Hello, Dolly! Widescreen Edition | Barbra Streisand, Walter Matthau

Hello, Dolly! Widescreen Edition | Barbra Streisand, Walter Matthau | Well Hello Dolly!

DVDs:

Hello, Dolly! Wide...

	Hello, Dolly! Widescreen Edition Barbra Streisand, Walter Matthau 20th Century Fox, 2003 average customer review:based on 143 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Holy cabooses!

Hello Dolly is truly one of the last great musicals from the golden age of Hollywood. It seems like no expense was spared--it took one month just to film the "Hello, Dolly!" sequence in which Dolly returns to the Harmonia Gardens. This scene lasts about ten minutes in the film--but still, one month to get ten minutes footage is a lot of time to get so little footage! Barbra Streisand works well, actually, as Dolly Levi--her husband could have died early in life and that's all it would take to explain a younger woman in the role of Dolly Levi. Moreover, the other cast members turn in fine performances, too.

When the action begins, Dolly Levi from Manhattan takes a trip to Yonkers ostensibly to arrange a marriage for Horace Vandergelder's (Walter Matthau) niece Ermengarde Vandergelder (Joyce Ames). However, Ermengarde doesn't want any part of it--she's in love with a young artist named Ambrose Kemper (Tommy Tune); and Ambrose feels the same way about Ermengarde. What's more, Dolly eventually has plans for helping Horace's two clerks, Cornelius Hackl (Michael Crawford) and Barnaby Tucker (Danny Lockin).

A few days later, they all wind up in Manhattan and fate--with Dolly's help--begins to weave its magic spell. Cornelius and Barnaby become smitten with Irene Molloy (Marianne McAndrew) and her hat shop assistant Minnie Fay (E. J. Peaker). They all spend time together having fun; but Dolly has her hands full trying to manipulate Horace into marrying her instead of Irene Molloy--or the not terribly appealing Ernestina Simple (Judy Knaiz).

Of course, from here the plot can go in so many different directions. You may know the plot but there are no plot spoilers in my reviews! Will Dolly manage to get these two young couple together--along with Ambrose and Ermengarde--so that they can find a happy life romantically? What about Dolly's feelings for her late husband--to what extent will they get in the way of Dolly pursuing Horace? Will Horace, who is a very cranky and somewhat negative man, ever come around to marrying Dolly? Watch the movie and find out!

The song and dance numbers are fantastic. The "Hello Dolly" number alone was fantastic. Look for a wonderful cameo by the great Louis Armstrong who just happens to work in the Harmonia Gardens restaurant! It's great to see Armstrong on film with Streisand. The cinematography and choreography impressed me greatly during the scenes from the parade down 14th Street in Manhattan as well as in the Harmonia Gardens restaurant.

The DVD has an optional commentary and there's a 1969 featurette that shows how they organized and coordinated the parade down 14th Street in Manhattan. It's excellent! You can also choose languages but there's not much more. Oh, well. The film is very good and it still can stand mostly on its own.

Overall, Hello Dolly is a fine classic musical from the very tail end of the golden era of Hollywood musicals. The actors give extremely good performances; their acting is very convincing. I recommend this film for fans of Hollywood musicals as well as fans of Barbra Streisand.

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Well Hello Dolly!

A matchmaker named Dolly Levi takes a trip to Yonkers, New York to see the "well-known unmarried half-a-millionaire," Horace Vandergelder. While there, she convinces him, his two stock clerks and his niece and her beau to go to New York City. In New York, she fixes Vandergelder's clerks up with the woman Vandergelder had been courting, and her shop assistant (Dolly has designs of her own on Mr. Vandergelder, you see). Written by Randy Goldberg {goldberg@nymc.edu}

Film adaptation of the beloved Broadway musical. Concerns itself with Dolly Levi, a New York-based matchmaker who merrily arranges things... like furniture and daffodils and lives. A widow, she has found herself in love with a "half-a-millionaire" Yonkers merchant named Horace Vandergelder. So she proceeds to weave a web of romantic complications involving him, his two clerks, a pretty milliner and her assistant. Eventually, of course, all is sorted out, and everyone ends up with the right person. Written by Tommy Peter

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Hello Dolly (in DVD)

The product came promptly, in very good condition and I've enjoyed it. I think the price was fair. thank you

filmcritic

I watched "Hello Dolly" on television when I was a teenager. My father, a musician, thought it was a fantastic production. That may have been the first time I watched Barbra Streisand perform. To me, then, it was just a good musical, one of many. In high school, we performed a different muscial every year.

However, I recently watched "Hello Dolly" again after Barbra's comment on the Actor's Studio that she was too young for the role, etc. She also remarked that she had a good memory for negative reviews but not such a good one for positive reviews. I have watched several of Barbra's films over the years.

I have to say that her performance in "Hello Dolly" demonstrated her versatility as an actress, even early in her career (age 27). I loved her machinations and her lines with Walter Matthau.

She had red hair and was a little heavier than she was in "Funny Girl." Her hairstyle reminded me of Rose Morgan at her wedding in "The Mirror Has Two Faces." Barbra has a certain facial expression on camera when she is quietly happy; that expression really hasn't changed over the years.

During the scene in which Dolly (Barbra) was preparing for dinner with Horace and singing about how a second love would be different from her first, Barbra's appearance reminded me of the night that Rose Morgan tried to seduce her husband in the Mirror Has Two Faces.

At the end of Hello Dolly, Horace has become convinced by Dolly and the various events she orchestrated, that a life without love is no life at all. It was great to watch Dolly walk the long pathway to the church where the wedding would occur. In The Mirror Has Two Faces, Rose Morgan similarly convinced her platonic philosophical husband that love between a man and a woman had great value.

Perhaps Hello Dolly started out with controversial reviews but it has gained popularity. And even if Barbra Streisand considers it one of her stepchildren, it still belongs to her.

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