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I can remember how, when I was 14, I was filled with anticipation over this film. At an age when I believed expense meant quality, this film, at $20 million, was the most expensive musical ever filmed, in its day! I knew it just had to succeed!!!!!!!!!!!!
The morning it opened, my late friend, Doug, and I, were on the phone, reading the Daily New review to each other, planning when to see it, because it got "four stars....FOUR STARS...by Wanda Hale!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Who, at the time, I wanted to be.
Alas, when I finally saw the film, what camp! Though pricey, it looked cheesy, and the circular design of the poster was camp when it issued.
All across America, whenever it played, and BARBRA descended the Harmonia Garden stairs in that cheap looking gold lame dress, some disgruntled Theater Queen would always scream out, "Modess….because!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
It happened at my screening! And, no, I was not the screamer!!!!!!!!!!!
Will this be given an anniversary screening? Are you kidding? With Carol Channing, having just passed, and the lights dimmed for her, last night??????????????
No way, Jose! Even BABS wants to forget THIS one!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
2 comments:
I think it was Pauline Kael who once said the greatest tragedy of this movie is it has an iconic "meeting of two legends" trapped within it, that will be lost and forgotten by future generations because the movie is such a dated misfire.
She was referring, of course, to the Barbra & Louis Armstrong duet in the middle of the endless "Hello, Dolly!" setpiece. Even when she filmed this back in late 1968, Babs was already full of herself and obnoxiously smug about her talent, running roughshod over anyone who didn't immediately treat her as a goddess. But she was still young enough to be genuinely cowed and honored to find herself crooning with Armstrong: her respect for him shines thru her eyes, face and body language throughout their scene. She defers to him repeatedly, he in turn makes every effort to make her seem charming and delightful.
Their professional rapport is palpable, and she's more attractive, real and compelling in this one moment than she is in the rest of the film. Smug but not stupid, she knew she was too young and out of her depth as Dolly, so she defaulted to the only trick she had in her handbag at that point: the shrill bulldozing that worked well for her in "Wholesale" and "Funny Girl". It backfired on her in "Dolly", serving instead to emphasize her callow youth, further alienating the audience.
Imagine if they had just used common sense and cast Carol Channing instead: what an amazing time capsule we would have had. But it was not to be: Fox was hell bent on "self destruction by misapplied stardom" in those days. Proving that history repeats when unlearned, four years later inflicted Lucille Ball as Mame upon the dwindling audiences at Radio City Music Hall (because Angela Lansbury was not considered a big enough draw). The lesson finally took, after that hydrogen bomb.
Tho at least the misbegotten "Mame" gifted us with a record of Bea Arthur's two greatest lines ever: when she wakes up with a hangover in Lucy's bathtub bellowing "Who's been sleeping in my dress???", and later when Lucy repeatedly ruins the premiere of Bea's off-off-Bway show she dimisses her with "The man in the moon is a BITCH!!!".
Darling,
That moment between BABS and Armstrong
was not only the best part of the movie
but the best! But, ugh, that dress!!!!!
Everything in that film needed to be
toned down several notches. I could even
realize this, at 14!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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