released, anything other than "Easy Rider" was considered 'old fashioned' by Hollywood, indeed, the country's standards.It all changed very fast, after "ER" came out - it was all about the new/now Hollywood - sell off the backlots, cast films without stars, location shooting only,etc. It didn't have a chance. Every film musical around that time bombed big - Paint Your Wagon, Darling Lili,Finian's Rainbow,Sweet Charity,Dr. Doolittle, Star,Song Of Norway,Man Of La Mancha, Goodbye Mr. Chips - all very expensive to make, and ALL bombed. The most successful B.O. fils of 69 - 70 included Midnight Cowboy,Goodbye Columbus,Alice's Restaurant,MASH,Five Easy Pieces - you get the idea. Low budget, no star, anti-establishment pics."HD" didnt have a chance.
Ernest%20Lehman%27s%20now%20withered%20corpse
Casting. Production. Cinematography.
The%20White%20Queen
I like the Happy Waiters.
Simon
I wonder why Dolly stage director Gower Champion never made a transition into directing film musicals? He was one of the most successful directors of musicals on Broadway but had a prior career as a successful B star of MGM films. Though it was always rumored that wife Marge was the real genius behind Gower's stage shows.
Is that all?
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