AutCuddly Great movie! If you want to be entertained and have a few good laughs, see this movie. The music is also very good,

Dirtylogy It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Usamah Harvey The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Taha Avalos The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

HotToastyRag Just as if you have a bad Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire, the entire play will fall flat, if you have a bad Dolly Levi in Hello, Dolly, the musical won't be any good. This Broadway musical is a highly sought after role for middle aged women, a tour-de-force they hope to play, usually to warm up for or coast after playing Mama Rose in Gypsy. Barbra Streisand would have been an excellent choice for the famous matchmaker, except in 1969 she was too young. Dolly Levi is supposed to be a middle-aged widow who sings the show-stopping song "Before the Parade Passes By" because it's a metaphor for her life, not a twenty-seven-year-old woman with impeccable makeup and a hair color that's as flattering as her clothes.Unfortunately, the lack of a gray wig on Babs is not the only flaw in Hello, Dolly! Michael Crawford plays Cornelius, and it takes an enormous amount of suspension of disbelief to buy into the love story between him and Marianne McAndrew. In the original film The Matchmaker, starring Shirley Booth, the young romantic leads were played by Shirley MacLaine and Anthony Perkins. Anthony is handsome and sweet, so it makes sense that Shirley M considers giving up a fortune for true love. Michael Crawford is bumbling, gangly, and almost acts like he's mentally off. Plus-sorry Phantom of the Opera fans-but his voice leaves much to be desired. Ironically, his romantic companion did have her voice dubbed! Walter Matthau plays Babs's love interest, and there's no feasible reason why she would ever want him, let alone when she's so young and still could have any number of men she wanted. He's unattractive, incredibly grumpy, walks through his song like it's the last thing in the world he wants to be doing, and acts like he hates the very sight of his pursuer-which, he actually did. Rumor has it that he hated Barbra Streisand so much he actually refused to kiss her! So, my great question, as it seems to be with everyone in this movie, is why was he cast? Gene Kelly directed this movie, and while he had enormous attention to detail in the costumes, production designs, and choreography, he didn't seem to have a great eye for his cast. Why didn't he pick his old sailor-suit buddy Frank Sinatra for Walter Matthau's part? He would have been the right age, he could sing without making audiences cringe, and Jerry Herman could have written him a couple of extra songs-as he did for Barbra. It would have been totally believable why Babs moves Heaven and Earth to be with him, and when he sings his song "It Takes a Woman" it would have been incredibly cute for the Guys and Dolls star to sing another ode to the fairer sex.I know I've been dissing this movie adaptation quite a bit, but there are some good parts to it. Obviously, if Hello, Dolly! is one of your favorite musicals, you're going to want to rent the movie. Barbra Streisand in her gold dress during the title song is a pretty famous image. And Barbra does have a wonderful voice, so it's fun to watch her take control of the screen, especially in the show-stopping "So Long Dearie". Also, if you're a fashion fanatic, you'll probably want to rent this one just to look at Irene Sharaff's gorgeous dresses. Besides that, this is one of those movies you'll watch once to say you did and then not really want to show your friends.

gkeith_1 Don't compare a film to a stage play. Film has more range in which to perform. A stage is very limited in size and scope.I loved the dancing and singing in this movie. I feel that the choreography was excellent. I feel that the costuming is beautiful and quite period-specific.Barbra is the greatest here. Don't compare her to other actresses who portrayed Dolly on stage. Barbra makes the role of Dolly her own. She deftly handles the foibles of Horace/Walter Matthau. Barbra as Dolly coyly and deliberately sets Horace up to be turned down by two other women, so that he can be ripe for the picking when she triumphantly gets her hooks into him. It is all a setup. Barbra has that glint and twinkle in her eye. She, as Dolly, has set up the main characters to appear in the restaurant when Horace has a major comeuppance. Barbra/Dolly knows all of this in advance.Horace can hug his cash registah at night, but he will certainly miss the companionship that he could have if only he would consider settling down with someone of the feminine persuasion. Wasn't Matthau the slob character in The Odd Couple? In Hello Dolly, Matthau gets all dolled up for the restaurant, plus his wedding suit and top hat make him look just wonderful. Besides, didn't Horace/Matthau look pretty cute in that green, feathery boa? You go your way, and I'll go mine. That boa did him in. It changed him from a stubborn, cranky old bachelor into a surprisingly nice looking bridegroom waiting at the church for Dolly/Barbra.Clothes. Clothes. Clothes. Dancing. Dancing.I like the dark red colors in the costuming of Irene Malloy.I love the gold, slinky, glitzy gown worn by Dolly as she stands at the top of the stairs in the restaurant. She is ready to make her grand entrance, after several years away from this place.Clothes of the tons of extras/dancers. These costumes and hats are quite a large group of designs, for both men and women. They are quite period specific. There is a dance scene where they are dressed like tennis players. They wear white and light blue striped outfits. They carry tennis rackets in their dancing.I love the red jacketed waiters and their intricate dancing. They are just superb, the way in which they handle brooms and swirling tablecloths.Horace is a jerk, saying several nasty and rude things about women. He is such a curmudgeon. Later, he softens toward women. He finally realizes that a softer kind of life beats the heck out of his formerly solitary and lonely way of life.I just love the parade scene. It was very complicated to organize, choreograph and execute. I enjoy seeing the different groups marching in this parade. There are groups of women devoted to several causes, and there are men who belong to fraternal organizations.I like seeing the bygone era of horse drawn vehicles. Viewing these scenes quiets one down, who is used to seeing the modern rush of motorized buses, automobiles, trucks, etc.A half a millionaire might today be a half a gazillionaire???A-plus for Louis Armstrong.Ten out of ten.

sol- Hired to secure a wife for a wealthy merchant, an 1890s marriage broker schemes to have the merchant fall in love with her instead in this lavishly produced musical starring Barbra Streisand and Walter Matthau. The songs are memorable and Michael Kidd's choreography is as imaginative as usual with a particularly remarkable sequence involving the wait staff at a fancy restaurant. The detailed period sets and costumes are great too. Pleasant as the film is to look at and listen to, it is nevertheless rather empty. The characters vary between dull and unappealing with Michael Crawford and Danny Lockin especially irksome as Matthau's young shop assistants who allow their grouchy employer to walk all over them. The film positions us to cheer for them trying to assert themselves and find love, however, they are so weak and timid (hiding under tables no less) that it is hard to care about their dilemmas. The most disappointing aspect of the film though is how woefully unfunny it is. The dialogue is certainly laden with wit but the banter between Streisand and Matthau is never really humorous; apparently the pair never got along on set and this comes across with the limited chemistry between them. That said, the film works best whenever Streisand or Matthau has the floor, as opposed to the mousy Crawford and Lockin. Say what one may about Streisand and Matthau's characters, both actors possess undeniable charisma and have their moments along the way. There are just less bright patches than one might expect in such a grandiose motion picture.

elshikh4 Remember the 1960s ? Remember when skirts went up and hair come down ? Remember when all the girls were screaming for the Beatles ? Remember when things weren't just great... they were groovy. Well, if you do remember, this movie doesn't ! Back then the word classic was cursed. Some genre movies were smashed, as many many values in and out the screen. So it was obvious why one of the Veteran National Guards, (Gene Kelly), went to make the stage musical (The Matchmaker) into a feature film. I recall that Kelly, at the time, was fighting 20th-Century Fox for hiring a sexploitation director, (Russ Meyer), to make studio pictures. Actually those 2 deeds are one for an old Hollywood's Veteran National Guard.So, what's about this film ? It's big, so big. And that's, here, not great. Some scenes are too big, however not with great story, songs or actors. The story is a play on very old themes in the classic comic theater, but nothing did dazzle about it, and dealing with the characters wasn't creative. Except the title's song and (It Only Takes a Moment), the many songs aren't that excellent.The cast gave me such an awful time. First of all casting (Streisand) as (Dolly) is like casting (James Dean) to do an above 40 year old man in the last part of (The Giant), yet without make-up! That matchmaker is supposed to be a mix of a hag, spinster, and craving for love woman, while (Streisand) was craving for love only! And if we forgot that, how to forget the fact of (Streisand) being 26 year old, loving the 49 year old (Matthau) ? And if we forgot that either, how to forget the fact that there was absolutely no chemistry of any kind between (Streisand) and (Matthau) ?! I read that he didn't like her from day one, however according to his performance he looked pretty much hating what he was doing too. The younger actors weren't any better; I couldn't stand (Michael Crawford) in specific. Believe it or not, the cameo of (Louis Armstrong) not only stole the show, but proved that he was the most truly funny and rather bearable one in that cast !The humor is dry, no comedy were produced. And the dances were shot theatrically, where the bore must conquer. It's the waiters' dance where you can find some vitality and humor in this movie. Therefore with big sets, cadres, orchestra, costumes !, and big number of extras, the movie established a new level of bad, and the indistinct food was served in very huge and insanely expensive plate !Then, more dangerous problem. Its name is :1969. You know well that after 1968 everything had revolutionarily changed. It was the boom's start of anti-studio movies like (Midnight Cowboy) and (Easy Rider); where for instance after the success of the latter, Universal Studios hit upon the idea to let young filmmakers make "semi-independent" films with low budgets, no interfere in the filmmaking process, and giving the directors final cut, all in hopes of generating similar profits. It was a phase of breakthrough for some cinema, and breakdown of another. For many viewers that challenging and daring new wave made the conventional refused since it's conventional. Plus, movies like (Sweet Charity), (Paint Your Wagon), (Oh! What a Lovely War), all produced in 1969, didn't meet any high success. Regardless of being conventional musicals or not; as if being musical itself is what mattered; turning into something conventional enough back then. So what about the too conventional, too old Hollywood, (Hallo Dolly!)? Of course it wasn't an exception. Now you have to understand the reason why they put an exclamation mark after its title !It cost $25 million, to gross $13 million. And with other flops, 20th Century Fox nearly bankrupted, several top studio executives lost their jobs, and the studio produced only one picture for the entire calendar year of 1970. To a considerable extent the 1960s end passed that type of entertainment, over and above being "big" wasn't an answer for great or good, so while Kelly wanted to bang away, or – at worst – leave with a bang, he couldn't succeed in having a bang for the buck ! This is yesterday's train coming the day after. And among the golden age's musicals it is silly and overblown. So it couldn't be "groovy" by any meaning, but embodying the baroque phase of the Hollywood musicals, namely being heavily ornate and nearly soulless, which is natural to happen after the classic phase. Obviously the zenith is amusing, but the post-zenith isn't that amusing. …And (Elizabeth Taylor) was considered for the role of Dolly ?? AAAAHHHHHHHHHHH !!P.S : My first chapter, except its last line, is from the poster of (Stardust – 1974).