Hello Dolly( 1969) is a great mess of a film

OP, do us all a favor and shut the fuck up.

Agreed, R1.

One of my favorites, actually! Streisand sang the hell out of those songs!

Michael Crawford's aged ugliness is jarring and horrible. Danny Lockin looks like a reptile. Tommy Tune as a romantic lead is ridiculous. Walter Matthau a miscasting for the ages. They couldn't have done worse with Rex Harrison.

This show has never been realistic to begin with.

[quote]Every time I see this movie

How many times is that, OP? If you dislike it that much, why are you watching it?

They didn't cast Carol Channing because it's all about box office--coherence be damned

[quote]Streisand doesn't know what age to play and that hurts in making a believable character.

Indeed.

It needed better actress and singer.

I didn't get to do [italic]The Matchmaker[/italic] on film. Why don't you bitches ever bitch about that?

I'd honestly have given this film Best Picture before any of the other nominees that year or any other film released in 1969 I've seen.

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[quote]They didn't cast Carol Channing because it's all about box office--coherence be damned

There's no guarantee the film would have been a hit if Carol Channing had been in it. All you haters are the reason they barely make musicals anymore.

[quote]First of all imagine how awful it must of have been to go from William Wyler to Gene Kelly. She probably was shocked by how limited Kelly was as a director.

"Awful"? [italic]Mary.[/italic]

She was an adult paid professional. It was not "awful," nor would she have been "shocked."

Stop clutching your pearls.

The most repellent supporting cast ever assembled

Thomas Crown Affair R12?

No that was the year before. Sacrilege! Midnight Cowboy won that year! A gay movie!

A tiny group of gay men on a webforum are the reason they barely make musicals anymore? well, I'll be!

Also The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and The Sterile Cuckoo!

R8, Andrews was 27 (early-mid 1963) when she made MARY POPPINS (August 1964) and 28 (early-mid summer 1964) when she made THE SOUND OF MUSIC (March 1965). Her birthday is Her birthday is October 1, 1935.

Also Anne of a Thousand Days, Easy Rider, Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, Z, Sweet Charity, Gaily Gaily, Marooned, True Grit, the Secret of Santa Vittoria, Z....

[quote][R1] and [R2], what the fuck is your problem?

That the OP is wrong, dead wrong, and the only disaster is his weak analysis. Streisand met every qualification for the role except the age, and even so, one could assume she married an older rich man when she was young, and she's ambitious and active enough to make it believable? If we're to accept color-blind casting, why not age-blind casting? The age difference between her and Walter Matthau (you can't not love his reaction at the end of "So Long, Dearie") is no different than, say, Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison (or any of Hepburn's male co-stars up to that point who were much older than she). And boy could she sing back then, unlike Lucy in that other Jerry Herman musical that reached the screen. Carol Channing couldn't hit that high note at the end of "Before the Parade Passes By" if you gave her helium.

Frankly, younger playing older is easier than older playing younger, and this works better than [italic]Yentl[/italic].

All you haters turn in your GayCards now.

[quote]Tommy Tune as a romantic lead is ridiculous.

He wasn't a romantic lead. He was a comic supporting character. The roles of Ambrose and Ermengarde are small. Pairing a very tall man with a very short woman makes them funny and memorable. Tommy Tune was an inspired piece of casting.

The worst cast person in the movie is Streisand. If Horace can marry a young woman like Barbra, then there's no reason why he has to abandon a pretty and pleasant person like Irene, who he wanted in the first place, for a pushy and goofy-looking thing like Streisand. Horace is supposed to be too old for thirty-year-old Irene but just right for a fifty-year-old Dolly.

Twentieth Century Fox should have brought its old superstar Betty Grable out of retirement to make the movie. That would have been in keeping with the nostalgia craze that swept the country in 1970. They were greedy and cast a modern superstar who was all wrong for the part. It ruined the movie and cost them millions.

How in hell was HELLO, DOLLY! nominated for (and won!) for Best Sound against BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID and MAROONED?

[quote]Midnight Cowboy won that year! A gay movie!

Unlike Hoffman and Voight, we were actually gay.

[quote] Andrews was 27 (early-mid 1963) when she made MARY POPPINS (August 1964)

Thanks for proving my point, R20. She got a fucking Oscar she didn't deserve for a character she was too young for, but you go after Streisand in [italic]Dolly[/italic] for the same thing but let Andrews off the hook?

[quote]How in hell was HELLO, DOLLY! nominated for (and won!) for Best Sound against BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID and MAROONED?

That Jerry Herman score sounded divine in 6-track stereo.

[quote]The worst cast person in the movie is Streisand.

Pauline Kael called Streisand's performance the best of the year. It's one of the very few things that homophobic old cunt was right about.

Why aren't any of you racist bitches complaining that [italic]I[/italic] wasn't in it?

Because they put Louis Armstrong in it and made him a friend of Dolly's.

R26, Mary Poppins is sexless and therefore ageless. Hello, Dolly! is a farce with sexual undertones. Horace is supposed to be impotent and Dolly post-menopausal. Sex isn't supposed to matter to them, only domestic comfort. Cornelius is supposed to be the world's oldest virgin while Irene is a hot-to-trot young widow. Sex is still a foremost consideration for the younger lovers, which is why it's urgent for Irene to not get stuck with the limp old fart, Horace.

Erase the age difference between Dolly and Irene and Dolly becomes nothing but a deceptive, back-stabbing money-grubber which is all the more unfortunate when you cast a Jewess in the role.

You guys talk about the same shit over and over and over.

Let it Go!

And it was filmed in TODD-AO!

" You're IN the show in TODD-AO! "

[quote]If Horace can marry a young woman like Barbra, then there's no reason why he has to abandon a pretty and pleasant person like Irene, who he wanted in the first place, for a pushy and goofy-looking thing like Streisand.

Horace wanted Dolly but settled for Irene.

[quote]Twentieth Century Fox should have brought its old superstar Betty Grable out of retirement to make the movie.

Keep your day job.

[quote]Adele Nadeem

Who the fuck is she?

[quote]Erase the age difference between Dolly and Irene and Dolly becomes nothing but a deceptive, back-stabbing money-grubber which is all the more unfortunate when you cast a Jewess in the role.

So, the truth reveals itself at long last. You didn't want a Jew playing a character named Levi singing songs written by a gay Jew like the gay Jew to whom she had recently given birth. Your comments, and thus the criticisms of the role, are not only wrong but stem from an offensive premise.

[quote]Mary Poppins is sexless and therefore ageless.

Sexless? Gimme a break! You can see her bra strap through her white dress in the close-ups after she wins the horse race, and she spins around fairly revealingly in that chimney sweep dance. And you should have seen some of the poster and LP album art where she showed quite a bit of leg.

[italic]Hello, Dolly![/italic] and that nanny have something else in common: plagiarism lawsuits.

On stage it was so charming. It was quaint with pen and ink backdrops, colorful costumes and beautifully directed by Champion. On film it was a bloated to three hour mess.

Charm = manipulation.

[quote]On film it was a bloated to three hour mess.

It was only two and a half hours. Your complaints about the running time suggest you may have ADD.

The movie did nothing for our careers!

Including the intermission at the Rivoli which was 20 minutes so yes, it was close to three hours. That being said, I do have the Blu ray

R35, you have missed the point of my post entirely. It is unfortunate to cast a Jewish woman in a role that has been re-written to make her into a two-faced money-grubber because of the stereotype of Jews being untrustworthy and caring only for money. I didn't put Streisand in that unfortunate situation, the greedy execs at Fox did.

What was I, E.J., chopped liver?

Who really cares?

Films two and a half hours or longer need to bring back intermissions. From a business perspective, they're the perfect opportunity to make more money with snack bars and they let audiences get up to pee. Ever since the decline of the Roadshow era, movie exhibition standards have been going down and digital just traded one set of problems for another.

[quote]I didn't put Streisand in that unfortunate situation, the greedy execs at Fox did.

She could have turned them down.

[quote]Horace wanted Dolly but settled for Irene.

Did you ever even see the movie?

[quote]Who really cares?

Somebody must care. They keep showing it on TV and re-releasing it on video every so often. It wasn't that big a flop; it came in 4th for the year but it cost about what it made. If nothing else, it did far better than [italic]Doctor Dolittle[/italic] and [italic]Star![/italic], Fox's other two post-[italic]Sound of Music[/italic] musical scapegoats for their inability to keep budgets under control.

Wasn't Barbra Ernest Lehman's suggestion?

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[quote]Including the intermission at the Rivoli which was 20 minutes so yes, it was close to three hours.

At least they didn't chop a third out of it like they did to me.

I saw it on the big screen last year and it was great fun. Streisand has charisma to spare. Her vocal performance alone makes a viewing in the theatre with a good sound system a blast.

Marianne McAndrew is the only dull performance in my book. The rest are close to the character comics Champion used on stage and good fun.

You're complaining about casting Tommy Tune when Charles Nelson Reilly was The ACTUAL young romantic male on Broadway?

Wow R42. You must have been holding onto that link for YEARS just waiting for the opportunity to use it.

It's surprising that they did't get Eileen Brennan for the movie.

[quote]So, the truth reveals itself at long last. You didn't want a Jew playing a character named Levi singing songs written by a gay Jew like the gay Jew to whom she had recently given birth. Your comments, and thus the criticisms of the role, are not only wrong but stem from an offensive premise.

Dolly is not Jewish. Her maiden name is Dolly Gallagher (i.e. Irish). She married a Jew, her late husband Ephraim Levi.

Well, the original Maria von Trapp was a little troll so...go figure.

It wasn't ever a great musical, anyway, but the movie doesn't do it any favors. Biggest asset is Babs' spectacular singing. If you listen very closely, you can hear her still holding that last note of "Before the Parade Passes By."

This and Funny Girl and the excruciating The Way We Were--none of them hold up.

Very outdated and only for hardcore fans.

I saw a few of these as a kid and liked them but seeing them again, yawn...Funny Girl about put me to sleep.

Another bore is Yentl with her patented loud singing from the prow of a ship. How many times has she done that schtick in movies?

Some things just do not hold up. I can watch Gone With the Wind again and am always surprised how fast it moves. Maybe it is due to the real star of it, Hattie McDaniel, the scenery, sets, costumes, dunno, but that film holds up and Streisand's have not.

Oi vey... some of you want to just kvetch.

It is a fun movie. Babs was young but she does the part justice. No retired "aged star" could've brought in people at the time the way Streisand did.

I love it. They kept all the right songs... costumes and dance numbers are great.

The show is a trifle fluffy entertainment. I don't watch it hoping for the angst or truths I seek from Sondheim's show and music.

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Charles Nelson Reilly singing "It Only Takes a Moment"

Excrutiating. And he won a Tony for it.

Streisand is the only thing watchable in that movie. She's entertaining and her singing is great. And I'm not even a big Streisand fan. It's the rest of the cast that ruins it. Matthau is okay and the Barnaby kid is cute, but Michael Crawford is insufferable in this role and the incredibly boring Miss Malone, as well as Tommy Tune, are painful fun to watch. OP gave a good analysis overall.

R59 GWTW is NOT racist.

Mammy is the ONLY character in the whole movie who has any sense! She is the true heroine of the film! How can that be racist?

Prissy was comic relief in a tense situation, so that is not racist.

The black people are shown to be hard working, loyal, and a higher quality people than the whites.

The author was not a racist, and if you read up on her, was very against slavery.

I once had a bright black female boss who loved Gone With the Wind. She had a large office, and part of it was decorated with memorabilia--some quite rare--from the film. She did not think the film was racist.

You can't change history, even when it was an ugly and unfortunate time.

It is a stereotype to say the film is racist.

Back to HD, it seems clunky and old fashioned, kind of high camp.

The direction is really terrible. Kelly told everyone to smile like assholes while they danced (always the mark of a bad musical director), and also told all the supporting characters to play up the quaintness and tweeness of the material.

It has to be said it does not have a good book. You're supposed to think it's cutely quaint as all get-out, for example, that Horace Van der Gelder is referred to as "the celebrated half-a-millionaire." A little of that goes a LONG way, and Kelly made them hit that aspect of the show even harder in the film.

No surprise she could sing but I was amazed Streisand could DANCE like that. And I don't remember her ever doing it again.

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"Pauline Kael called Streisand's performance the best of the year."

Pauline Kael had an intense lesbian crush on Streisand and thought she walked on water. However, I need to see a link to prove that absurd quote.

Test

Louis Armstrong is in the movie for EXACTLY 60 seconds.

[quote]Excrutiating. And he won a Tony for it.

He won a Tony for his comic bravura not for his singing. Stage director Gower Champion took a bold step in casting a gay man and a lesbian as comical romantic lovers, rather than trotting out the usual earnest young lover types common to musicals in those days.

It's true Pauline Kael loved Streisand and thought she was the only thing worth seeing in this whole film. This is how Pauline Kael described the sets: "But the interior of the Harmonia Gardens is a gratuitously, vulgarly opulent set in beer-barrel rococo--full of upholstery and statues and fountains and chandeliers, like a storeroom of all the garbage left over from the Alice Faye-Don Ameche musicals. This set, redolent of every bad operetta ever written, makes all of the action in it look unnecessarily ugly -- and the director, Gene Kelly, and the choreographer, Michael Kidd, perhaps inspired by the set, have staged in it their most tasteless "show-stopping" dance.

Eileen Brennan was a lesbian? Did she adopt her kid?

One thing I'll never figure out is why Fox give this film to Gene Kelly to direct. I think Stanley Donen turned it down (unfortunately), but there were any number of directors who would have better - George Roy Hill (who directed THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE) had a good sense of farce, and would have been an interesting choice. Who else? Vincente Minnelli? Busby Berkeley?!

(can you imagine Berkeley screaming at Streisand: "GOOGLE 'EM! I want to SEE YOUR EYES!!")

Eileen Brennan had been previously cast as Little Mary Sunshine 5 years before Hello Dolly.

You don't think that some other gay actor hadn't played a young lover before Charles Nelson Reilly? Hell, he was Dick Van Dyke's understudy in Bye Bye Birdie 4 years before Dolly.

R73, why would Berkeley say that? There was no Google in 1969. Google didn't come about until 1998, almost 30 years later and 22 years after Berkeley died.

I think the post means "make your eyes googly"

This post sounds vaguely familiar.

r75: To "Google your Eyes" is an early 20th century term to bug ones eyes out and roll them around. It is derived from the comic strip "Barney Google", but the word "google" is believed to have originated in "The Goo-Goo Song" (1900). The word "Google" was introduced in 1913 in Vincent Cartwright Vickers' The Google Book, a children's book about the Google and other fanciful creatures who live in Googleland: "The Google has a beautiful garden which is guarded night and day. All through the day he sleeps in a pool of water in the center of the garden; but when the night comes, he slowly crawls out of the pool and silently prowls around for food." Aware of the word's appeal, DeBeck launched his comic strip six years later, and the "goo-goo-googly" lyrics in the 1923 song "Barney Google" focused attention on the novelty of the word.

When mathematician and Columbia University professor Edward Kasner was challenged in the late 1930s to devise a name for a very large number, he asked his nine-year-old nephew, Milton Sirotta, to suggest a word. The youthful comic strip reader told Kasner to use "Google". Kasner agreed, and in 1940, he introduced the words "googol" and "googolplex" in his book, Mathematics and the Imagination. Milton Sirotta died in 1980. This is the term that Larry Page and Sergey Brin had in mind when they named their company in 1998, but they intentionally misspelled "googol" as "google," bringing it back full circle to Vickers' form. In 2002, when Page set up a scanning device at Google to test how fast books could be scanned, the first book he scanned was Vickers' The Google Book.

Berkeley would scream "GOOGLE 'EM!" to Mickey and Judy when directing their musical numbers. He wanted them to appear as peppy and bright-eyed as possible.

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Of course Streisand is too young etc. but she pulls it off due to her huge talent, tongue in cheek performance: no one and I mean no one then or now can or could sing the hell out of the score like her. And act the dongs as she sings them; Channing knew it.T

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R78, thanks.

Google was just a predatory pricing scheme in its founder's diaper back then.

R81, Pauline Kael would never say anything nice about John Wayne.

Believe it or not but Elizabeth Taylor was also seriously considered for the role of Dolly. Of course she would have been dubbed.

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dolly was not supposed to be Jewish but Streisand played her as Jewish -- ie the yenta sing-song voice etc. the movie was not good and widely panned compared to the two broadway productions with Channing And Pearl Bailey. Bailey was excellent !

Charles Nelson Reilly won for How To Succeed two years earlier.

He was nominated for Dolly! but lost to Jack Cassidy for She Loves Me.

I love you, R32.

I love you too R89

" the really BIG show in Todd -AO! "

Kids today don't know how wonderful road shows in pristine 70mm prints were. It was event moviegoing, like going to see a stage play. Wonderful book out about hard ticket roadshows, especially 1960's musicals. The name of the book is ROADSHOW! by Matthew Kennedy

Most of the film's problems can be attributed to the lackluster direction of Gene Kelly. Another director with the same cast and cre and technical people could have made a whole different movie.

Thanks much for the book recommendation, Todd-AO Troll. I'm currently interested in the Silent Era when the first movie palaces were built and moviegoing was an event, similar to the roadshow presentations.

Several years ago, I was on a weekend monastic retreat. It turned out the guest master, Brother Jerome, was quite a Streisand fan, and we spent Saturday night watching his video of Hello, Dolly. This was pre-widescreen video formatting, so the sides of the film were lopped off; still, Jerome was happy to reminisce about his NYC days and showed me his Dolly souvenir program, kept in archival condition. The weekend wasn't as quiet as I had expected it to be, which made it all the more pleasant.

Pauline Kael was a hack.

I always watch it when it's on. I enjoy the movie. You guys over analyze everything!

R92 I assume you'll continue that story in the "Have you had sex with a priest?" thread.

Oh dear, now Hattie McDaniel is the real star of GWTW? Revisionist bullshit!

I love Arthur Laurents' anecdotes about Babs calling him from the Hello Dolly set: he's a choreographer, not a director!

[quote]Pauline Kael was a hack.

And a homophobic cunt. In her review of [italic]Bedknobs and Broomsticks[/italic], she called David Tomlinson a "sexless pixie." Pixie = fairy = gay. Her influence on films and film criticism has been disastrous at best.

[quote]This post sounds vaguely familiar.

Hate threads for movie musicals happen like clockwork round these parts.

R95, as glorious and junky as Hello Dolly is, it's not much of an aphrodisiac.

[quote]Oh dear, now Hattie McDaniel is the real star of GWTW? Revisionist bullshit!

If Scarlett had listened to Mammy, the film would have been 10 minutes long. Of course, she was right about Ashley.

[quote]OMG, why do you all have such bad taste?

You're the one with bad taste, R60. Go back to watching your Craig Zadan/Neil Meron horror shows and confusing Broadway fanservice with good filmmaking.

And Malcolm X was a sellout for renouncing violence.

[quote]All you haters are the reason they barely make musicals anymore.

Hate troll at R13 can't comprehend the difference between dislike and hate.

[quote]Hate troll at [R13] can't comprehend the difference between dislike and hate.

Calling you all "dislikers" doesn't have the same ring to it. But your criticism is still full of exaggerations, half-truths and opinions disguised as facts, and I'm tired of hearing the same fatuous complaints over and over again about this and most of the other post-1965 musicals for that matter. Over the past 50 years, almost every film musical made has been pilloried by tone-deaf critics calling them "unmitigated disasters" and it seems each new musical has to carry the fate of the whole form on its shoulders. All the gimmicks and tricks modern filmmakers use to try and "justify" characters breaking out into song have all backfired because it seems like they're only trying to use them to attract musical haters. And if [italic]Into the Woods[/italic] flops, then it's another 30 years of creative stagnancy for the form.

How faithful is the movie to the original play?

Movie cuts the song "motherhood" and adds a ballad for Streisand. Other than that, it is faithful to the stage musical.

R104 now if you are talking about the original play, I only have the Shirley Booth movie to compare. In that, the leads talk directly to the camera ( movie audience) and no scene in the police station/ court. Minnie Fay's part is reduced somewhat.

I've seen this film many times since '70.

Streisand keeps getting better. Her talent in this film is as big as the continent. The way she manages to completely dominate thousands of extras and that 14th street set and brass bands and the 20th Century Fox orchestra all at the same time during 'Parade' and Funny Girl hadn't even opened yet well it's pretty scary.

That said Crawford keeps getting worse and you keep wondering why he wasn't fired by anybody including the janitor when they were watching the dailies.

Everyone keeps complaining about Kelly but the hat shop sequence is wonderful and the Hello Dolly duet with Matthau at the end is one of the most touching moments in a movie musical.

By the way Kael turned on Streisand with Funny Lady which is truly road kill.

I was shocked to hear what happened to the actor who played Barnaby after the film.

[quote]Horace wanted Dolly but settled for Irene.... Did you ever even see the movie?

Yes, it was the old hate but secretly love scenario in every Romcom. He knew her for years, you think he fell in love with her in the last five minutes?

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R110: It's not misogynistic if it's in response to homophobia.

Very nice, charlie (r107), but why didn't you mention your deep friendship with Babs creator Bob Schulenberg this time?

[quote]Oh dear, now Hattie McDaniel is the real star of GWTW? Revisionist bullshit!

Yeah, I don't get that. Mammy is a great/funny part and Hattie's very good, even won the Oscar, but the real star remains Vivien Leigh. She carries that damn 4-hour picture almost by herself. She gets help occasionally from Gable, de Havilland, and, yes, Mammy, but she does most of the legwork.

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The studio was going to change the title to "The Big Nose" starring that screamer, Babs.

[quote]But your criticism is still full of exaggerations, half-truths and opinions disguised as facts

I didn't post any exaggeration, R103. I didn't post any half-truth. I didn't post any opinions disguised as facts. My first post in this thread was to call out one of the tiresome DL hate trolls. You lose!

I have very few deep friendships and not one is named Bob. I don't even know who you are talking about. I would have to google him. But as I am not enough of a Streisand fan(really) I can't be bothered.

And how does one 'create' a Streisand?

Kind of like 'creating' a Callas.

Sorry charlie but they are born with a gleam of talent and the will of a steamroller at full tilt. They both only come from God. Or your DNA.

[quote]You lose!

You attacked the wrong target; the tiresome hate troll in this thread is the OP. Try again, philistine.

R114: All forms of verbal retaliation for anti-gay hate speech are perfectly acceptable. Remember, heterosexuals are an oppressor class. Pauline Kael made an anti-gay remark that justifies retaliation. Lucky for us, the bitch is six feet under now where she and all homophobes belong. When a heterosexual says something bad about gays, they are furthering a climate of oppression. When a gay person responds to that by insulting her, it is an attack on that oppression.

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Women are the majority in this country and so are heterosexuals.

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How about just talking about this shitty film, huh?

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Pauline Kael was a cunt and this movie is not shitty. Period.

[quote]Lesbians are treated as second class citizens in the US.

Fixed.

[quote]Another director with the same cast and crew and technical people could have made a whole different movie.

Another director probably wouldn't have needed 5,000 extras. Think of the money they could have saved with a more realistic amount of extras. They could have afforded a male singing star closer to Streisand's age.

[quote]Hollywood movies are founded on racist oppression.

So you're basically calling the Jews racist. Nice to see DL treats its anti-semites so well.

[quote]They could have afforded a male singing star closer to Streisand's age.

Like who, John Davidson?

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There are 20 woman senators, 79 woman representatives, 5 woman governors and 24 woman CEOs. All of whom are reinforcing the same status quo and playing the same game as men in those positions. Some of whom (Meg Whitman for one) are helping make life miserable for gay people.

None of this is relevant either to the merits of this film or the cuntiness of Pauline Kael. She made a gay-bashing comment in a national publication. She got paid to do this.

In retrospect, I wonder if Streisand regretted making the film?

Regardless of her performance, I find it so curious that she felt she was right for the role. And I would have thought that at the beginning of her film career, she would have been far more cautious of clearly being so miscast.

Carol Channing in Dolly beat her for the Tony when Streisand was nominated for Funny Girl. Was it simply a case of revenge?

To R130, 128,127, 125, 124 and the other 37 posts in this thread:

Hello Dolly is a fucking SHITTY movie, and no matter how many times you post that is isn't, it still is.

PERIOD.

[quote]Was it simply a case of revenge?

Some might call it karma.

[quote]Like who, John Davidson?

John Cullum or Bill Hayes. And there were older guys who had outstanding voices and didn't have the craggy looks of Walter M.

Older singers like John Raitt or Robert Preston or Robert Goulet or Howard Keel could have done Horace much better than W.M.

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[quote]Hello Dolly is a fucking SHITTY movie, and no matter how many times you post that is isn't, it still is.

You are wrong. And frankly, Walter Matthau gave a better performance here than Oscar "winner" John Wayne phoning it in as usual. [italic]Hello, Dolly![/italic] is a masterpiece on screen. Every single one of those extras did a fabulous job, every inch of every set and costume was glorious. And they didn't need one single solitary computer to make it. Even Michael Crawford's awkward squeaking fit the character (why don't any of you self-loathers ever bitch about Charles Nelson Reilly not being asked to do the film?). People who don't like this movie are fucking sheep who only like whatever is popular and only because it's popular.

This film will still be watched when most of the incoherent, narcissistic, ugly, self-indulgent crap that characterized the "New Hollywood" movement is completely forgotten. There has been an anti-musical bias in Hollywood ever since these hacks took over everything.

[quote]have a nice fay!

Do I even need to say it? Oh well: Oh, dear!

Hello, Dolly is still watchable if you only look at the Streisand musical scenes. As such, it's a lot better than other epics of that era (Paint Your Wagon, STAR, Darling Lili, Camelot, etc.) which generally have nothing whatsoever to recommend them.

R. 67--At the 1969 National Society of Film Critics Awards, Pauline Kael voted for Streisand, Fonda (They Shoot Horses, Don't They?), and Vanessa Redgrave (Loves of Isadora) in that order.

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[quote]if a woman gay bashes you, that is no reason to degrade her as-a-woman.

Do not tell me what to call that homophobic breeder cunt. And her homophobic slurs were not just limited to Disney musicals. From the link below:

[quote](Interesting, since in the 1960s and 1970s one of her main instruments of character attack was insinuating a rival critic was Gay, and her writing would veer into swaggering homophobia by using plentiful phrases such as “mincing f----t.”

If a woman calls me a f----t, I will call her a cunt. It is that simple.

Furthermore, gay men have been more oppressed than women ever were. Sure, there was discrimination against women, but it was never a crime to be a woman, and that's the difference.

[quote]Hello, Dolly is still watchable if you only look at the Streisand musical scenes. As such, it's a lot better than other epics of that era (Paint Your Wagon, STAR, Darling Lili, Camelot, etc.) which generally have nothing whatsoever to recommend them.

[italic]Star![/italic] wasn't that bad, but frankly Gertie wasn't that great a performer to begin with compared to Julie Andrews. They were also hamstrung by the fact. At least unlike the others, [italic]Dolly[/italic] doesn't turn heavy-handed or serious despite the scale.

R136 No, no, no. And no.

I say this as a gay man who loved the film when it came out and I was twelve.

The anti-misogyny troll is tasteless in addition to being a sanctimonious bore.

[quote]They were also hamstrung by the fact

that they were mentione

[quote]No, no, no. And no.

Um, yes, yes, yes. And yes. This film is one of the best movie musicals ever, better than all but the absolute best of this era, and a damn sight better than most of those lame 1930s musicals that were all dancing and overwrought singing but barely any plot and no attempt to connect the songs to them.

And Carol Channing is homophobic. Remember that comment that she "couldn't condone" being gay. Well if Cheno can do it, so can she.

R66 needs to take a chill pill.

Malcolm X is now a role model? Huh?

Keep telling yourself, it's only a movie, it's only a movie.

[quote]They were also hamstrung by the fact

that they were not allowed to mention Bea Lillie.

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Considering it was produced by a Jew, calling GWTW "terrorism" is more stealth anti-semitism.

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[quote](Her Fanny Brice has nothing to do with the historical Fanny Brice and does not conceivably exist in the actual past.)

Then she fits right in with everything and everyone else. None of this was ever real on Broadway or in Hollywood.

Millions of people revered Osama Bin Laden, too. No one who practices Islam should be considered a hero to anyone who calls themselves a gay ally. True allies don't straightsplain to us what is and is not an acceptable reaction to homophobia.

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[quote]And Carol Channing is homophobic.

No doubt that's the reason she couldn't hit the high note in the parade number. Good reason to keep her out of the film.

"I'd honestly have given this film Best Picture before any of the other nominees that year or any other film released in 1969 I've seen."

Which of these have you seen?

Army of Shadows Z Anne of the Thousand Days My Night at Maud's Midnight Cowboy Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice Easy Rider True Grit The Wild Bunch The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid Satyricon Stolen Kisses The Unfaithful Wife The Sterile Cuckoo If.... The Passion of Anna True Grit Cactus Flower Last Summer The Damned They Shoot Horses, Don't They? Adalen 31 Marooned

Mind you not all of these are great or even all that good, but compared to Hello, Dolly..... they're all at least watchable.

[quote]give up.

Fuck you. The Jews cannot be racist because racism = prejudice + power. Jews have neither the power nor inclination to oppress. Even the Hollywood moguls were discriminated against. Hollywood has gotten worse since the Scientologists started infiltrating it.

[quote]only Darryl Zanuck at 20th Century Fox, the goy studio, was not Jewish

The same Darryl F. Zanuck who got himself a Best Picture Oscar by making [italic]Gentlemen's Agreement[/italic] a film condemning the anti-semitism he witnessed first hand?

Now Hollywood so prides itself on its anti-racism they give a Best Picture Oscar to a simplistic mess by an ex-sitcom writer instead of a gay romantic western that actually deserved it.

R136, you fucking idiot. You don't even understand the Fay joke.

Go home. Spare us your warped Dolly worship.

I always loved the beginning of Hello Dolly, especially the sweeping brooms.

I have a feeling someone is going to get banned.

r146/r148/r151 has been shitting over so many threads today.

She's elderly and all alone on Labor Day, and acting out as a result.

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I was just trying to write a light warm charming entertainment. And I have done nothing but bring down the thunder of racism, misogyny, and homophobia upon the world!

And all in Yonkers!

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[italic]Marooned[/italic]? Seriously. Even [italic]The Love Bug[/italic] was better than that.

[italic]The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie[/italic] asks you to sympathize for a Mussolini-lover. Not gonna happen.

[italic]Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice[/italic] would have been much better if it had been [italic]Bob & Ted and Carol & Alice[/italic].

As for [italic]Midnight Cowboy[/italic], I don't like movies that conflate homosexuality and promiscuity. I don't see how this film marks any kind of progress for gays.

Face it, all the [italic]Dolly[/italic]-bashing is just bitter, angry old queens who think the only way to adapt a Broadway show for the screen is to do it verbatim on a scale no bigger than a Broadway theater. You can't do that with a movie. You have to give them at least something different. There are exceptions where doing the same thing on screen as they did on stage works; [italic]My Fair Lady[/italic] is the best example of that. [italic]Dolly[/italic] wasn't quite on the same level but it sure is fun to watch. I've seen the film twice in 70mm and I still can't really find anything to complain about. Enough is enough.

10 years later, the studios were right back where they started; budgets were still escalating and after [italic]Heaven's Gate[/italic] deprived a generation of subsequent directors of the one good thing to come out of the New Hollywood movement: final cut privileges, things didn't get better, they got worse. The attempted movie musical revival of 1982 didn't really take, and even the musicals of this century aren't quite as good as the old ones.

I'd like to see a remake done by nobody ever.

[quote] And serving daily.

Are you serving Executive Realness?

[quote]David O. Selznick had way more power than any black person in the country. Not because he was Jewish, but because he was rich and famous.

And he lost it because none of his post-GWTW films were anywhere near as successful and were usually compared negatively to it.

Do you like ANY movies?

If they really needed a box office star, they should have let Lucy Ball do this one. She would actually have been much more right for it - particularly if she acted the role rather than playing "Lucy," - and then they could have cast Lansbury in Mame.

OMG, R149 has begun the drunk-posting segment of our thread.

If Dolly had been a late 50s hit, they could have made the movie with Judy around the time of I Could Go On Singing.

[quote]If they really needed a box office star, they should have let Lucy Ball do this one. She would actually have been much more right for it - particularly if she acted the role rather than playing "Lucy," - and then they could have cast Lansbury in Mame.

Then [italic]Dolly[/italic] would be the butt of all the jokes. With [italic]Mame[/italic], it definitely should have been Lansbury (at least there's always [italic]Bedknobs and Broomsticks[/italic] to remind me of what could have been), but if they wouldn't, they least they could have done was dub Lucy. She let them do it—unconvincingly—on [italic]Here's Lucy[/italic], why didn't they do it there?

[quote]OMG, [R149] has begun the drunk-posting segment of our thread.

In vino veritas.

Calling the film "bloated" is a form of cinematic fat-shaming.

Miss Jean Brodie was not a Mussolini lover. Duh.

[quote]I'm a man, 55 years old, white, living in NYC, openly gay for 30 years! And serving daily.

But nobody's buying.

[quote]Miss Jean Brodie was not a Mussolini lover. Duh.

Oh no?

Well in any case you aren't asked to sympathize with her.

For acting and intricate storyline, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is the best (nonmusical noncomedy) film ever made.

So there, bitches.

Jean Brodie was a charismatic, foolish woman who did admire Mussolini. The point, though, is neither the novel nor the film ask us to admire her unambivalently. That's what the movie comes to--the dangers of what Sontag called "fascinating fascism."

I agree R176. I love this film, and yet I have asked myself, is she a great teacher, or is she a terrible one? Clearly, very intelligent, a bit smug, but her tirade against Miss Mackay tells us she is first, last and always a teacher. If she didn't love her profession, she could have done something else. A very complex character.

My college drama teacher made us watch the two intense scenes between Miss Brodie and Miss Mackay and said, with great satisfaction, "That, students, is acting."

The book had more Brodie gels than the movie.

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R. 153--Come on--The Unfaithful Wife! It was released under its French title in America--La Femme Infidele. What web search did you use to come up with that list? I'm surprised you didn't list Krakatoa East of Java as a more watchable 1969 film.

[quote]Impossible to imagine that HELLO, DOLLY! is better than any of the above films.

It's easy for me. Woody Allen is a hack and a pedophile, and [italic]Putney Swope[/italic] was incoherent crap. Those films represent about 1% of all films made that year, R178 ad nauseam. You failed to mention the numerous films made that year that are inferior to [italic]Hello, Dolly![/italic] Even so, do you really believe they would nominate more than one foreign film for the Best Picture Oscar. It was a big enough deal when [italic]Z[/italic], pretty good but overrated, got the nomination because the xenophobes said only Americans should get the nomination.

[quote]Nobody really cares about HELLO, DOLLY!, is the point.

I read an article about how its DVD sales increased after Pixar featured it in [italic]Wall-E[/italic], and if it's all the same to you, right now it's scoring 7.2 on iMDB, higher than a lot of musicals of the era. Someone must care about it, and you obviously care enough to make a stink about someone disagreeing with you and pointing out your disingenuous way you defended a bigot posing as a film critic against well-deserved retaliation for the hate speech she spewed. Take your pedantic bile and your middlebrow taste in films elsewhere.

[quote]I'm surprised you didn't list Krakatoa East of Java as a more watchable 1969 film.

[italic]Hello, Dolly![/italic] is better than that by a margin the size of the parade that passed by. My Dad, who got me the widescreen laserdisc when I was 12, said he saw that movie when it came out and it was horrible. It must have laid a real egg; it's never been out on laserdisc or DVD and I never came across a VHS copy in any of the video rental or retail stores I set foot in.

Janet would have been PERFECT for Dolly Levi! Can you see her there with those curves and singing those songs? WOW!

[quote]Janet would have been PERFECT for Dolly Levi! Can you see her there with those curves and singing those songs? WOW!

I'd rather take my chances with Lucy!

R179 ad nauseam, why didn't you go after OP for his typos like you're doing in the theatre thread right now?

Kill this thread and the hysterical rankings of r185 NOW!

Nobody a cares about Hello fucking Dolly and your 200 posts trying to argue about it!

Go away!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i agree with R62,R80 and OP for the most part. Watching it as a young teenager, and knowing nothing about the play, I thought Streisand kept the movie interesting and it came to life when she was on the screen. Matthau was okay (altho i found it hard to believe she was supposed to be attracted to him), but the rest of the cast was forgettable and boring. The musical dances were way too long. Bloated really does describe it... and without Streisand, I don't think it would be rerun on tv as often as it is.

Thoroughly Modern Millie was Carol Channing's screen test for Hello Dolly! Unfortunately, she didn't connect with the audience as well as she would have hoped.

On another thread, someone suggested Debbie Reynolds or Doris Day for Dolly. Both might have too bland for the role.

Had Garland been sober, God, what a Dolly she would have made.

I like the Betty Gable suggestion. How about Ginger Rogers, who also did Dolly.

Someone like Howard Keel or Harve Presnell should have played Horace.

It would have been interesting to see Charles Nelson Reilly and Eileen Brennan re-create their original roles

Well you bitches how do you think I would have been in the role? After all, I turned it down before they gave it to that underaged, overrated Brooklyn Jewess.

I'll stop pretending I can sing when you stop pretending you can act, R189.

Merman had the same problem as did Channing. Great on stage in a theater performing live.

On film, the audiences didn't like her.

Sorry.

[quote]Nobody really cares about HELLO, DOLLY!, is the point.

Which is why there are at least one or two long, contentious threads on DL every year about it.

True or false, Hollywood casting queens: Julie Andrews was asked to play Dolly.

[quote]Which is why there are at least one or two long, contentious threads on DL every year about it.

If LOGO ever gets the rights to [italic]Divorce Court[/italic], I imagine stage vs. screen debates will be a factor in more than one case.

And for the record, I like [bold]both[/bold] versions of [italic]Gypsy[/italic] but I think two is enough. Streisand should have done it when Bette did it, but Bette did it for her.

Good lord. Opinions are like noses: everyone has one and they all smell.

That being said, my opinion is that this movie is a bloated, overproduced mess. It goes over like a bucket of sweet cement.

[quote]Good lord. Opinions are like noses: everyone has one and they all smell.

You said it. And yours is the stinkiest one of all.

[quote]That being said, my opinion is that this movie is a bloated, overproduced mess.

Wrong. Compared to the crappy sci-fi epics they churn out to turn out another generation of manchildren, it seems like a model of restraint. I heard it cost $24 million back then. You couldn't make a musical for less than $40 or 50 million today. What happened?

You must have it confused with [italic]Camelot[/italic]. Despite the music, that was a mess in every medium they tried it in.

Noses don't stink, they smell.

Dolly, however, does both.

Grace Kelly IS Dolly Levi!

Coming to a theatre near you soon!

[quote]My opinion. Just as valid as yours.

All opinions are not valid. For example, an opinion saying all gays should be killed is not valid.

In this case, the quality of the film is too good to even merit all those calling it a disaster. Even calling it mediocre would be one thing; I wouldn't agree with you but I would be willing to discuss your point, but no this film does not stink and such an opinion regarding this particular film is not valid.

The only problem with this film, which is not a problem with the content per se, was Fox's unrealistic expectations that they would get the same rate of return for this film that they did on [italic]The Sound of Music[/italic], which cost about a third as much and doesn't really have any big dance numbers other than "Do-Re-Mi."

I think they should do a remake....with Miley Cyrus. Now that would be a blockbuster!

Opinions that may infringe upon my civil rights may not be valid.

Opinions about movies are all equal.

44% fresh on rotten tomatoes.

R199 You forget the classic twirl of Liesel and Rawlf!

I love The Sound of Music and can watch it over and over! I especially love when the act preceding the von Trapps is on and that lady keeps bowing! And when the nuns take the wires from the Nazi cars! And the mountain scenes! And the Salzburg scenes! And the brief scene with the wonderful character actress maid who was once on I love Lucy! and the lonely goatherd! and the baroness--beautiful! and the gay uncle!

so much to love! so much more entertaining than Dolly!

[quote]Opinions about movies are all equal.

Fine. In that case:

[italic]Citizen Kane[/italic] is not the greatest film of all time. It has a major story problem. The whole film revolves around Kane's last word: Rosebud. Who was there when he whispered it? We don't see anyone being in the room at the time, and there's no way anyone in the next room would have heard a whisper that quiet.

Alfred Hitchcock was a pig who treated the bad actresses he was psychosexually obsessed with like shit on the set. And his matte shots were atrocious. Disney used to get shit for bad matte work that wasn't nearly as bad as his.

Woody Allen needs to retire. He hasn't made a good film in 20 years.

Quentin Tarantino is a racist and a hack whose movies are all put together from other, better movies. His attack on [italic]Roots[/italic] while promoting his slave revenge fantasy really turned me off anything of his.

[italic]Bedknobs and Broomsticks[/italic] > [italic]Who Framed Roger Rabbit[/italic] > [italic]Song of the South [/italic] > [italic]Pete's Dragon[/italic] > [italic]So Dear to My Heart[/italic] > [italic]Enchanted[/italic] >>>>>> [italic] Mary Poppins[/italic]

Mel Brooks and John Waters are the most important filmmakers of the 1970s.

Nations where homosexuality is illegal should be barred from eligibility for the Foreign Film Oscar.

The fact that the Academy Awards seldom rewards non-romantic comedies or gay-themed films is proof of its anti-comedy bias and heterosexism.

You're still wrong about [italic]Hello, Dolly![/italic]

[quote]so much more entertaining than Dolly!

It is a better film, but not by that wide a margin. And at least with Dolly, there were no real people whose lives had to be distorted in order to fit into a three-act plot.

[quote]44% fresh on rotten tomatoes.

How many reviews? Do any of you ever think for yourselves or do you need someone else to hold your hand for you?

R204, you made some excellent points here. I don't agree with all of them, but I do agree with you on Tarantino, that Hitchcock was a pig (albeit a great director), and about the Academy's anti-comedy bias and heterosexism.

Don't those of you chiding Fox for greed have any vitriol to spare for David Merrick? Even Jerry Herman (who didn't like this film when it came out but at a screening some time ago, he admitted it grew on him in a way that [italic]Mame[/italic] has not) called him "the antichrist." He managed to extort another million out of Fox by pushing the release date back another year. That helped make the difference between profit and loss for this film. It didn't make money in theaters, but it wasn't as big a commercial disaster as [italic]Doctor Dolittle[/italic] ($9 million gross from a $18 million budget) or [italic]Star![/italic] ($4 million gross from a $14 million budget). This should be in the black by now thanks to TV and video sales, but they don't release those figures to the public.

Since when does box office take determine a film's quality anyway? [italic]Maleficent[/italic] was a horrible film but it grossed a fortune.

R204, you're silly. Those opinions are perfectly valid, even if most people disagree with them. See how that works?

[quote]See how that works?

Why should I respect an opinion built on a fundamentally false premise, whether it's human rights or movies? One is more important than the other, but still the principle is the same.

Respecting the opinion and acknowledging that one has the right to hold it are two different things.

Agree to disagree. But don't make a federal case out of it.

It's a perfectly fine adaptation of a popular hit, the pace never wavers or slows to a halt, and unlike some of her later films Barbra doesn't hog the whole spotlight though she does get her obligatory "Barbra moment." And also unlike later films, she has a sense of humor. And those who compare her to Mae West should at least admit that her Mae West was better than Mae West's Mae West was by this point (case in point: [italic]Myra Breckinridge[/italic])

Jerry Herman musicals attract strong woman performers like flies to shit. Put yourself in her shoes. Would you turn down this role if offered to you for the kind of money she was getting? And for only your second film? And before your first one had even been released?

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[quote]Go ahead and thank me.

Thank you for being an obnoxious, self-important twit who pretends foreign films are inherently better than American ones because they weren't made in the United States, equates a classic Civil War melodrama with terrorism even though the main character challenged some of the restrictive roles, mores and social customs placed upon women of the era, and considers a member of the Nation of Islam an American hero. All your comments just convinced me that I'm right about this film. Baaaaaahhhhh!

Remember, a banana a day keeps the doctor away.

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[quote]For instance, I think Fellini's SATYRICON, which I mention in the post to which you are referring, is a self-indulgent piece of shit.

By that standard it's not better than [italic]Hello, Dolly![/italic].

[quote]GONE WITH THE WIND is jam-packed with racial stereotypes, and it indulges white America in its sentimental and racist notion that black women exist in order to coddle white babies.

And guess what happens to the lead who constantly rejected the advice of African-American woman: she ended up miserable and lonely.

The Margaret Mitchell estate has recently authorized a book filling in some of the details of Mammy's life.

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Wasnt this nominated for Best Picture?

You're an anti-semite if you call that film racist. If anything, it showed why the South deserved to lose the Civil War in the first place, yet there's also an anti-war message. He took out some of the most racist parts of the book. He even cooperated with the NAACP on the screenplay, but not to the point where it would have interfered with the story. Due to time constraints, however, the movie deprives the slaves of lives outside of their owners' fatal selfishness that was in the book.

[quote]Wasnt this nominated for Best Picture?

Yes, and it deserved it more than [italic]Doctor Dolittle[/italic], a sanctimonious, overlong, but good-looking film with one halfway decent (but by no means Oscar-worthy) song and several so-so songs. Eddie Murphy's version was worse.

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The only part of the film I didn't like was the the tennis player scene. I thought that was really old school, playing tennis in slow motion.

"Before the Parade Passes By" was an almost throw-away number to close the curtain on Act One of the stage version. Dolly did her monologue, then began singing. In groups of twos and threes, the chorus joined her on stage. Once the entire company was assembled, they paraded across the runway with Dolly waving a flag. They returned to their original places and sang the closing chorus with gusto. Bam! Curtain. It was short, sweet, simple, to the point, and brilliant.

The film version of that number goes on and on and adds nothing but a lot of empty spectacle produced at ruinous cost. The film trades the spontaneous joie de vivre of the stage company for a plodding and elephantine army on the march. Barbra's pointlessly long note at the end is the cherry on the sundae of this failed epic number.

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Well, I liked it.

[quote]Oh, right, [R218], and filmmakers who talk to GLAAD inevitably make breathtakingly non-homophobic films!

1939 vs. 2014. Selznick took all references to the Klan out of that because of [italic]Birth of a Nation[/italic] (now that's what I call racist; D.W. Griffith wouldn't even hire black actors!). That movie made the Klan into heroes and is credited with sparking the new KKK which was even worse than the old one. It was so much worse that Thomas Dixon, the author of the book "The Clansman" on which [italic]Birth of a Nation[/italic] was based, denounced the new Klan (not that they were any good to begin with).

[quote]OMG I totally agree with [R222]!

I don't. Do you really believe 1969 audiences would buy a New York parade that tiny on a realistic set? It works on stage with that small of a number of performers because that's all that can comfortably fit in a theater. If ever a number justified being opened up for film, it's that one.

R225, you have breadth of knowledge and strong perceptions on many motion pictures.

You do have a blind spot about Dolly, however.

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[quote]If ever a number justified being opened up for film, it's that one.

Opened up yes, but not flayed alive and left to sit in the sun for an hour which is what the film version seems to do.

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Let's be honest, very few of the actresses who did it in the Broadway run had talents that translated well to the screen. Pearl Bailey was the best thing about [italic]The Fox and the Hound[/italic], but I've never seen her live-action screen roles (Duncan Hines commercials don't count). Still, by that time so many older actresses had played the role, a younger actress (made up to pass for 35 at most) who could not only sing but tone it down when she needed to was a change of pace. And like I said, her ego is in check here compared to subsequent films.

R227: Mary! I'm trying to correct [bold]your[/bold] blind spots about Dolly. Why should anyone be subject to insult for questioning the supposed critical consensus on this film?

[quote]GONE WITH THE WIND encourages white people to think of black women as mammies who love and protect their white enslavers.

I didn't see Scarlett acting very loving towards her. You're just projecting.

You want to talk racism? Remember Admiral Boom shooting at sooted-up chimney sweeps dancing and singing a profoundly annoying song in that nanny movie? He thought they were Khoikhoi soldiers whom he called "Hottentots." I found it deeply offensive. That was 25 years and a bunch of civil rights gains after [italic]Gone with the Wind[/italic].

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R234: All the people who accuse Disney of every type of prejudice under the sun let that movie off the hook for some reason.

Dolly is spending so much time trying to arrange other people's lives, she ignores her own. Barbra's performance of "Parade," including the part where she talks to Horace's ghost, is genuinely touching.

GWTW is my Mother's favorite film. None of her black friends seem to mind this.

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Let's be honest, very few of the actresses who did it in the Broadway run had talents that translated well to the screen.

Ginger Rogers and Betty Grable certainly did. If the dumbbells at Fox had respected the integrity of the story told in Hello, Dolly! they might have done well to cast either of those women in the title role. Dolly is an older woman who has been out of public view for years. But she finally comes back for one glorious night and reigns supreme.

What a missed opportunity to bring back a glamorous screen goddess from days gone by for one final fling in Technicolor and widescreen! Even Dorothy Lamour would have been more appropriate a choice than Streisand.

Dorothy Lamour? Seriously? Maybe if she came down the steps of the Harmonia Gardens wearing a sarong.

[quote]Yeah, and I'm sure none of her gay friends mind when homosexuals in Uganda are beheaded, huh?

You really are a disgusting human being. Comparing this book to terrorism while praising a man who belonged to an anti-semitic cult and denouncing a film with the Jewish mother of a gay son giving one of the best performances of her career. Why should I take anything you have to say seriously?

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[quote]Calling Selznick racist isn't antisemitic.

Yes it is.

[quote]Calling Streisand a limited actor isn't antisemitic.

It's anti-semitic and sexist.

[quote]Calling GONE WITH THE WIND an instruction manual for reducing black people to stereotypes is accurate.

No, it isn't. The book also points out the racism of Northern carpetbaggers who want nothing to do with blacks.

But calling you a racist, an anti-semite and a sexist and a piece of shit for calling other people "terrorists" for appreciating good literature and insulting my mother is accurate.

Racism = prejudice + power. Power = numbers + desire to control and/or destroy others. Therefore only whites, Christians, Muslims and heterosexuals can be racist.

Blacks know more about whites than they know about themselves.

Jews know more about blacks or whites than they know about themselves.

Gays are the masters of every race.

R241 proves that [italic]anyone[/italic] can be barking mad.

The Marx Brothers resorted to the casual use of racial stereotypes to produce any number of cheap laughs on stage and in films.

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If you're so fucking tired of misogyny, why don't you complain about why an industry supposedly run by Jewish men calls so many Jewish women "difficult to work with." I hear this about Streisand, Midler, Bacall, SJP, even Lesley Ann Warren!

[quote]I'm sure Hattie McDaniel - who was not allowed to sit with anybody white at the Academy Awards ceremony where she won her Oscar - thought of everyone else in the room, including Selznick, as white.

She would have been wrong then. Meanwhile, Walt Disney, who was white, made a film about slavery that actually gave them personal lives and acknowledged the debt American culture owes to African-American folklore. But they don't want people to see it because they think it will make children racist, so they pulled it from circulation. It didn't work. There's still racism. Corporate suppression of intellectual property will not stop racism.

Is this terrorism to you, R240?

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Fuck you, R248 and all you other haters. I'm surprised more gay men don't like that movie. Bobby Driscoll's character gets beaten up by two cracker breeder goy thugs because of his lace shirt collar, just like gay kids in the South do today. It is not racist to appreciate the film for its many virtues, but quite frankly, because the gay subtext is so strong, if you don't like this movie, you're a homophobe. Period. Meanwhile, that nanny movie is racist, sexist, classist and just plain bad in so many ways, I can't believe it's held in such high regard. It's a fucking rip-off of [italic]Song of the South[/italic], except without any black people at all, and that's a step in the wrong direction, especially when you consider that the British Empire was not racially homogenous, and I highly doubt London of 1910 was, either. Uncle Remus teaches lessons that are relevant to children and adults of all races. Mary Poppins speaks in banal platitudes that are insensitive. Uncle Remus is kind and empathetic. Mary Poppins is cruel and narcissistic. [italic]Song of the South[/italic] had better animation and James Baskett did the best job of acting with nothing out of all the live-action/animation hybrids. Uncle Remus dents the racist social structure as whites and blacks walk hand in hand into a more hopeful future, an idealized one to be sure, but one that suggested peaceful reconciliation between blacks and whites. Mary Poppins reinforces the patriarchy as Mrs. Banks gives up on suffragism, Mr. Banks turns into a jolly smiling idiot and who gets his job back after he kills his boss? That's just fucking stupid!

Oh, and a spoonful of sugar does not help the medicine go down. It makes it necessary. In fact, it's one of the main causes of our current healthcare crisis.

Calling the Jews "white" is anti-semitic terrorism.

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Uncle Remus is supposed to be a wise and especially kindly human being. He is a freed slave and free to go where he pleases. It says something about you that you need Uncle Remus to kill his oppressors rather than live in peace with the world, content at this stage in his life with his own lot.

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[quote]Uncle Remus is the classic stereotype of the shuffling black man who wants nothing but to bring joy to Whitey, his oppressor.

Uncle Remus was based on a real person. Why are you trying to erase and marginalize the work of actors of color? There's a scene in the film where the aunt scolds him for telling his stories, and he plans to leave, which proves the film is set after the war.

Frankly, if Disney hasn't gotten shit for Splash Mountain, the prevalence of Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah (it was even in that Tom Hanks thing), and the fact that they released it on video overseas (even in Is rael, if you can believe!), and they can get away with making a movie where a black man plays the Devil, they might as well release it here. It's never been on video in the US and it will probably sell well because of the Streisand effect. There was another animated version of Uncle Remus with African-American voice actors several years ago on video, Wayne Brady and Wanda Sykes among them, but it went nowhere;[italic]Song of the South[/italic] also used black voice actors for the animated sequences.

Here's the history of the stories:

[quote] It says something about you that you need Uncle Remus to kill his oppressors

That's what I was trying to do!

It's also the new-found freedom that all black people are getting a chance at. Uncle Remus nearly leaves in the movie, demonstrating his freedom of movement and self-possession. Small steps can be giant ones.

[quote]Small steps can be giant ones.

I had a song about that topic, but they cut it and they still can't find it.

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You guys are so mean. I can't tell you how many times I have watched the "Put on Your Sunday Clothes" and "It Only Takes a Moment" numbers.

Hello Dolly is the best movie I have ever seen!

This thread is like a parody of political correctness.

how about letting it die?

Barbra wanted to interpolate her version of "Blackout on Broadway" from BABES ON BROADWAY into HELLO, DOLLY! but Gene Kelly nixed the idea.

[quote]This thread is like a parody of political correctness.

Political correctness is a parody of human decency.

[quote]how about letting it die?

Not until the haters admit they are wrong.

Patty Duke beat out Barbra Streisand for the Golden Globe Award for that year!

[quote]Patty Duke beat out Barbra Streisand for the Golden Globe Award for that year!

For a film that's not even on video!

[quote]I don't want to impugn the excellence and talents of any black actors in the Hollywood of that era

Then don't, and give your false moral equivalencies a rest, too. Did you ever even read any of the Uncle Remus stories?

R268 I know the injustice of it all.

Why is who framed Roger Rabbit racist?

[quote]how about letting it die?

Are you crazy??? We won't let that happen until after the parade is over. Why would you want to end a thread before the parade passes by?

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I didn't know they let the patients in the mental ward have internet access...!

[quote]I didn't know they let the patients in the mental ward have internet access...!

That must be how you got it to post your unhelpful self-loathing ableist crap.

You have lots of enemies.

"They're coming to get you, Barbara..."

And you're projecting your mental illness onto others, R275/R277.

Perhaps. But I have two responses (now three) while you have dozens.

So who needs help?

[quote]So who needs help?

You do, R275/R277/R279. Might I suggest a Blu-ray of [italic]Hello, Dolly![/italic]?

Once again, a potentially interesting thread has been sidelined by a psychotic digressive argument.

What the hell was Barbra thinking when she accepted the offer to play middle-aged Dolly before she was even 30 (in a musical that she would have NEVER been considered for on Broadway and she knew it!)?

Was she not getting any other decent films offers?

[quote]Older singers like John Raitt or Robert Preston or Robert Goulet or Howard Keel could have done Horace much better than W.M.

Horace is not a primarily a singing role, and of the three men you mentioned, only Preston had the right comic talents for the part. He actually might have been very good casting for Horace, but definitely not Goulet or Raitt. I think Matthau is very funny in the movie, and just about perfect for the part in terms of age and type.

As for Streisand accepting a role in which she was so miscast, I'm sure it was just a question of not having the nerve to turn down the plum musical role of the decade at the very beginning of her film career. But aside from her miscasting, she's also very funny, charming, entertaining, and pretty great in the part overall.

I totally agree about Kelly's direction and Crawford's performance. Just awful.

Why can't Dolly be interpreted as a girl in her 30s who has lost a husband? It happens all the time.

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The fact that so many posts have appeared on this thread in such a short time gives me hope for the DL, if not for all the people (I'm here, too) posting on it.

Glenda Jackson should have been cast as Dolly. She can sing and she's a better actress than Streisand/Channing:

Doris Day would have worked. Despite how some portray her, she wasn't a sickly sweet screen presence. And though her film career was on the wind down, she would have been a more realistic choice than some named.

"Why can't Dolly be interpreted as a girl in her 30s who has lost a husband? It happens all the time."

That's true. The only problem is that Dolly is supposed to have been away from the Harmonia Gardens for a very long time, which is why her comeback is such a big deal. And it's hard to believe she can have been away so long when she looks so young.

I love Doris Day as a singer, actress, and comedian, but I don't think she would have been right for Dolly. It's hard to think of anyone who had any box office clout at the time who would have been good casting. Lucille Ball might have been great in the part -- the "Dolly!" movie was made six years before the "Mame" movie -- IF she could sing, but that's a huge if.

You know who would have been fantastic in the "Dolly!" movie, but the studio heads were too dim and gutless to cast her? Angela Lansbury.

Dolly Levi is irascible and exasperating.

Doris Day was NEVER irascible nor exasperating. Even before she was a virgin.

The perfect portrayal of the character can easily be found in Shirley Booth's performance in the film The Matchmaker.

Many of you here will only know her from her Emmy-winning hit TV series Hazel in which she played an irascible and exasperating maid.

But Shirley also starred in several Broadway musicals, including the hits A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and By the Beautiful Sea and the flop Look to the Lilies.

What a shame Shirley never got to portray Dolly in the musical version, either on Broadway or in the film.

Mitzi Gaynor!!!

Gwen Verdon would have been a good choice: right age for the part, good actress, good dancer, Marni Nixon was still working.

Doris Day could be exasperating. See some of her Hudson/Garner comedies. Mary Martin did DOLLY to great success. Day could have done it in a similar way.

Lucy was never a singer. She was dubbed in her RKO musicals, and the smoking and drinking started taking a toll on her voice in the 1960s. Even on [italic]I Love Lucy[/italic], her voice seemed to drop an octave in the middle of the run.

Prior to [italic]Murder She Wrote[/italic], Angela Lansbury was known to Hollywood mainly as a supporting actress. It also seems they were more likely to take a chance on male leads from Broadway than female ones. True to form, Disney was willing to take a chance on her as Miss Price in [italic]Bedknobs and Broomsticks[/italic] because TV and theater actors work cheaper and faster than movie stars. The cost of the film would have made Fox less willing to take a chance on her, and the excuse Warner Bros. used for not casting her in [italic]Mame[/italic] was "she's not box-office" and Lucy was (despite covering up the father's horrific abuse of his kids, [italic]Yours, Mine and Ours[/italic] was a hit). Angela being replaced by an undubbed non-singer in [italic]Mame[/italic] was far more of a tragedy.

Most of you seem pretty exasperated by Streisand. That's one thing in her favor.

[quote]It wasn't ever a great musical, anyway, but the movie doesn't do it any favors.

No. "Hello Dolly" IS a great musical. It is considered so by just about everyone but you. It is meticulously crafted in its libretto, score, and direction, and is very fluid and vibrant on stage. The right cast or even a half right cast can play it very effectively.

The movie is wildly over-produced. Other than Streisand and Matthews, the cast is full of goofy nobodies, who don't register well, and the grandness of the proceedings swamp the show. That is its biggest flaw, not the performances, nor the casting of the leads.

Jessie Matthews was in Hello, Dolly? She would have bee a fun Mame.

There is no such thing as overproduction when it comes to musicals. That is the most overused word used to dismiss every single solitary movie musical over the last 50 years. Not everything needs to be a small, intimate chamber piece.

[quote]Other than Streisand and Matthews

Oh dear! If we're to take your pompous dismissals seriously, the least you could do is get the actor's names right!

[quote] Not everything needs to be a small, intimate chamber piece.

Disagree. We should strip everything of laughs and mine the depth, the DEPTH!

Doris Day could be exasperating.

For Doris Day, the DP would have smeared more Vaseline on the diffusion filters than they did for Barbra and Lucy put together.

Not really a fan of the movie, but I think big movies suffer from being viewed on a small screen. What looks overproduced when viewed on a tv, was glorious in 70mm technicolor. Even many of the classic b&w movies are seen in a completely different dimension when presented as they were intended, on the big movie screen.

Ok then - Lana Turner

Lana Turner was barely an actress.

and Patty Duke beat Barbra Streisand for the Golden Globe Award that Year

Patty Duke should have played it. She had the voice of... the voice of... words can't describe.

Patty didn't just have a voice, she had two of them!

I never understand why people say Dolly is overproduced. It's a fanciful musical representation of a magnificent city about to burst at its seams.

How can you overproduce that?

You want a 14th street parade with 100 extras? In fact if anything it is underproduced. Have you looked at pictures of crowd and parade scenes from this era? There are as many people as pebbles of sand on a beach.

Where are they now?

r308: Mary!

MARY MARTIN

What other movies used the sets from [italic]Dolly[/italic]?

Who gets to dictate what the appropriate scale of a movie musical is?

I do.

Stephen Sondheim, of course.

Anybody on this thread is a Virgin Mary. Or might as well consider themselves one at this point in their lives.

The Immaculate Conception thing though I don't think would hold.

[quote]Stephen Sondheim, of course.

You mean Stephen "movie musicals don't work unless I like them" Sondheim? That Stephen Sondheim?

r298 says "Overproduced is the most overused word used to dismiss every single solitary movie musical over the last 50 years"

Nobody has said that on this thread, and why would they? Strawman much?

He also said "There is no such thing as overproduction when it comes to musicals" which is more than just a mere opinion, it is a plain falsehood.

[quote]Nobody has said that on this thread

You mean besides R195, R296 and the "Gone with the Wind is terrorism" troll R139?

[quote] You mean Stephen "movie musicals don't work unless I like them" Sondheim? That Stephen Sondheim?

No Stephen "Movie musical don't work unless they're adaptations of my work and the cheque's cleared" Sondheim.

Recently, he decided that the scale of the Last 5 Years movie should be "never to be seen".

Hey r317, I actually did say it!

I mean over-produced as in the damn thing EXHAUSTS the viewer when it is trying to DAZZLE and delight the viewer, in my opinion. It is lugubriously paced and feels bogged down to me, which is frustrating, because of its obvious charms at times.

[quote]I feel my contribution to this thread has helped make it a spirited and amusing place to be! Go ahead and thank me.

I'd rather go ahead and crucify you! I trolldar-ed you and read all of your replies, MY what a screeching harpy you are. I imagine your parents spent good money to give you an expensive liberal arts education, and all you got out of it was your obsession of calling everyone HOMOPHOBIC! Anti-SEMITIC!, RACIST! and MISOGYNISTIC! whenever...well, actually whenever they say ANYTHING!

Your suggestion that GWTW, by depicting the character of the slave "Mammy" gives people the IDEA that black women are to be perceived this way is so laughable, I tried to think of something more ridiculous, and could only imagine that you would object to any depiction of The Chicago Fire, because it would give people the idea that all cows were pyromaniacs! Give it a REST you delicate snowflake! We don't need saving, and certainly not from a fascist like you!

I am attempting to draw a picture of the tiresome churl you must be at a cocktail party, but my imagination is sadly limited when it comes to the obscene.

It was I who called Water Matthau, "Matthews", sorry. I was so hyper-caffeinated by this unexpectedly exciting "Hello Dolly 2014" thread, I got sloppy and was typing ahead of my thinking, which is so prevalent in this thread I had to get in on it!

In other observations: Ginger Rogers would have been awful. She's a shitty actress, and the clips of her playing Dolly on Broadway are awful, especially when you compare them to the utterly sublime Pearl Bailey, who for my money (but not Hollywood's) was the best Dolly I've ever seen. She was a very talented woman.

Robert Preston would have been excellent as Horace. Judy Garland would have been excellent as Dolly, but it is beyond reason to think she was in good enough shape at any moment after 1962 to play this role.

Can you imagine a LOGO game show where two gay gangs look to destroy each other by having opposing views of world changing topics like this? They could call it "HISSY FIT!", and I do believe it would draw an audience.

Except the rabid troll who would seek to shame us all by reminding us how homophobic that title is!

Lugubriously paced? Do you have ADD and need to have cuts every three seconds to stay awake? People like you and MTV helped sabotage the future of movie musicals.

Streisand has given some very good performances, this - and I realize that Pauline Kael, whom I loved disagrees with me; she often did - is not one of them.

You loved Pauline Kael, R322? You're part of the problem.

[quote]Can you imagine a LOGO game show where two gay gangs look to destroy each other by having opposing views of world changing topics like this? They could call it "HISSY FIT!", and I do believe it would draw an audience.

Yes! Yes! Yes!

I want to be on the team with Anderson Cooper.

R240 has about a dozen posts calling GWTW racist.

You could say the ERA of GWTW was racist, but it is silly to say the film is. An unfortunate era of history is brought to the screen by some fine actors. Hattie is excellent, as usual; I have seen several of her films, and she is a powerful force as an actress.

She also is the most intelligent character in GWTW. I would say she and Scarlett share the role of the main character. One is rich, spoiled, headstrong yet crafty. One is poor, is a respected servant (with some power), who clearly sees things and people for what they are.

You can't always label something you personally dislike as racist. You could almost call any film before 1990 racist, if you were going that way. What about To Kill A Mockingbird? Is that racist too?

R306 it was the producers fault not her fault

[quote]I am attempting to draw a picture of the tiresome churl you must be at a cocktail party, but my imagination is sadly limited when it comes to the obscene.

I imagine him being like Katie in [italic]The Way We Were[/italic] in the scene where Redford and his buddies are joking about FDR's death. In short, a humorless, fatuous, pedantic pill who will die single and lonely.

I think Kidd's choreography here is awful. It's very ...BUSY. Lots of colorless hopping and jumping. A simple number like "Dancing" becomes overlong and bloated. To be fair, "Put on Your Sunday Clothes" gets very involved with dozens of extra, but the number builds excitingly as Streisand belts out the films homage to "The Trolley Song".

Can you take the GWTW mishegos to another thread? Or dig up the last thread about it?

R325. Some would argue Mockingbird IS racist, in it's use of Tom Robinson as the saintly "convenient" Negro martyr, whose trial and death serve to show Atticus' natural goodness and to help Scout learn a moral lesson--but Tom himself is a fairly flat character. Too harsh a reading for me, but I understand and acknowledge some of its validity.

And yes, GWTW has racist elements--for me, most principally in the opening prologue (the textual crawl) which uses language of knighthood and chivalry to valorize an ugly, ugly, violent part of our history.

And I write as an over-50 white gay man who grew up on and enjoyed these movies (and still take pleasure from both)--but there's no point in pretending they were something other than what they were. As Frederic Jameson famously wrote, "History is what hurts."

r298 said says "Overproduced is the most overused word used to dismiss [bold]every single solitary movie musical over the last 50 years[/bold]"

People say every single solitary movie musical is overproduced?

Nobody has said that, and why would they?

But yes, many do say it about Hello, Dolly!, both when it came out and all the way up to and including this thread.

[quote]Nobody has said that, and why would they?

Maybe that's an exaggeration, but not by much. I've heard it used so much used by musical-illiterate film critics and regurgitated by theater queens who are simply trying to tear down their own because they can't be involved with it that it's become a meaningless stock insult. That and complaints about anything that runs so much as a second over two hours cause me to disregard your opinions and assume you'd be better off with lasers and explosions.

[quote]But yes, many do say it about Hello, Dolly!, both when it came out and all the way up to and including this thread.

They were wrong then and they are wrong now. R308 had a very good point about the parade scene. It is believable that a parade would be as big as it is in the movie, even though I've seen modern-day pride parades that were bigger than that.

The parade scene was over-produced. If you've been to the Macy's parade or St. Patrick's parade, you don't view thousands upon thousands of people. You see hundreds of people all around you. Watching them on TV from home, you just see parade watchers that are within a half block of the cameras. The parade scene just wasn't like what you would actually experience at a parade in NYC. It was overdone.

Even so, it's still better aesthetically than those two tacky things, R333.

For comparison's sake, here's what an actual city parade from the 1890s looked like:

[quote]The parade scene just wasn't like what you would actually experience at a parade in NYC. It was overdone.

Musical comedy should mirror reality!!!! Yes!!!

[quote]The parade scene just wasn't like what you would actually experience at a parade in NYC. It was overdone.

Well excuse the fuck out of us, who knew it was a documentary?

[quote]The parade scene was over-produced.

See, R317?

From now on, all movie musicals should have a quota of 100 extras and only 1 big crowd dance number. Would that satisfy all you vicious, mean-spirited bitches?

I always thought Charmian Carr might make a good Irene.

I could not see most of the movie, Streisand's big nose took up 95% of the screen.

I thought Streisand ruined her instrument playing this role making the transition from a singularly unique artist to AM radio and one of the most lucrative careers in show business. But she lost me for good. Her voice became processed. Like Velveeta.

[quote]Streisand's big nose took up 95% of the screen.

The US postal service, when discussing the living legends series of stamps, realized they couldn't fit her profile on a single stamp.

[quote]I thought Streisand ruined her instrument playing this role making the transition from a singularly unique artist to AM radio and one of the most lucrative careers in show business. But she lost me for good. Her voice became processed. Like Velveeta.

No, that was my doing.

[quote]You loved Pauline Kael, [R322]? You're part of the problem.

Fuck off and die, asshole.

[quote]Fuck off and die, asshole.

You first. May I suggest this method:

Could "die sat on a hot curling iron" become the new "die in a grease fire"?

Unfortunately for you, I called it first: so you have to go first, not I.

Here's my suggested method for you:

R346: Are you the hippo?

Meanwhile, back to the actual topic of this thread, whatever happened to Judy Knaiz?

George Roy Hill, director of [italic]Thoroughly Modern Millie[/italic] to Kael after her review of [italic]Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid[/italic] (she didn't like it, either):

[quote]“Listen you miserable bitch, you’ve got every right in the world to air your likes and your dislikes, but you got no goddamn right at all to fake, at my expense, a phony technical knowledge you simply don’t have.”

The woman was a cunt plain and simple. Cunt cunt cunt cunt cunt cunt cunt cunt cunt! She was the Julie of film critics.

[quote]She also is the most intelligent character in GWTW. I would say she and Scarlett share the role of the main character.

R325. Hattie is no way a co-lead. Yes, Mammy is an integral part of Scarlett's life, but she disappears for periods of time, especially when Scarlett goes to Atlanta for the latter half of Part I, and then in Part II she's just there and doesn't have a scene of importance until toward the end when she and Melanie are walking up the stairs and she cries when telling about Rhett's reaction to Bonnie's death.

If anything, Melanie is more of a co-lead. She has more screen time than Mammy and is a foil to Scarlett. Mitchell does this a lot in the book, contrasting Scarlett's shortcomings with Melanie's virtues.

I know it's very PC nowadays to give characters of color more importance, but come on!

Are the people saying Hello Dolly was overproduced the same ones who say that the film of My Fair Lady looks claustrophobic, artificial and studio-bound?

Movie musicals based on Broadway shows post-1950s really couldn't win either way.

[quote]Movie musicals based on Broadway shows post-1950s really couldn't win either way.

I guess you've never even heard of "The Sound of Music."

[quote]Are the people saying Hello Dolly was overproduced the same ones who say that the film of My Fair Lady looks claustrophobic, artificial and studio-bound? Movie musicals based on Broadway shows post-1950s really couldn't win either way.

This. There's no pleasing some people. It's either too faithful or not faithful enough, too big or not big enough. Too much this, not enough that. I cringe when I see every stale line trotted out so uncreatively. There is no critical thinking involved with such a process. But with all the cultural changes of the time, including the New Hollywood anti-musical backlash (and I believe homophobia was a factor in that) I'm not even sure [italic]The Sound of Music[/italic], as great a piece of filmmaking as it is (seriously), would have been as commercially successful as it was had it been released in 1970.

In retrospect The Sound of Music is the ONLY one that stands up. Then and now.

I also reject the "movie musicals only work if they're about music" argument, which I heard Bill Condon misguidedly claim on one of the Blu-ray supplements for [italic]Dreamgirls[/italic].

R352, that is such a stupid, simplistic position. I think My Fair Lady looks great and perfectly produced, and that Hello, Dolly! is the opposite of that.

It's not all or nothing, and don't presume to speak for anyone other than yourself. Quit setting up straw men that you can easily knock down.

[quote]I'm not even sure The Sound of Music, as great a piece of filmmaking as it is (seriously), would have been as commercially successful as it was had it been released in 1970.

It was re-released in 1973 and made a fortune all over again. And when it was released on TV in 1976 for the first time, it was to record ratings.

It's really a film that people love.

[quote]It's not all or nothing, and don't presume to speak for anyone other than yourself. Quit setting up straw men that you can easily knock down.

You may not have been reading the threads I was reading. In fact I know you weren't because they weren't on DL. They were on other sites where the subject came up.

BTW, I know someone whose opinion is the exact opposite of yours, and I think he's just plain wrong, too. They're both fabulous films, IMO.

Yes, the Sound of Music is idiot-proof.

[quote]Yes, the Sound of Music is idiot-proof.

A pop singer playing Maria von Trapp. Fie and foo to the very idea of it!

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The "GWTW is terrorism" troll is back.

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Fascist.

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R6/R28, Julie in Mary Poppins got the Oscar regardless of the performance and her age. It was the consolation Oscar that year for having been so strikingly denied the lead in the movie version of My Fair Lady. It was widely agreed that Julie should have been cast in MFL but Jack Warner wouldn't hear of it. It was a big budget film and he felt he needed a star so he repeated refused to cast Julie.

Ditto Bette Davis for having won for Dangerous immediately after she was robbed of the Oscar for her magnificent performance in Of Human Bondage. Bette basically laughed off the Oscar for Dangerous she received and always rightly credited her performance in Of Human Bondage for her first Oscar for Dangerous.

See the clip of Julie's acceptance speech for the golden globe in which she slams that jack-ass, Jack Warner, for not having cast her in My Fair Lady which directly resulted in her being able to take Mary Poppins instead.

Oh, I'm not teasing you. I genuinely think people who spend all their time telling people what they can and cannot say or do are a menace to society.

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[quote]Julie in Mary Poppins got the Oscar regardless of the performance and her age.

In the DVD documentary about [italic]My Fair Lady[/italic], Julie says she believed the sentiment over that film's casting was why she won. I have no doubts she would have aced it, but if Jack Warner had cast her as Eliza, I doubt he would have also cast Rex Harrison and Stanley Holloway. He seemed much more willing to cast male Broadway leads than female ones.

Not counting special awards for James Baskett for [italic]Song of the South[/italic], Bobby Driscoll for [italic]So Dear to My Heart[/italic] and Hayley Mills for [italic]Pollyanna[/italic], no Disney film has ever been nominated for a competitive acting award before or after. No one else from that nanny movie was nominated for anything for it, IIRC.

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[quote]I'd've given the award to Loren.

If I limited my choice only to actually nominated actresses, I'd have done the same. Sorry Walt, you shouldn't have fired Tommy Kirk.

Tyler Perry is more offensive than GWTW by a long shot. He takes his anger out on his father who molested him out on all other black men while slut-shaming and poz-shaming women with Christian fundamentalist propaganda.

Christ, r369, are you drunk? Give it a fucking REST! This thread isn't even ABOUT Gone With the Wind!

You've made your point, now let it go. You're not going to change anyone's mind by your continued ranting, just like you don't when you're in your "misogyny is killing us" mode.

Have you sought treatment for you alcohol problems?

It's my right to say what I want, and what I want to say is: everyone with any sense knows that, no matter if GWTW is or isn't racist, R369 is a total jackass who needs to get help. If we still had the flames and freaks forum, he would be sent over there on a permanent basis.

[quote]Never could see the thing about Julie Andrews.

I'd have given her the Oscar for [italic]The Sound of Music[/italic] easily.

Tough, tough moment for Rex Harrison. Just look at Julie's cold face at the 33 second mark.

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[quote]Not counting special awards for James Baskett for Song of the South, Bobby Driscoll for So Dear to My Heart and Hayley Mills for Pollyanna, no Disney film has ever been nominated for a competitive acting award before or after. No one else from that nanny movie was nominated for anything for it, IIRC.

Johnny Depp got a Best Actor nomination in 2003 for PIRATES OF THE CARRIBEAN: THE CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL. It's the only Disney film that has gotten an acting nomination.

Yes, Julie Andrews was MARY POPPINS' sole acting nomination, although David Tomlinson deserved a Supporting Actor nod, IMO. He really is the heart and soul of the movie.

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[quote]David Tomlinson deserved a Supporting Actor nod, IMO. He really is the heart and soul of the movie.

He was better as Mr. Browne. Pity his introductory solo number went unseen for 25 years.

[quote]there is no universe in which Julie Andrews has anything like the charisma, beauty, charm, audacity, real-ness, sexiness, openness, stunning presence of Julie Christie.

Compared to the real Maria Von Trapp, Julie comes out ahead in all those departments. She was also bipolar.

[quote]But Julie Christie is one of the half dozen most mesmerizing movie stars ever.

Hell, yes. Pauline Kael said something to the extent that every one of Christie's half-buried thoughts are apparent onscreen (I'm paraphrasing and doing it badly). If you watch her face in any film you see how true that statement of Kael's is--Christie's just amazingly subtle, but nevertheless her emotions are clear as a bell.

And then, of course, she's so amazingly beautiful.

[quote]Stephen "Movie musical don't work unless they're adaptations of my work and the cheque's cleared" Sondheim. Recently, he decided that the scale of the Last 5 Years movie should be "never to be seen."

I guess you mistyped. Can you please fix the quote about "The Last 5 Years," because I'd love to know what Sondheim said.

[R 377] Julie Andrews was also nominated for Best Actress Oscars for "The Sound of Music' and "Victor/Victoria".

R356, I meant to say "it's the only OTHER Disney film to get an acting nomination."

The first PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN and MARY POPPINS are the only Disney films to get acting nominations.

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[quote]I begin to understand why you are all so hostile to my posts about DL misogyny: you can't really read.

We can read, we just prefer skimming past the boring parts. That happens to be everything you've ever posted. Is it misogynistic to call a man a cunt?

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[quote]Only if you're a Cockney, I think. Are you a Cockney?

No, just more than Dick Van Dyke will ever be.

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[quote]What was DVD thinking with that accent!

Sometimes he sounds Australian, other times Irish.

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My eyes are BLEEDING, coughing and sneezing after having seen video presented by R334.

God'll getcha, R334.

I liked it when the camera slowly moved from the burned plantation home up to the blue sky.

I like blue, do you like blue, too?

[quote]I liked it when the camera slowly moved from the burned plantation home up to the blue sky.

The sky didn't look so blue on the Blu-ray.

[quote]Oh, I'm not teasing you. I genuinely think people who spend all their time telling people what they can and cannot say or do are a menace to society.

Except when shrieking how everyone is either a criminal or a rabid Z*i*o*nist, right?

[quote]Except when shrieking how everyone is either a criminal or a rabid Z*i*o*nist, right?

Fuck you, R394. If you are not a Z ionist, you are a bigot. It's that simple.

R 384, the fact that you can't access the beauty and charm of Julie Andrews' performances proves that YOU'RE the misogynist around her, you filthy drunk.

[quote]you filthy drunk

Hey, I resemble that remark!

What...what did R342 just say?

Clive Davis was head of Columbia when Barbra started to go modern; this is the period when she recorded "Stoney End."

It was foolish of the producers to believe that the film version required a hot screen name in 1969. The show was the definitive Broadway smash hit of the 1960s. Millions were guaranteed to buy movie tickets. Many would do so because they were well aware of the great buzz around the live show but never had the means or opportunity to see it. The right older star would have been better than the hot young one who was wrong for the role in every way.

Look at Shirley Booth paired with Paul Ford in The Matchmaker and you'll understand why the whole piece hinges on the difference between young couples marrying for lusty physical love and old couples marrying for personal comfort and companionship. They should have aged up Walter Matthau and cast a Dolly who could pull off a vivacious fifty. A proper Dolly would have made the whole thing better even if they kept the repellent Michael Crawford.

[quote]It was foolish of the producers to believe that the film version required a hot screen name in 1969.

Would David Merrick ever have put an unknown in the role on stage? Carol Channing was far from an obscure figure, and [italic]Dolly![/italic] wasn't even her first starring role.

Broadway and Hollywood are both businesses and they'll go for what sells. Every Dolly after Channing was well-known to theatregoers.

One thing I've noticed is that when a movie makes money, everyone wants to take the credit. When a movie doesn't make money, everyone wants to pass the buck.

Can't you at least concede the film its due for the aspects that earned it the 3 technical Oscars it won?

[quote]The show was the definitive Broadway smash hit of the 1960s.

No, it was not. "Fiddler on the Roof" was--it ran longer.

And the main reason "Dolly" ran as long as it did (though I am not denying it was a big hit in its own right) is that David Garrick had the brilliant idea of bringing in a whole string of famous movie actresses and celebrities to play the part when Channing left: Ginger Rogers, martha Raye, Betty Grable, Phyllis Diller, Ethel Merman, and even Pearl Bailey (in an all-black version). Nobody had done that kind of replacement stunt casting before on quite that scale, and people kept coming back to see the old stars.

[quote]Would David Merrick ever have put an unknown in the role on stage?

Ginger Rogers, Betty Grable, and Mary Martin were household names who triumphed on stage in Dolly. Any of them would have been well cast in the film if they cared about doing it right for the ages instead of just making a fast buck in 1970.

If you don't want a middle-aged leading lady in your movie musical, don't do Hello, Dolly!. Streisand sank the movie, her talent notwithstanding.

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David Garrick died in 1779, r402, just about the time Carol Channing first stepped on stage.

Dolly won more Tonys than Fiddler and likely got better press with each new Dolly than Fiddler got with its new Tevyes. Dolly also gave us "Hello, Lyndon" - the ubiquitous tune of the 1964 Presidential election.

You will accept color-blind casting but not age-blind casting. Hmmmm...

[quote]Dolly also gave us "Hello, Lyndon" - the ubiquitous tune of the 1964 Presidential election.

She also had some nice things to say about Ronald Reagan after his death.

I love the the movie, despite it's obvious flaws: a sour leading man, three flamingly homosexual guys in the other every other male character with decent screen time, Michael Crawford's bizarre sense of pitch, Barbra's various accents, and the deadly pacing...the story takes FOREVER to wrap up.

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To the anti-misogyny troll: [italic]Gone with the Wind[/italic] was written by a woman.

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[quote]You will accept color-blind casting but not age-blind casting. Hmmmm.

The story properly told is about a middle-aged woman who prevents an irascible old coot from making a fool of himself by marrying a woman young enough to be his daughter. The younger woman is compensated for losing the richer man by being introduced to a younger man she truly loves and prefers. That is the story. The ages of the characters are relevant to the plot.

Make Dolly a twenty-six-year-old and the character becomes an unseemly double-dealing money-grubber who interferes in a perfectly good match between paying customers to seize the rich one for herself while foisting a poor and obnoxious boob on her prettier rival. Streisand and Matthau's characters deserve each other but the only happy thing about it is that a long movie is finally ending.

Oh, an color-blind casting can be annoying too. Not always but sometimes.

My grandmother and grandfather fought a lot. They even fought in the hotel room when I was 9 and they took me to New York City for the first time, but they remained married for 59 years until his death. I've seen people act similar to that, so I can believe Barbra and Walter in their parts. There was comparable but lesser age difference between my other grandparents; they were 16 years apart, but the stars of this film were 22 years apart in age. If this bothers you, consider Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison in [italic]My Fair Lady[/italic]. 21 years between the two of them.

[quote]Make Dolly a twenty-six-year-old and the character becomes an unseemly double-dealing money-grubber who interferes in a perfectly good match between paying customers to seize the rich one for herself while foisting a poor and obnoxious boob on her prettier rival.

That's heterosexuality in a nutshell.

Color-blind casting only works on stage. When Disney cast multiracial actors for their TV remakes of CINDERELLA, ANNIE, and THE MUSIC MAN, it was very jarring. Well, CINDERELLA takes place in a magical kingdom, so you can suspend disbelief. But ANNIE and MUSIC MAN take place specifically in 1930s NYC and 1912 Iowa, respectively, so to have black, Hispanic, and Asian extras among the cast is unrealistic. Casting Grace Farrell as a black woman is very unrealistic. That a woman of color be a white billionaire's personal assistant and then marries him is ridiculous.

Also, having a black Mother Superior in Nazi-occupied Austria in that SOUND OF MUSIC LIVE! with Carrie Underwood was also beyond silly.

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When Dolly opened at the very end of '69 the world was a very different place from when the stage version opened at the very beginning of '64.

The supposed built-in audience for Dolly that went to see MFL and SOM just a few years before started staying home in droves. The new youth audience that was now making films big successes had no interest in it.

I think Streisand in it was a major factor in it making any money at all. At the lastest it would have made more money even in '68. Like Oliver and Funny Girl.

And Warner's first male choices were Grant and Cagney for MFL. They both turned him down. At that time Lady seemed to be the greatest property of all time and Warner still wanted star insurance. Even GWTW had Gable. Only the Rodgers and Hammerstein vehicles were felt not to need stars.

Hated this and couldn't finish it. I watched the original story -- The Matchmaker, starring Shirley Booth, Shirley MacLaine and Anthony Perkins -- recently and loved it.

Much of the charm of the original stage production was the stylization of the period sets and costumes.

The horse that towed the trolley in carrying Dolly for her first appearance was actually played by 2 chorus girls in an obvious horse costume. Their "hooves" even had charming turn of the century spats on them, IIRC.

That kind of stylization can't (and shouldn't) be duplicated on film.

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Louis Armstrong's hit single of Hello Dolly was in 1964, which was light years away from 1968-69 culturally. (His name is pronounced "Louie" btw).

[quote]Why not duplicated on film? The 'naturalism' of the film is part of what seems so false. It'd've worked better if it had been really stylized, if it made you aware at all times that you were watching something that belonged onstage.

Very few movie musicals have been made with this concept, and many of those that were have been criticized for that very reason -- GUYS AND DOLLS, for example.

All movie musicals are "stylized" to the extent that they're musicals, with people breaking into song in everyday situations. (Exceptions include CABARET.) Some movie musicals are more stylized than others in terms of camera techniques, costuming, use of location filming as opposed to sets on sound stages, and so on. But very few of them have the goal of making you "aware at all times that you are watching something that belongs onstage."

HD was among the five biggest hits of the year.

What kind of business did "STAR!" and "Darling Lili" do?

"If this bothers you, consider Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison in My Fair Lady. 21 years between the two of them."

But the age difference in My Fair Lady serves a purpose. Higgins being older than Eliza works well with the premise of the plot. There was, in fact, 19 years difference between Leslie Howard and Wendy Hiller in Pygmalion.

This is not true with The Matchmaker or Hello, Dolly. Dolly Levi is a middle aged widow who wants to return to the lights of 14th Street. Liza Doolittle is a young, unformed prisoner of the gutter who wants to make something of herself in a world that is not set up for her to achieve.

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[quote]But the age difference in My Fair Lady serves a purpose. Higgins being older than Eliza works well with the premise of the plot. There was, in fact, 19 years difference between Leslie Howard and Wendy Hiller in Pygmalion

Not to mention that, in the original play's text, Shaw states that Higgins is "forty years old" and Eliza is "perhaps eighteen, perhaps twenty, hardly older." So there should definitely be a generation gap between them.

r417 feels if he just remains INDIGNANT enough, facts and reason will melt away!

Barbra had a contractual obligation to do Dolly. She didn't enjoy it, and has said so many times. She was told she could be sued if she backed out, and in retrospect, said she should have let them sue. But objecting to it, at that time, was not how she thought. She was well aware that she was far too young for the role. Check out her interview with James Lipton on "Inside the Actors Studio."

Barbra also called [italic]What's Up Doc?[/italic], which is her best film IMO, "infantile."

[quote]Sondheim's right, though. Most movie musicals are awful.

Especially the ones based on his overrated, pretentious and dreary solo works.

[quote]The supposed built-in audience for Dolly that went to see MFL and SOM just a few years before started staying home in droves. The new youth audience that was now making films big successes had no interest in it.

Those "young people" are now decrepit old people. I hope they're happy at how they've sacrificed American popular culture at the altar of rock 'n' roll, and [italic]Dolly![/italic] was one of its biggest, most beautiful sacrificial lambs.

[quote]What kind of business did "STAR!" and "Darling Lili" do?

Those couldn't even equal Dolly's gross put together. Julie turned down [italic]Chitty Chitty Bang Bang[/italic] and [italic]Bedknobs and Broomsticks[/italic] for fear of typecasting, and while they, too, performed disappointingly in the US, they did well in the UK, even without her.

At least we got [italic]S.O.B.[/italic] because of them.

[quote]Barbra had a contractual obligation to do Dolly. She didn't enjoy it, and has said so many times. She was told she could be sued if she backed out, and in retrospect, said she should have let them sue.

I thought that was why she made [italic]Funny Lady[/italic].

[quote]Those "young people" are now decrepit old people. I hope they're happy at how they've sacrificed American popular culture at the altar of rock 'n' roll, and Dolly! was one of its biggest, most beautiful sacrificial lambs.

Speaking as one of those onetime "young people," I was only familiar with the song, "Hello, Dolly." I couldn't wait for it to finish so we could get back to more Beatles, Beach Boys, Lesley Gore, and Dusty Springfield. Talk about geezer music.

[quote] thought that was why she made Funny Lady.

It was. R429 is mistaken. She had a three picture deal with Ray Stark, Fanny Brice's son in law. One was "Funny Girl" two was "The Owl and the Pussycat" and three was "Funny Lady".

Fox knew the film was weak. On opening day December 17 1969, they took out a whopping two inch ad, buried on the bottom of the page in The New York Times for a roadshow production at Broadway's Rivoli Theater.

438 posts and not one mention of Danny Lockin's amazing butt?

R436, I'm afraid you are the one who is mistaken. Streisand signed a four-picture deal (not three) with Stark. The fourth movie was THE WAY WE WERE.

Still, no one has explained why, if Barbra hated making DOLLY, she agreed to do it.

She was never exactly a pushover.

[quote]438 posts and not one mention of Danny Lockin's amazing butt?

If men didn't really wear pants that tight in the 1890s, I don't care.

It's easy to understand what Dolly saw in Horace. He was cantankerous and approaching old age, therefore he was likely to die young from a heart attack. Dolly, likely being no more than 35, would have more time to spend the money.

Sadly R438, that amazing ass got poor Danny murdered.

Wow his killer got almost no time.

The Danny Lockin Story:

[quote]Wow his killer got almost no time.

Gay people can't get justice.

Streisand did DOLLY for only one good reason.

One Million 1968 dollars.

She decided to ask Liz's fee and was almost shocked when Fox agreed to it.

Liz got 1 million in 1961. That wasn't so much or so unique in 1969.

Really, R448? What other actresses were commonly being paid a million dollars per film at the end of the 1960s?

They should use computer-generated imagery (CGI) to put her current face on her Dolly face. That would fix it so the film is not such a big mess. CGI could also be used to delete about 5,000 extras so that the parade scene only used 2,500 people.

Audrey Hepburn got a million bucks for [italic]My Fair Lady[/italic].

Audrey Hepburn is another miscast leading lady. Fortunately she doesn't ruin the film altogether as Streisand does in Hello, Dolly. I can see why they cast Hepburn but to me she sounds like she's imitating a cockney rather than being one. The movie is hard to take until cockney Eliza finally shuts up.

[quote]In retrospect The Sound of Music is the ONLY one that stands up. Then and now.

Hey, what about me?

[quote]Still, no one has explained why, if Barbra hated making DOLLY, she agreed to do it.

Because Carol Channing in Dolly beat Barbra as Fannie Brice for the Tony for Best Actress in a Musical in 1964. Stealing the film away from Channing would be worth whatever grief she got out of it.

The problem with that website is that it tries to pretend Lockin was straight. Notice how they don't mention that it was a gay bar that Lockin and his friend went to, and don't even deal with the reason he went with jus killer (to have sex).

That's "Fanny", r454.

Humph!

Actually YOU are mistaken r436..

Funny Girl

The Owl and the Pussycat

For Pete's Sake

The Way We Were

Funny Lady

She had a five picture deal with Ray Stark...

So then did Barbra make On a Clear Day... to prove she was more talented than Barbara Harris?

If so, she was wrong again.

Actually it was a SEVEN picture deal and Ray Stark produced "Yentl" from the grave.

R457, not according to the information I found about FOR PETE'S SAKE:

"The picture—produced by Erlichman—was not a continuation of her four-movie contract with producer Ray Stark. However, Stark's Rastar Productions produced the film which was distributed by Columbia Pictures. Barbra's four films contracted with Ray Stark were: Funny Girl, Owl and the Pussycat, The Way We Were, and Funny Lady."

Barbra made On a Clear Day to prove once and for all that she can't do accents.

[quote]If so, she was wrong again.

At least Barbra with one "A" didn't have a nervous breakdown on stage.

[quote]Barbra made On a Clear Day to prove once and for all that she can't do accents.

Thank God she never tried to do Cockney.

R462- I know Harris is supposed to be a bit crazy but did she actually have an onstage meltdown?

[quote]At least Barbra with one "A" didn't have a nervous breakdown on stage.

How can one spell "Barbra" with only one "A"?

[quote]How can one spell "Barbra" with only one "A"?

Incorrectly.

R464. When Barbara Harris was doing THE APPLE TREE, she was dating Warren Beatty. He broke up with her on the afternoon of the Tony Awards which may have explained her strange behavior during her win and acceptance speech that evening. One night during the show Harris ran off stage stating she could not continue the last two acts. Her understudy Carmen Alvarez did Act two, " The Lady or the Tiger." Phyllis Newman had been hired to do the Wed and Sat. Matinees. Newman was in the audience to do a study of Harris' performance. The stage manager sought Newman out and convinced her to do "Passionella," which was the third act of THE APPLE TREE. So audiences that night got three actresses playing the three roles, original Tony winner Barbara Harris, understudy Carmen Alvarez and matinee alternate Phyllis Newman.

There is some interesting stuff that's stashed in some posts in this thread. It just about shut down when DL went into lockdown several days ago.

I love that a thread on the film Hello, Dolly! can get almost 500 responses! Shows what really matters in our world!

I love the fact that we still can argue heatedly about the casting of movie musicals from 50 years ago and come to cyber blows.

Honestly who gives a flying fuck?

We do!!

And if anyone thinks it's pathetic, and I kind of guess it is, think of the gazillion sports fans arguing about players and games of generations long extinct.

I love the "Sunday clothes" number, despite the lackluster staging once they get on the train. In any case, Tommy Tune is physically astonishing.

I can't believe I'm helping to keep this thread going.....but....

Really, the ONLY thing wrong with the "Put On Your Sunday Clothes" number is the HIDEOUS, "jazzy" 1960s vocal arrangements! I hadn't heard it in years....Are they FUCKING KIDDING!? It yanks you completely out of the period as does Streisand's jazz back phrasing! The choreography is fine.

Michael Crawford's voice! It's really grating and so female sounding! Who thought HE was a good idea?

The arrangements are definitely encroaching on "Steve and Edie" territory.

And while jazz would not be known well to white folks in yonkers in 1890, jazz did exist.

Even some of the dance steps appear to be lifted from black culture of the late 19th century. However, I note that Gene Kelly failed to cast a black dancer. Even as a redcap or station worker. Hmmm.

Yes. I too am bewildered by Crawford's vocal choice. it's like he's auditioning for an animated Disney feature.

Still, I enjoy.

If Dick Van Dyke gave the worst rendition by an American actor of a British accent as Bert in Mary Poppins, then Michael Crawford surely gives the worst performance of an American accent by a British actor as Cornelius. His performance is so non-masculine as to be almost without gender.

Dick had TWO accents in Mary Poppins. Or was it the same for both characters?

As for dear Mr. Crawford his character might have been named Cornhelium.

You're right R472. That arrangement just pulls the music away from the period.

Every 'period' musical can't escape contemporary arrangements. Many of the numbers in MEET ME IN SAINT LOUIS like "Skip To My Lou" and "The Trolley Song" (the obvious inspiration for 'Put On Your Sunday Clothes') have backing vocals right out of 1944 - there are moments when Judy sounds like she is accompanied by Six Hits And a Miss.

"Over the Rainbow" doesn't sound like a song from 1899, either.

If I am in the right mood it can be a fun movie. Almost every song is presented as a big production, so if I am not in the write mood, it can be a bit tiresome. Same with Streisand's performance. Her voice is great, and I would not say she acts badly in it, but lays it on so thick at times, I have usually had enough of her and the Mae West bit by the end of the movie.

That said, there are far bigger messes out there, and I know Jerry Hermann is considered a little too non-cerebral for a lot of people here, I do think the show has some fun songs.

It always kind of amazes me how much Crawford changed from here to when he played the Phantom. As annoying as his voice can be here, in some ways it is just annoying to hear his later recordings where in every song he sounds like he is the Phantom.

Crawford sounds like Pavarotti compared to some singers.

Who was Lehman/Kelly's next choice for the lead if Barbra turned it down? All the assumptions are that if she didn't get it, it would have gone to someone more age appropriate or better in some way, and that may not necessarily be the case.

Lucille Ball, R481.

R478 "Over the Rainbow" was written in 1939.

[quote]"Over the Rainbow" was written in 1939.

Yes, but [italic]The Wizard of Oz[/italic] wasn't set then.

I'm not understanding this. I thought the Wizard of Oz WAS set in 1939.

If not when was it set?

[quote]If not when was it set?

It was set circa 1900 when the books were written.

Yeah, judging by the clothes in the Kansas sequences, it doesn't look turn of the 20th century, but they do look very much like Depression-ear farmers.

Besides, in the 1930s they liked to set older stories to their decade. Take a look at 1938's PYGMALION. The play is set in 1913 but the film is set in the late '30s. MY FAIR LADY took the setting back to pre-WWI London.

The Kansas sequences have always seemed 1939 to me. I have never seen them as an earlier era.

I always thought the film Wizard of Oz seemed to be set in the depression-era Midwest, not that it is that critical to the story.

[italic]Return to Oz[/italic] has a line of dialogue that puts it squarely in October 1899.

"Return to Oz has a line of dialogue that puts it squarely in October 1899."

Which has no bearing on when MGM's The Wizard of Oz was set and whether "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" was an appropriate song for that film.

Well, yeah, RETURN TO OZ does take place at the turn of the 20th century when the book was published. But that doesn't mean the '39 film was intended to take place then, too. Just compare the costumes in both movies, and they couldn't look more different. '85 OZ obviously looks Victorian, while '39 OZ looks Depression-era.

At any rate, both movies had different creators and filmmakers, so you can't say RETURN TO OZ was a direct sequel.

[quote]Which has no bearing on when MGM's The Wizard of Oz was set and whether "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" was an appropriate song for that film.

It is if it's a sequel. It can't not follow the continuity because the whole story depends on the "it was all a dream" ending that's exclusive to the movie and is nowhere in the books. And that one actually has an age appropriate Dorothy.

So I'm the only one who thinks Crawford is hot in this movie?

Return to Oz is not a sequel to MGM's The Wizard of Oz.

How old is Dorothy supposed to be?

The Ruby Slippers were an M-G-M invention as well.

[quote]It always kind of amazes me how much Crawford changed from here to when he played the Phantom. As annoying as his voice can be here, in some ways it is just annoying to hear his later recordings where in every song he sounds like he is the Phantom.

Forbidden Broadway did a hilarious send up of this in the song "Put on Your Phony Voice."

I just watched that clip of Put on Your Sunday Clothes. What struck me is I never would have guessed that it was from a film from the 1960s. There is nothing about it that doesn't seem like it was done in the 1940s. Especially when they cut to a wagon of women singing in that very old-fashion soprano that Hollywood used to love.

[quote]However, I note that Gene Kelly failed to cast a black dancer. Even as a redcap or station worker. Hmmm.

When they get on the train, notice that there is actually an Asian chorus guy on the left side of the screen.

The Wizard of Oz film does seem set in 1930s Kansas. Isn't there a truck or auto in the farm scenes that might help date the scene?

In Meet Me in St. Louis, the "Skip to My Lou" number has a swingy "Skip to my Lou my Dah-aahr-lin'!" swingy arrangement that screams 1940s and jumps out at you. Nothing as egregious happens in "The Trolley Song".

I like that "The Boy Next Door" is a waltz, as so many popular songs of the era, like the title song, were waltzes.

The Kansas scenes in The Wizard of Oz are deliberately set in no discernible year except generic early 20th century. There are no phones, cars, Victrolas, or anything to place it in any specific year or decade. It could be any year from 1899 to 1939.

Trolldar is not R497's friend.

What a fucking gasbag that elderly cunt is.

I believe that a lot of the vocal arrangements of the mid-40s MGM films were done by Kay Thompson. Even in the Harvey Girls and Good News it sounds as if they are both set in the 1940s.

Still it doesn't matter as I think they are sensational.

Return to Oz is not meant to be a sequel to the 1939 MGM movie. It's an adaptation of the second and third books in the Oz series by L. Frank Baum, which were published in the first decade of the 20th century.

Surely they should be able to work some digital magic on the parade scene and rescue it from being such an overblown horror.

There's one thing no one has mentioned: the title song was LBJ's campaign song in 1964. By 1969, his name was mud because of that conflict in what used to be French Indochina, and despite Barbra Streisand and Gene Kelly's well-known liberalism and despite the score being written by a gay man, [italic]Dolly![/italic] still represented the values of the much-maligned squares.

And another thing: the public seemed to have also gotten tired of the "one movie for the price of two" business model that the Roadshows had come to represent. Even with the exact same personnel, if this movie had cost half of what it did, it would have been a hit. One of the books about Fox's 1960s financial near-collapse says they thought about shooting it in Rome where it would be cheaper, but they nixed it because they thought the idea of doing an Americana musical outside of the US would not sit well with audiences or certain people in the industry.

Streisand wasn't known as a liberal in 1969, R505. She largely kept her mouth shut. Went to a McCarthy fund raiser in '68; claims to have supposed liberal Republican Lindsay for mayor, but it wasn't reported. Singing at LBJ's inaugural.

Kelly was not thought of as a liberal or as anything else by anyone under 40 by 1969.

That's what they get for not casting Shirley Booth.

Re: time period of Wizard of Oz (film)

While the producers did their best to avoid anything that may date the film, there are a few things that give away the time period as being later than the 1900s, when the books take place.

1 - The tire swing briefly seen in the Kansas scenes. The tire is rather wide and is the sort that would have been found on a car starting in the mid 1920s

2 - Miss Gulch's bicycle is later than turn of the century. From bikeforums.net: [quote]The shortened rear fender has a flat profile, so that would make it an earlier Roadster, 20's-30's a good call. The chainguard looks aftermarket but also a late 20's style.

3 - The photo of Dorothy and Aunt Em given to Prof Marvel. It appears to be an informal picture, more like a snapshot and not one posed in a photo studio as one would have in the turn of the century. The dress Em is wearing is more like one would find in the 30s.

4 - "Thumbing for a hitch". Dorothy says (sings) this is what the witch was doing when she last saw her prior to arriving in Munchkinland. The phrase comes from hitchhiking, which first appeared in the 1920s and had grown more popular during the depression.

5 - Oz has a PA system. Once the curtain is pulled back and we see Oz for what he is we also see he is using a PA or amplification device. Such technology did not come into existence until the mid 20s.

6 - "And I'd lock it with a zipper". The popular North American term zipper came from the B. F. Goodrich Company in 1923.

I'm impressed r508....a little terrified, but really impressed!

r509, I laughed out loud at that, first time in a while here on the DL. Thanks!

No you got all those facts wrong. A simple google will show you errors, shame on you all for believing him.

R511 Please provide links to your evidence.

The term zipper came from 1923, and that is all that matters to make it an anchronism. The zipper was invented in 1913 (by an American, not a Canadian), and earlier versions were on public display at the World's Fair in Chicago in 1893. The concept was patented in 1851 by Elias Howe of Cambridge, Massachusetts, who also invented the sewing machine.

I seem to recall hearing about a big clash in the 1920s between Gus Edmond, the button king, and Josephus Gage, the zipper king.

Anachronism, schnachronism. It's just a lyric...!

[quote]shame on you all for believing him.

But... but I believe everything I read on the Internet!

I even believe that HELLO, DOLLY! is a good movie because some anonymous chuckle-head said it was.

Ultimately, I don't think it matters if the Kansas sequences of THE WIZARD OF OZ are set in the 1930s or closer to the turn of the century. Seems to me the only reason they might possibly have wanted audiences to think it was not the '30s would be to avoid having to put in any content about the Depression or the Dust Bowl, but I wonder if that was even an issue in their minds.

Wow, R508, you're awesome!

They cut "The Jitterbug," the swing number which the director and studio brass believed would date the film.

Plus, it's just not a very good song.

I've always liked that number in the stage version. Good dance number for the cast.

It's a fun song, but I've always wondered why they planned a lighthearted dance number at that moment in the movie...just as Dorothy and her pals are exploring the scary woods in search of the witch and right before the flying monkeys show up.

Never seen it.

This was postet on Broadwayworld and it´s the first time her taking the role makes sense.

The fact is that Streisand didn't really want to do Hello, Dolly!. Ray Stark strong-armed her into a multi-picture contract in order for her to do Funny Girl. Barbra's agent - Marty Erlichman felt she was underpaid for her first movie and wanted to raise her asking price. Dolly turned out to be the ideal vehicle for that. He asked $1 million for Barbra's services. Since she didn't really care whether she got the role of not, she could lose the part, but the word on the street would be that if you want to do a Streisand musical, it will cost you a million.

To the surprise of the Streisand camp, Fox took the bait and met her price. For them, the movie was going to be expensive anyway, and there were certain bragging rights they could claim that they had the highest paid actress in the world as their star.

So without even wanting the role, Barbra got it.