December
16, 1969 Fox 148 minutes
The whole hullaballo started with David Merrick. Yes, the
"Abominable Showman" Bway's real-life Snidley Whiplash, who had by
1964 accumulated an astonishing record of shows, making as many enemies and enviers
as he did hits and careers. Merrick had a keen
eye and sound mind for spotting product; a good nose for choosing books and
plays to adapt; a pioneer in turning movies into stage hits. And when not
instigating his own projects, he didn't hesitate sponsoring others he'd pick up
along the way. He was a regular poacher from London ,
importing historical pagaents, kitchen-sink dramas, French revues; he was the true
Columbus of Bway's British invasion; the first to dare selling West End
musicals regularly in New York Merrick
came into the 1963-64 Bway season blazing. It was one for the books (which is
why Peter Filichia is writing one), particularly for new musicals. It was even a
peak for Merrick who produced no less than 8 shows that season; plays by Jean
Anouilh, Tennessee Williams, John Osborne, Bertolt Brecht (with music by Jule
Styne!) and the first stage production of One
Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, which flopped even with Kirk Douglas starring.
He also found time to mount 3 musicals and was initially attached to a fourth;
in toto the best reviewed--even raved about--musicals of the season. First out
the gate was October's 110 in the Shade;
based on a '50s Midwestern, The Rainmaker,
which Geraldine Page ignited on stage, and Kate Hepburn rode to an Oscar
nomination. The musical was as close to an R&H show as humanly possible (it
was even staged by Agnes DeMille) and got raves as did its star, Inga Swenson,
but a drought-themed mise-en-scene, wasn't timed well with a nation plunged
into mourning only a month later. For the score, Merrick, who liked picking up
fresh talent after their initial splash, gave The Fantasticks boys: Tom Jones & Harvey Schmidt their Bway
break. They may have written 110 songs getting the show right, and in
retrospect this may well be the best score of the season. It certainly has
grown in my estimation. Next to bat was Dolly!--which
we'll get to--and on its heels a Bert Lahr carnival set in the Alaskan Gold
Rush: Foxy--which tried out in Dawson
City, Yukon (yes, the Yukon!) during
the summer of '62 in a modest production ala' Little Mary Sunshine, that Merrick pumped up for Bway ala' Destry Rides Again. Lahr won raves and a
Tony, but Merrick 's attention was by then
elsewhere. The one that got away, Funny
Girl, had many transitions after Merrick left
it to Ray Stark, but the Streisand key was partly his doing--after all he'd
approved her Bway debut in I Can Get It
For You Wholesale, tho he wasn't her biggest fan.
Merrick's first hit play on Bway was also his first import
from London: Thornton Wilder's The
Matchmaker, a reworking of a previously failed Wilder play, The Merchant of Yonkers, with the major
adjustment of refocusing the leading character from miser Horace Vandergelder to the
manipulative matchmaker, Dolly Levi. An American production directed by Tyrone
Guthrie, starring Ruth Gordon (setting the precedent for lovable lunatics) opened
at the 
Herman wrote the score with Ethel Merman in mind, who by
1963 was done with long Bway runs, and passed. As time has shown there was no
shortage of stars suitable for the role; virtually every Woman of a Certain Age
was an able candidate. Gower Champion wanted Nanette Fabray--who seems a little
bland for the alien creature Dolly became. According to Charles Nelson Reilly,
Ruth Gordon, miffed she was never considered, sat front row center one night
and glared at the cast, never once applauding. But there's little to quibble
with the ultimate choice: Carol Channing--who found in this her role of a
lifetime, cementing her status as a Bway Baby. She'd had a rocky career after
her star-making role: Lorelei Lee in Gentlemen
Prefer Blondes, and might well have remained a one-hit wonder. Her stint
replacing Roz Russell in Wonderful Town
was a fast fold; her Bway return as The
Vamp flopped so quickly--one of only a handful of '50s flops that went unrecorded.
An expanded nite-club revue, Show Girl
was the best she'd managed since Blondes.
Her wide-eyed personality was too large for most shows. You can't imagine her
in She Loves Me or The Unsinkable Molly Brown--tho she
might've been a fine Hedy LaRue or as Little
Me. She was 43 when she took on Dolly, and then played thousands of
performances, well into her mid-70s--touring like a presidential candidate; an
old-time theatrical tradition that few continued into the modern era. Perhaps
for good reason. On footage from the farewell tour she looks like an
overstuffed automaton. Her timing is less comic than robotic, her vocals croak,
the show creaks. From here comes the nasty and notorious, but apocryphal story
that ends in "Corn!" Hearsay or heresy--you be the judge.
Nonetheless, once upon a time Channing was the perfect ingredient for this
imperfect show that became a perfect blockbuster. 
Dolly! also benefitted immeasurably from
the prevailing mood of the nation. The show had just begun its tryout in
Still, my fantasy universe sees another, dare I say better,
Dolly; one who'd just soldiered thru a flop only months prior; one who was
conceivably available; and one who would, had she lived, been right for the
film as well: an even more lovabale bubble-head: Judy Holliday. She's so perfect
its hard to believe they never considered her. Or was her frail health too well
known by then? Triumphant as Channing was, the thought of a Holliday Dolly tingles
the imagination.
Even so, Hello,
Dolly! might have easily been a one or two season run (another Take Me Along or She Loves Me) were it not for Gower Champion's impeccable staging,
a fluid pageant of tableaux vivants; a
triumph of precision to match Swiss clockwork. It brought audiences to their
feet. "Don't bother holding on to your hats," Walter Kerr raved,
"You'd only be throwing them into the air, anyway." And so Champion
is considered as much the show's "auteur" as Robbins is of West Side Story--for his staging is part
& parcel of all subsequent professional stagings. But even this wouldn't
have pushed the show passed a 4 year mark, when it was starting to fade with
Martha Raye and Betty Grable at the helm. Here
It didn't hurt that Channing was flanked by a truly
stellar supporting cast. Her vis-a-vis, Vandergelder, was veteran comic David
Burns, whose resume of musicals, The
Music Man, Do Re Mi and A Funny Thing
Happened On the Way to the Forum, made him a virtual lucky charm. As milliner
Irene Molloy, Eileen Brennan brought her luminous, slightly looney Little Mary Sunshine personality; with Peter Pan's Tiger Lily, Sondra Lee as
her sidekick, Minnie Fay. Instead of casting a traditional romantic hero as Cornelius
Hackl, Champion wisely chose an oversized cartoon (like Channing--and
subsequently the only other performer to get a Tony nom), How to Succeed's villian, Charles Nelson Reilly. And tiny Alice
Playten, barely 16 years old, was Vandergelder's niece, Ermengarde--tho,
regrettably, her clarion voice is nowhere to be heard on the OCR. Or so I
always thought! until the libretto clued me into the single phrase where she
joins Dolly and Ambrose to complete the second section: "But there's no
blue Monday in your Sunday clothes." And there it is--pure as a bell.
A rare trip to the downtown Los Angeles library sometime
in '65 was when I first got ahold of the OCR's of Funny Girl, Fiddler and Dolly!--all
at once, and all of which were strangely disappointing, initially. There was a lot
of new music to digest, but Dolly!
seemed almost too easily digestable. The title song was, of course, familiar to
me already, and its largess was happiness to my 12 year old ears, but aside
from one or two more highlights, I always fall short of loving Hello, Dolly! like I do other musicals.
The score is rather spare, with just seven songs in the first act, and only
four (plus a ballet--never recorded) in the second. Carnvial! had more tunes before intermission. Not that it's a
matter of quantity. The show's other chef-d'oeuvre,
"Put On Your Sunday Clothes" is one of my very favorite production
numbers. It has real purpose and energy: the start of a journey, adventure, a
train! Anticipation is an emotion that often exceeds the subsequent event.
Songs of anticipation are often the greatest high--and this is among the best
examples of musical nitrous oxide. I'll also give high marks to "Before
the Parade Passes By," and "It Only Takes a Moment," an
easy-going ballad, in the Irving Berlin manner; and maybe include
"Elegance"--but the rest of the score is frankly second rate.
"Dancing," is pleasant, but not really interesting (compare it to
virtually any Rodgers waltz), nor is "It Takes a Woman" better than
passable. And "So Long, Dearie" doesn't pack the wallop it wants,
harking back to Bells Are Ringing's
"I'm Going Back" (speaking of Judy Holliday). Some find "Ribbons
Down My Back," lovely but I've never found it anything but dull--a feeling
I have about most Jerry Herman ballads. He's a master of the show-tune I'll
grant you, but ballads, at least for me, not so much. And do you think highly
of "I Put My Hand In?" It does its job as exposition, but feels to me
like a first draft to be replaced out of town--it was among the 4 tunes Herman
wrote on spec. Of Merrill's two contributions, "Motherhood" is
serviceable, "Elegance" is dandy. And that's it. Enuf for a hit,
especially with the extended finale (a Jerry Herman trademark) reprising, not
one but all the tentpole tunes.
A hit this big at a time when Hlwd was rabid for Bway
musicals, made for a furious bidding war. Whatever hold Paramount
For Vandergelder, Lehman and Kelly chose Hlwd's reigning
grouch, the newly-made leading man, Walter Matthau, whose age wasn't too glaring a factor opposite Babs--22
years her senior--tho his other movie released simultaneously, Abe Burrows'
Bway comedy, Cactus Flower, paired
him with 53 year old Ingrid Bergman. The rest of the pic's cast was as
lackluster as Bway's was inspired. Danny Lockin and E.J. Peaker make an
adequate Barnaby & Minnie. Peaker is perky, and Lockin has a sweet smile. But
Marianne McAndrew has neither voice nor presence to justify a role played
previously by Eileen Herlie, Shirley MacLaine and Eileen Brennan. Her
restrained acting recalls the coy mannerisms and wooden line-readings of Vera
Ellen. And then there's the always inexplicable Michael Crawford--third-billed
above the title, no less!--as Cornelius Hackl. His washed-out looks and anemic
personality almost makes you crave Tommy Steele. His squawky voice makes you
consider what a wonderful singer Charles Nelson Reilly is. Crawford's endless
facial contortions of abject terror (already overused in A Funny Thing...) are an endurance test--ours. Who would've guessed
his career wouldn't peak for another 20 years--and then as Star of an
International Phenomenon. Another future Player is Tommy Tune, here in
third-tier support as Ambrose Kemper, at the time an unfamiliar 7-foot freak
who seemed to throw the dance corps out of balance; but now looks unmistakably.
. . well, Tommy Tune. His acting is surprisingly professional--his extreme
youth and Texan veneer suggest today's Jim Parsons. But who the hell is Judy
Knaiz?--plucked from, and immediately hurled back into obscurity. As
"Gussie Granger," an actress Dolly hires to impersonate the invented
Ernestina Simple, she seems utterly miscast. To be honest, I've never seen a rational
interpretation of this role--which to me suggests a dowager, a Margaret Dumont
type. Kelly seems to want to make her an uptown Lucy Schmeeler (On the Town's Alice Pearce--by now
better known as Bewitched's Mrs.
Kravitz) I'm not sure I get the act Knaiz is putting on to off-put
Vandergeleder; but then again it makes sense in context of the 15 seconds of
instruction she got from Dolly in the middle of a parade. The Matchmaker's climax is the Harmonia Gardens
Fox's $20 million dollar film begins without the
now-standard Roadshow overture or fanfare (after the 20th Century Fox logo),
with a still of the fancy backlot set: "New York
Is it only because I know the story so well that I find
the expositionary scenes tedious? I can watch scenes of sparkling dialogue or
screen chemistry over and over. It's just that here there's neither and the
people are not very interesting. Vandergelder bellows, Hackl squirms,
Ermengarde wails, and its on to the next song: "It Takes a Woman" in which
that sinking feeling begins, where hope for some genuine transcendence
evaporates. Enter Babs--er, Dolly--and no matter how many times we've seen it
before, we watch and assess her performance. Because we know its a gamble. And being so, detracts, by making us
an unwitting jury Here's how she strikes
me now: like the cat that ate the canary. She comes across like the college
Star-to-Be vamping thru the Senior musical in a role decades beyond her. It
would be akin to Bette Midler playing, not one of Tevye's daughters, but Yenta
in the film of Fiddler on the Roof. Streisand's youth is a real thorn in the
credibility of this Dolly! (Now that
she's 70 she wants to play Rose, 20 years her junior. I'd much prefer a remake
of Dolly! for TV, something more akin
to the show's modest scale--are you listening, Meron & Zadan?). Nonetheless Babs
displays some sharp comic timing--tho she relies too much on old Fanny Brice
mannerisms, or takes on a startling Mae West delivery when she reaches for some
purchase on maturity. She would find her own comic voice far better a few years
hence in What's Up Doc? But her
musical instincts, independent of character, are stunningly professional. I was
especially impressed with how well she moves.
She romps thru the title tune with a pleasure rarely shown.
There's amazing
grace in her movement, her arms expressive as a ballerina's. Despite the
absurdity of Dolly's fame at Harmonia
Gardens
Speaking of which, scenes from the
movie would become totemic artifacts to a robot in a hugely popular 2008 Pixar
film, WALL-E, who found comfort in its alien optimism. (And was presumably as
alien to its audience, most of which wouldn't know Hello, Dolly! from Hello Kitty.) Conspicuously, missing was
Streisand, as the chosen moments were bits of 'It Only Takes a Moment" and
"Put on Your Sunday Clothes"--that featured, e'gads, Michael
Crawford! Of all the cultural detritus to survive, imagine: Michael Crawford.
Talk about a dystopian future!
But a larger problem in Dolly!, as becomes even more apparent with the addition of Irene
and Minnie into the proceedings, is that except for Mrs. Levi, nobody has much to offer as a character;
they're either cartoons or two-dimensional. And that I believe is why Hello, Dolly! has always felt
second-tier to me. The citizens of River City , Iowa or Sweet Apple ,
Ohio
Dolly isn't exactly a taxing singing role, so Lehman
pumped up Barbra's quota, giving her a reprise of "It Takes a Woman,"
in her patented lullaby rendition of uptempo tunes. She does the same on
"Before the Parade..." (What's with this gal and parades?) before
going full blazes among the masses in Fox's biggest crowd scene since Liz
Taylor was carried into Rome New York set remains to this day at the
gateway of the Fox lot in Century
City
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The parade scene
is effective, tho a bit awkward, stopping in its tracks for Dolly to issue
instructions to Horace and Gussie, greasing the wheels of the narrative for the
second half, before firing up the final verse in a widescreen crane shot; thumbing
its nose at that other puny tugboat finale. But you can forget the heat of
romance that clung to Funny Girl. There's
no chemistry between Matthau and Streisand; you don't get what she remotely
sees in him (besides $$), nor does she come across as anything less than
annoying to him--and not in a lovable way. They're oil and water; not a couple
headed for the altar. Look how she stumbles with "So Long, Dearie,"
racing thru it like a house afire, sailing off in hansom cab. It feels like a repeat
from one of her TV specials--pulling away in a cab from Bergdorf's, maybe--even
if it wasn't. Matthau can only stand there in deadpan disbelief. Tho she
initiates the number, her contribution to "Dancing" is really
peripheral, as intro to Michael Kidd's first ballet. Kidd, who ironically, was
the most cartoonish of Bway's choreographers (see: Guys & Dolls, Li'l Abner)
was anything but on this, for what, in essence, was another cartoon. Was this
under the direction of Gene Kelly? As the musical sequences are by far the
better parts of the movie, is Kelly to be credited for getting them on film, or
simply Kidd, who has the talent to reinvent all of Champion's numbers, leaving
nary a trace of Gower. Take "Sunday Clothes": the overtly stylized
tableaux on stage were breathtaking, fastiduously designed in a spectrum of
color as well as movement. But on screen it's another animal; mostly a montage
of scenes around Yonkers
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I always find the scene at Irene Molloy's hat shop a
trial; the bumbling introductions between characters; the cliched hide &
seek farcial doings; the preposterously false explanations. It frustrates me
how obvious all the gambits are; it makes everyone look idiotic not to see thru
them. But it's a bridge too far, later, when Irene admits she knew their
escorts were penniless from the start--when nothing in her behavior makes that
remotely believable (a fault more with the actress than the text.) Kelly's
direction is leaden in the book scenes;
he isn't able to bring out any chemistry among the players, nor comic pacing.
Each act is but 75 minutes, but feels longer. The movie, like the show, ends
with a medley of reprises--a Jerry Herman tradition--that somehow always felt a
bit cheap to me, tho certainly made its intended impact, planting ear worms in the audience as they depart. And
when Carol, or Ginger, or Mary, Martha, Betty, Pearl Brooklyn meeskite managed to pull over on
those Hlwd moguls.
On the technical side the film was Big Hlwd all the way. Fox's premier art director, John DeCuir, who
won Oscars for The King & I and Cleopatra, was given carte blanche,
again--which helped contribute to the studio's bankruptcy--again. The outdoor
streets are lovely, if not spectacular. Best is Harmonia
Gardens , a dining palace to match the Paris
and a lovely environment to be sure. A bit more glaring is
the Molloy's millinery shop, with its 20-foot ceiling and absurdly large,
sparsely mechandised showroom. You immediately recognize its purpose is to
serve as a dance floor, harking back to the Fox's fantastically unrealistic
sets from their '40s musicals. Costumer Irene Sharaff, another giant among
designers, made this her 9th filmed Bway musical, and her last. Her frocks
strike me as rather dull this time around, except perhaps for Streisand's
beaded gown for Harmonia
Gardens Merrick 's gambit with
Pearl Bailey to extend the show's life another 3 years, and two further
replacments. But Fox grew impatient and a deal was reached to release the movie
at years end of '69--a full year before closing on Bway. The experiment proved
no discernible impact on the stage show; and thereafter the ironclad practice
of waiting post-Bway was forgotten. The fear of competition was proven so unfounded,
the reverse was discovered: a film could fuel renewed interest in the stage
original. Therein lies the only aspect of the movie that was in any way
influential. The Roadshow opened at the Rivoli on Broadway, December 16th with
a $5 million advance. Funny Girl was
in its 66th week at the Criterion still on hardticket--it would last 72 weeks, Dolly! managed 27. Eventually, the movie
earned $15,200,000e in film rentals, and was the #6 pic of 1970--and yet
because of its cost was considered a flop. (Tho allegedly, it eventually broke
even). But Midnight Cowboy was the
movie of the year; as was Butch Cassidy
and Easy Rider, and Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, The
Wild Bunch, I Am Curious (Yellow), Alice
The '60s were rushing to a confusing close as I turned 17
in December. My last year in high school was spent with my few new friends
(after moving from LA), with whom I could share my musical taste unabashed. Tho
I was also opening up to more contemporary music. That fall I was probably more
obsessed with Bock & Harnick's tryptich musical, The Apple Tree than anything else, and in particular the third, and
most oft dismissed act, Passionella. A
film class at school gave me license to make a home movie, and I set on the far
too ambitious task of attempting a Passionella,
lip-synched to the album, feebly coordianted between a Super 8 camera and tape
recorder. We recruited a popular teen beauty to play the chimeny
sweep-turned-bombshell, and exploited the nerdiest frizzy-haired geek as the
fairy Godmother; and had a whale of a time making it. But editing was disastrous
and we showed the final product in class to baffled silence but for our own
private hilarity. The film survives in a can held together, literally, by
scotch tape. As a sort of wrap-party outing, we bought advance seats to Hello, Dolly! at the Century 24 theater
in San Jose
Next Up: '60s Also Rans
Next Up: '60s Also Rans
Report Card: Hello, Dolly!
Overall Film: B
Bway Fidelity: B+
Songs from Bway: 9
Songs Cut from Bway: 2
New Songs: 2
Standout Numbers: "Hello, Dolly!"
"Put
On Your Sunday Clothes"
Casting: More commercial miscalculation
Standout Cast: Tommy Tune
Cast from Bway: None
Sorethumb Cast: Michael Crawford,
Marianne
McAndrew
Direction: Competent in songs,
Clueless
in scenes
Choreography: Michael Kidd, restrained.
Ballets: B "Dancing"
B+ Waiters' Gallop
Scenic Design: Gilding the lily
Costumes: More frilly than fantastic
Standout Set: Harmonia
Gardens
Titles: Bway-style overture over Hudson
Valley train
trip; rare post-opening slot
Oscar noms: 7,
Best Picture, Cinematography,
Costumes, Film Editing 3 wins: Scoring,
Art Direction,
Sound.
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