Hello, Dolly!

20th Century-Fox/Chenault. Dir Gene Kelly; Producer Ernest Lehman; Screenplay Ernest Lehman; Camera Harry Stradling; Editor William Reynolds; Music Lennie Hayton, Lionel Newman (arrs.) Art Dir John DeCuir

Barbra Streisand
Walter Matthau
Michael Crawford
Louis Armstrong
Marianne McAndrew
Tommy Tune

Hello, Dolly! is an expensive, expansive, sometimes exaggerated, sentimental, nostalgic, wholesome, pictorially opulent $20 million filmusical [from the 1964 Broadway production, music and lyrics by Jerry Herman] with the charisma of Barbra Streisand in the title role.

Streisand is a unique performer, with that inborn vitality which marks great personalities. She brings her own special kind of authority. There is a certain inconsistency, or even confusion, in the speech pattern.

Walter Matthau is hard to accept at first, his dancing being the step-counting sort and his singing somewhat awkward. Nonetheless his experience cannot be discounted.

The film 'opens cute' with a long-held still of the 14th St replica. Immensely and imaginatively detailed it intrigues the eye and mind directly. When the still 'wipes' into live action, the film is off in a flurry of promise and introducing the times (1890) and the heroine (Dolly) en route to Yonkers.

1969: Best Art Direction, Sound, Adapted Score for a Musical Picture

Nominations: Best Picture, Cinematography, Costume Design, Editing

(Color) Widescreen. Available on VHS, DVD. Extract of a review from 1969. Running time: 129 MIN.

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