Another word might be gay, but I won't go there. It was too over the top - just too much, too out there.
I asked the doctor to take your picture so I can look at you from inside as well.
Some of us enjoy watching dancing that we can't actually do ourselves.
I've been married to one Marxist and one Fascist, and neither one would take the garbage out.
Well you did go there, I mean you said it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUKX8HjgUSw
^^This is AMAZING! Sh!t that must of took a LOT of practice.
You can see Gene Kelly trademark all over the place during the dancing sequences even if he wasn't officially in charge of the choreography for Hello, Dolly! (Michael Kidd was)
I have always enjoyed Gene Kelly choreography style, although some people prefers something more "classy" and less "flamboyant".
They not making movies with this kind of dancing anymore. Now it's all hip hop/grind dancing. Rap artists grinding on slutty looking women isn't dancing. It's just crap.
People have forgotten how to respect the traditional forms of dance, the origins. These performers were highly talented.
For crying out loud...the movie was set in 1890. They didn't have hip hop during that time.
The OP is just showing their ignorance.
Of course I'm an egomaniac! I have America's Sweetheart climbing up my drainpipe!
jjuergen--get angry much?
OP--you're absolutely right. The choreography was extremely gay and absolutely over the top. Gene Kelly could sometimes be a subtle choreographer, but also preposterously showy, and Hello, Dolly! was his nadir. A number like Put on Your Sunday Clothes got laughs, even in 1969.
Part of the reason the movie got a bad rep was the ridiculously dated, inane dancing style. The public was ready for something more realistic, as the wild success of Cabaret proved.
Gene Kelly could sometimes be a subtle choreographer, but also preposterously showy, and Hello, Dolly! was his nadir. A number like Put on Your Sunday Clothes got laughs, even in 1969.
Part of the reason the movie got a bad rep was the ridiculously dated, inane dancing style. The public was ready for something more realistic, as the wild success of Cabaret proved.
"Although I wouldn't call the choreography either 'flamboyant' or 'gay'- Michael Kidd was straight, so I don't know where you or the OP got that one."
Apples and oranges. Michael Kidd's assumed sexuality isn't at issue. But even if he were straight, that has no bearing on the "gayness" or "straightness" of his art.
I'm a gay man, and I find Hello, Dolly!'s choreography about as queer as it gets. The OP is right.
I'm a gay man, and I find Hello, Dolly!'s choreography about as queer as it gets. The OP is right.
God honey, unclench, will you?
And if the word “queer”, which has been used by the community since the 80s, offends you, you really need a down.
God honey, unclench, will you?
"What needs to be "unclenched" is your command of language - greater clarity would definitely help."
ROFL! What a rigid little pedant it is--complete with a source citing. You must be a riot a parties.
You know exactly what I mean when I said "unclench". Do you really have to hide behind that uptight, snobbish pose? Why would you treat an IMDB thread about something as trivial as Hello, Dolly's choreography as if it were a term paper?
Why not get to the point? You seem offended by what you may see as negative gay stereotypes: flamboyant, queer. Is that the issue for you?
ROFL!
Why not get to the point?
"Please, tell us - how long have you been classifying choreography as 'flamboyant,' 'gay' and 'queer'?
How long? Gee, not sure I can answer. Even if I could--what difference would it make?
If you don't think the dancing is gay or flamboyant, fine. Just say so. But your posts repeatedly DEMANDING that people explain what specifically is "gay" about the silly, campily stylized dancing in Hello, Dolly! says a lot more about you than anything else. Why are you so bent out of shape about this?
But your posts repeatedly DEMANDING that people explain what specifically is "gay" about the silly, campily stylized dancing in Hello, Dolly! says a lot more about you than anything else.
"The choreography was extremely gay..."
"I find Hello, Dolly!'s choreography about as queer as it gets..."
Funny choice on your part. Tony host Neil Patrick Harris closed this year’s awards be saying “this show could not be any gayer”. Like many of us, Neil’s comfortable with his sexuality and has no problem referring to things as “gay”. Since the line got a huge laugh and applause from the audience, gay and straight, they plainly had no problem with it either.
I suggest you contact Neil – whom you classify as “one of those idiots who say things like: ‘The Tony Awards are so gay’ “—and demand that he answer your questions: “What it is, exactly, that MAKES [the Tonys] gay”…and “how long [has he] been classifying [them] as gay”. Maybe he can get through to you.
Meanwhile, since your anger's driven you to start hurling insults, you're vanishing into my ignore list.
Good luck with Neil.
Oooh - the ignore list! Like it's some horrifying fate. Does this mean you're not going to share your thoughts on cinematography that's really gay?
Audiences laughed at the lyrics of Neil Patrick Harris's closing song (which, by the way, wasn't written by Harris but by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman) because they knew it played on stereotypical generalizations about the Tony Awards; they laughed because they'd heard the generalizations before and were familiar with them - not because they felt they were true. Harris would never divide art into "gay" and "straight" categories. He was quite happy to be nominated for an Emmy as "Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series." He didn't insist on a subdivision; he didn't say "How dare you! I'm an Outstanding Gay Supporting Actor." He doesn't slap labels on art, or try to qualify it. He would never say "Stephen Sondheim is a great gay composer." He would say "Stephen Sondheim is a great composer - period."
Harris knows who he is, but he also knows that art is art, composers are composers, and choreography is choreography.
First - I think the choreography in DOLLY is incredible. For goodness sake, it's in the same style as 7 BRIDES, and it all looks very "athletic".
Second - to Murph - I'm really intrigued by your comment that DOLLY actually took in a box office of $33 million! For years, I've been reading $15 million.
That's great! What does that $33 million include?
"Samantha! You picked a lemon in the garden of love!"
Tracking down the box office returns on Hello, Dolly! isn't easy. Most sites list a domestic box office take of $15 million...
http://www.boxofficereport.com/database/1969.shtml
But I've read this was a Variety figure that only reflected the film's rentals; the actual box office gross was two-and-a-half times that figure. The site "The Numbers - Box Office Data," lists a domestic box office gross of $33 million...
http://www.the-numbers.com/movies/1969/0HLDL.php
The Wikipedia page for Hello, Dolly! (which doesn't list its sources) goes beyond that, stating that the film's US gross was $56 million -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hello,_Dolly!_(film)
One Streisand biography stated the film actually broke even when the worldwide grosses were tallied. But one thing is certain - in its initial release, Hello, Dolly! didn't make money; it wasn't profitable. In order to pay off its production budget, plus the costs of prints and advertising, insiders speculated it needed to top $75 million in domestic grosses. Of course, this was before the boom in the VHS and DVD market, where Dolly! has actually done well - thanks, in part, to Wall-E. But only the accountants know how well.
So, whatever. Hello...
http://z.hubpages.com/u/819001_f520.jpg
Thanks, Murph!!!....I've always hated how this movie has been legendarily branded a "flop", a "box-office bomb" and a "turkey". I've also read, as you cited, that the home-video market has been very kind to DOLLY. I think I read that it's one of the highest selling of all home videos (in whichever form - dvd or vhs). In fact, I also read that even when it first appeared on home videotape WWAAAYYY back in 1977 on the "Magnetic Video" label - at about $80.00 a copy! - it was still one of the most popular titles.
"Samantha! You picked a lemon in the garden of love!"
You thought the dancing in Put on Your Sunday Clothes looked "athletic"? Uuuhhhh, ok.
Not so much SUNDAY CLOTHES but the WAITER'S GALLOP and DANCING. SUNDAY CLOTHES was, I think, supposed to look "pretty".
But you can see a lot of that athletic type of 7 BRIDES dancing in the other parts of the film.
"Samantha! You picked a lemon in the garden of love!"
Agreed, mikwalen. Pretty, to use your word, or gay, to use the OP's. Camp would be another appropriate adjective, since that unrealistic, presentational style is so dated. In fact, it was dated back in '69.
shareI guess the look was deliberate, being the film took place in 1890. I also love the choreography in SWEET CHARITY and WEST SIDE STORY, but these styles would hardly suit DOLLY. You wouldn't expect the waiters, for instance, to start doing Fosse type moves (LOL!)
The film, I believe, was an attempt to capture the old-fashioned movie musical of the "golden age" of MGM, hence the presentational style and "look". For DOLLY, I thought the choreography was great...but I wouldn't want to see the Jets and Sharks doing that kind of dancing!
"Samantha! You picked a lemon in the garden of love!"
Actually, I think it would be great fun to see the Jets & Sharks dancing through West Side Story a la "Put on Your Sunday Clothes"! :)
shareOf course, most choreography is presentational - meaning it's not intended to be realistic. Actual New York street gangs wouldn't be doing precision routines to establish "turf," New York taxi dancers wouldn't be marching down Wall Street with guys in Brass Band uniforms, and turn-of-the-century New Yorkers wouldn't have danced to the train station - they'd have simply walked to the train station. But no one ever accused musical theater of being realistic (even if it contained realistic elements), and movie musicals, if anything, present an even greater departure from reality.
Michael Kidd established himself as a rough-and-tumble choreographer with his breakthrough work in Guys and Dolls and Finian's Rainbow, which he developed even further in films like Seven Brides For Seven Brothers and The Band Wagon. When Gwen Verdon first stopped the show on Broadway, she wasn't dancing under Bob Fosse's direction; she was performing Michael Kidd's explosive Apache choreography in Can Can. But with The Band Wagon, Kidd proved he could also do very romantic choreography; "Dancing In The Dark" remains one of the greatest male-female duets in cinematic history. So with all the romantic pairings and high-energy waiters in Hello, Dolly!, it wasn't hard to understand why Kidd was hired to choreograph the film - and for the most part I thought he did a good job.
There is, of course, a West Side Story crossover moment in Hello, Dolly! - in "Put On Your Sunday Clothes," you'll see Tucker Smith at Barbra Streisand's left, reacting in a BIG way to her "where the girls are hot as a fuse" lyric. Smith, of course, played "Ice" in West Side Story.
Great comment murph!
"Samantha! You picked a lemon in the garden of love!"
Poor, darling Tucker Smith. He is greatly missed.
Did you ever consider that the choreography was meant to look "dated" considering that the film is set in 1890 ? I think it is wonderful, by the way.
"Life is uncertain, eat dessert first!" -HOMER J.SIMPSON
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Michael Kidd was the choreographer of "Hello, Dolly" and his stylistic trademarks are very apparent in this film. Though Mr. Kelly and Mr. Kidd were of a similar era (and worked together on "It's Always Fair Weather"), I don't feel that the choreography is done in the Gene Kelly style. Mr. Kelly was probably too busy working on the considerable logistics of this film to have gotten too involved in dance suggestions to Mr. Kidd.
I do not remember hearing him talk about doing choreography for this film (he does some commentary on the "Star!" DVD). I hope he did the same for "Hello, Dolly".
The film took a deliberate step in shooting much of the film outdoors, and many of the dances appear to have been photographed on the 20th Century Fox backlot or on location. Perhaps because of the exteriors (or inspired by the abilities of his dancers who include Tommy Tune) Mr. Kidd seems to have leaned heavily on choreography involving lots of leaps and jumps (his choreographic approach on "Star!" is a very different one) not to mention trying to deal with what appears to be the very complex-looking and not terribly dance-friendly Harmonia Gardens set. That must have been a challenge!
Mr. Kidd was working on "Star!" at approximately the same time as "Hello, Dolly!" and utilized some of the same dancers on both films. His choreography assistant on both films was his wife, Ms. Hackett.
I didn't find the dancing that flamboyant. I just found the dancing friggin' endless. This movie could have had a much stronger impact if it had been shorter.
"...but you know my policy, no husband, no baby gift."
EXACTLY!! It wasn't the choreopgraphy. This movie was way over the top in terms of production. Every number was produced as if IT was the showpiece number. A little restraint would've made this movie far more easier to sit through. Seven Brides had the the money number with the barn dance and it was all that was needed.
________________________________________
Get me a bromide - and put some gin in it!
It's a valid question about ALL muscials. Does the dancing detract from the musical--the story line, or does it reinforce the story line. In CABARET the dancing works to reinforce the story line; in OKLAHOMA the dancing reinforces the story line. But, the viewer really, really, really has to be an afficionado of dance to appreciate it's place in the musical drama. Even in THE MUSIC MAN it seems a bit much in the High School sequence as well as in the Library sequence. I'm glad dance is employed so dancers and choreographers can be employed but I still wonder. One of the places where dance is so important and so comedic is in Gilbert and Sullivan's PIRATES OF PENZANCE, where at the end of the play, the constables, the daughters, and the pirates all mime babbling brooks, waving trees, and flowing grasses to convince the Modern Major General that he is alone in his garden; an excellent piece of choreography and comedy that leads to a denoument where everybody gets the girl and lives happily ever after. But regrettably, more times than not, the dance seems to be self-referencing for its own sake without progressing the story forward.
shareExtreme dance moves are Michael Kidd's trademark. The style emphasizes the fun in a musical. See "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers".
shareI just saw this thing for the first time. I am flabbergasted.
I can almost imagine the directions:
"OK, now I want you all to ham it up! Ham it up! ... I want those knees HIGH up in the air, people! Higher! Think of Marge and Gower Champion.... Perky! I want perky, and I want prancing, like show ponies, prance like your life depended on being best in show! .... Don't you people know how to flounce around in a regimented way? Flounce! Look carefree and giddy and flounce on your tiptoes... You too, ladies!"
Oy!
My God, I just watched it *closely* for the first time, and I had exactly the same reaction -- only not as cleverly imagined as yours. I felt like I was watching hundreds of crazed circus ponies. Add to that the obscuring shadows cast on all the dancers' faces by the "naturalistic" outdoor lighting, and they all might as well have been pony marionettes with their rear ends endlessly pointing skyward.
share