MovieChat Forums > Hello, Dolly! (1969) Discussion > The Fun of Streisand and Matthau Togethe...

The Fun of Streisand and Matthau Together

posted 13 years ago by ecarle
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A running theme in looking at "Hello, Dolly" seems to be that Streisand and Matthau hated each other (true...and documented...particularly on Matthau's part towards Streisand.)

But what if you didn't KNOW that? What if you watched "Hello, Dolly" and considered the fun (at least it was at the time) at seeing two rather expertly pitched New York Jewish Masters of Accented Comedy(one of whom, Barbra, could also sing) playing off of each other with a sense of timing that had made them both stars to begin with?

Walter Matthau's son Charlie said that Walter and Barbra hated each other "because they were too much alike." Some years later, Streisand invited Matthau to come to one of her concerts and filmed him there. "Kissing and making up," I suppose.

Before and after "Hello, Dolly," Streisand was paired with more "age appropriate" leading men -- Omar Sharif, Ryan O'Neal, James Caan, and the best of them all, Robert Redford.

But Streisand and Matthau were a better fit than you'd think. The age difference didn't matter all that much because Barbra seemed more of an older generation and Matthau's middle-aged cynicism was kind of hip. They "met in the middle."

The big number in "Hello, Dolly" is, of course..."Hello, Dolly." And boy did it get the Hollywood treatment here -- full orchestration, big screen, lots of dancers and Louis Armstrong himself cameoing and waving Streisand off with what looks like real affection as she finishes the number.

But wait: Armstrong says "One more time!" and the song starts again...and then suddenly dies out as Matthau starts to sneak up the stairs to elude Streisand and she catches him.

Matthau's commentary is funny as, after trying to slink away in a crouch, he rises to full height and looks Streisand in her bosomy dress up and down:

"Miss Levi, do you think you have the figure for that sort of get-up?"

This is a "Walter Matthau line," delivered the Walter Matthau way: wry, sly and self-knowingly. (Vandergelder is trying to "change the subject" having been discovered trying to escape a bad date).

And Streisand answers sexily, doing her Mae West routine(proudly noted at the time by Mae West herself): "That's entirely up to others to decide."

Matthau and Streisand then walk together towards their dinner table for a big scene together, with Streisand motormouthing away as Matthau tosses out one word observations and sentences...all the way to the table.

They get seated at the table. A great scene begins. Broadly written(for the pop stage), it is expertly played. Its WC Fields(Matthau) meets Groucho Marx(Streisand)...with a touch of Mae West, of course("My Little Chickadee.").

In 1969, Streisand and Matthau were newly minted stars. It had taken Matthau over ten years to do it, but "The Fortune Cookie" and "The Odd Couple" pulled the trick. "Hello, Dolly" was Matthau's first film after "The Odd Couple." He was as hot as a near-50-year-old actor could be(but then stars could be made older back then -- Lee Marvin and George C. Scott were others). Streisand had taken far less time to make it to the top -- one movie,"Funny Girl," with an Oscar for it(THAT probably drove the long-suffering Matthau nuts.) 1968 had made them stars with "Funny Girl" and "The Odd Couple." Now they were stars, top stars, hot, on the way up, not down.

And so Streisand and Matthau at that table, trading one-liners, with Matthau getting exasperated and Streisand selling that she loves this man Horace Vandergelder(and she sells it well, with a maturity well above her 28 years) plays extremely fast and furious and fun.

And then, alas, the movie has to trundle on down the track to less fun and more plot. Though there is a pretty song yet to come("It Only Takes a Moment" -- immortalized decades later FROM THIS MOVIE in "Wall-E") and one more funny number with Streisand singing a dishevelled-looking Matthau into submission("So Long,Dearie".) The rest is piffle.

No matter. For those 20 minutes or so when the exhilarating Streisand-Armstrong "Hello, Dolly" segues into the funny professionalism of Streisand and Matthau verbally duelling at the dinner table..."Hello, Dolly" is a top entertainment, and a memorable one.

I don't CARE if they hated each other.

[–] movibuf1962 13 years ago

ecarle-- I didn't KNOW that they hated each other...until I began to read these message boards, and now they pretty much speak of nothing else.

It doesn't show on-screen, IMHO. And any scene they had together- the first scene in the parked carriage in Yonkers, the staccato dinner scene in HG, or most poignantly, the last scene when Horace says, "I HAVE found her, and it's YOU, dammit!!"- reveals a wonderful, professional, sense of banter and even chemistry. When my mom was alive, she and and I used to watch this film together all the time, and we always commented on how UNUSUAL the pairing of Streisand and Matthau was, but how it worked in an most unconventional way. Thanks for the observation.

[–] ecarle 13 years ago

You're welcome.

A key to Barbra Streisand's career...in the seventies at least...is how she managed to attract quite a few good male co-stars to spar with her. I think that Robert Redford was the best...they seemed incredibly mismatched, but had incredible chemistry, including sexual.

But Walter Matthau isn't far behind. Certainly a better match than, say, Omar Sharif or Kris Kristofferson.

"Age difference" wasn't all that big a deal between Matthau and Streisand, and as I have tried to demonstrate, they were really the same kind of "New York comedian" (James Caan in Funny Lady came close to this with Streisand as well.)

But I really like Matthau and..surprise...I really like Streisand in that period. Together for us, they were gold. What does it matter if they hated each other?

One hilarious bit(says I):

When Dolly corners Vandergelder marching in the parade("I came here for a little privacy," he says amidst hundreds) we get this exchange about the woman Dolly has set Vandergelder up with this time:

Matthau: (Flustered): Who? Who..who...who..who?
Streisand: (Mocking) Who? Who? Who! Who!

Doesn't work on paper, but with these two master players...it works GREAT on film. (You have discovered my style of YEARS, btw -- I can't find the italics key. Hence the CAPS. Oh, I can find it, I just got lazy. It stuck.)

[–] movibuf1962 13 years ago

FWIW, I use caps because I never HAVE found an italics key, LOL. (Or emoticons, for that matter.)

One thing about period Streisand: she looks older in 1890- or looks like she better belongs in that period rather than modern times. That's another reason she does so well in the role and why I don't care that she was actually 27-28 at filming; she looks like she could've been 35 in those costumes and Gibsongirl hair. (Speaking of hair, I thought she was a complete babe sitting in the window with her hair partially down is "Love Is Only Love." It might've been an added number to specifically highlight love-song-Barbra, but it was a beautiful thing and I thought well-directed by Gene Kelly.)

Admittedly, it would've been interesting to see other actresses' take on the role- imagine a DVD 'special features' reel showing Dolly attempted (on film) by, say, Doris Day, Debbie Reynolds, Jane Powell, Martha Raye, Betty Garrett, Ann Miller, Eve Arden, Elaine Stritch, or Betty Grable. (I tried to think of exclusively hardened female musical icons, 40-ish and beyond. I would've included Lucy if she actually sang [but we know she couldn't, re: MAME], and Judy Garland if she wasn't already gone by the time this was released.)

[–] ecarle 13 years ago

I've been thinking about this little thread I started, and I think what I'm (maybe) trying to say is that the movie of "Hello, Dolly" was in some ways SAVED by the casting of Barbra Streisand and Walter Matthau in the leads.

Dolly Levi was meant to be an older character(Shirley Booth played her in the non-musical version "The Matchmaker" and of course Carol Channing played her on stage), but Fox seems to have put two and two together: in 1968, there would be no hotter and more major MUSICAL female star than Barbra Streisand. Some of the more age appropriate ladies above -- particularly Doris Day -- had, unfortunately, just recently been declared "of another era." (Doris Day's films of 1968 were distressingly "out of it" and she headed over to TV, stat.) A "Hello, Dolly" with one of them in the lead may well have been more of a disaster than the released version with Streisand, which was evidently Number Five in box office for 1969(though that couldn't earn back its costs.)

Walter Matthau wasn't as invaluable to "Hello, Dolly" as Streisand was, but he WAS canny casting. Horace Vandergelder was meant to be middle-aged(I believe that Paul Ford played him in The Matchmaker) and not particularly much of a looker. Walter Matthau was middle-aged, but with his newfound star power, it turned out he WAS kind of a looker(at least in terms of tallness and laid-back male presence -- he finished in the top five of an early seventies list of "leading men women love" along with Newman, Redford, McQueen...and somebody.)

I expect that Matthau's pal Jack Lemmon was considered for Vandergelder, but alas, with "The Odd Couple," Lemmon dropped in charisma(Felix Unger was just TOO neurotic) and Walter Matthau rose(Oscar may have been a slob, but he was a guy and he was a long-suffering friend to Felix.)

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"Hello, Dolly" famously hit around the same last weeks of 1969(Thanksgiving into Christmas) as another famous overpriced musical with problems: "Paint Your Wagon" with Lee Marvin and Clint Eastwood(!!!)

Much fun was made of the Marvin/Eastwood pairing, but the fact of the matter was -- yet again -- that by placing these two hip male stars into an old-fashioned musical, "Paint Your Wagon" brought in younger audiences (and tough guy fans) that musicals weren't supposed to get.

"Hello, Dolly" and "Paint Your Wagon" get painted as "turkeys" by counterculture folk out to make a case against the Mastodon Musicals of the sixties(the failures that "The Sound of Music" wrought), but honestly -- Streisand, Matthau, Marvin and Eastwood gave those musicals a "fighting chance" to compete in the 1969 marketplace. There remains a weird hipness WITHIN them because of the stars. (Lee Marvin's great baritone turned inot a surprising croak as a singing voice, but he still got a Top Ten recording hit out of the melancholy tale of an "aging frontier hippie" (I Was Born Under A) Wandrin' Star.")

And Streisand knew how to carry a tune.

And both musicals had very good songs, sumptious production values and photography(the millions are "up on the screen") and "mood"(cotton candy with "Dolly," rainy and melancholy with "Wagon.")

PS. Streisand was a bit of a babe in "Love is Only Love" (a song I believe she requested to get her sexy-loving thing in -- Matthau is nowhere around even though the song is about HIM.)

But then Streisand had a lot of sex appeal. Omar Sharif(another co-star who hated her) nastily said "The trouble with Barbra Streisand is that she thinks she is a beautiful woman. And she's neither." Well that was wrong. She was certainly a woman and -- filmed the right way -- she could project a certain beauty. Certainly of the body, but also (thanks to her voice and manner) of her face and personality. It made SENSE that she could land Robert Redford(for awhile at least) in The Way We Were.

[–] movibuf1962 13 years ago

[–] mikwalen 13 years ago

This is REALLY an excellent thread - thanks!
Doris as Dolly - well, she certainly had the "screen presence", but as movibuf states - "zaniness" doesn't really come across with Doris. Granted, she could do comedy beautifully, but could she be a "motormouth" like Dolly should be?

Lucy - I think this would have worked (not to knock Babs, who was amazing) - the singing wouldn't have bothered me, because her singing voice isn't much different than Channing's, who played the role to great acclaim.

I loved all your comments about Babs and Matthau actually working well. Yes - the whole "New York" comedian thing worked beautifully in their scenes. And yes also to the way Streisand looked - she DID NOT look 27. In those costumes and wigs, she looked easily 35. That's a perfectly acceptable age to be a widow in those times - consider that girls married at about 18? She could have lost Ephraim when she was 25 - 30 years of age.

[–] ecarle 13 years ago

This is REALLY an excellent thread - thanks!

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Thanks for reading it...and contributing to it.

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Doris as Dolly - well, she certainly had the "screen presence", but as movibuf states - "zaniness" doesn't really come across with Doris. Granted, she could do comedy beautifully, but could she be a "motormouth" like Dolly should be?

--

Probably not.

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Lucy - I think this would have worked (not to knock Babs, who was amazing) - the singing wouldn't have bothered me, because her singing voice isn't much different than Channing's, who played the role to great acclaim.

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Closer, more age appropriate. Do recall what happened five years later with "Mame," though. That one came a little too late for Lucy to shine.

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I loved all your comments about Babs and Matthau actually working well. Yes - the whole "New York" comedian thing worked beautifully in their scenes. And yes also to the way Streisand looked - she DID NOT look 27. In those costumes and wigs, she looked easily 35. That's a perfectly acceptable age to be a widow in those times - consider that girls married at about 18? She could have lost Ephraim when she was 25 - 30 years of age.

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Exceptionally well stated. Too often critics take the "easy shot" -- "What, was Dolly married at 8 but widowed at 10?" No...it could play EXACTLY as you have just said. And I'm even willing to give Barbra a "character's suspension of reality bump" up a couple of years just for the sake of fantasy. In other words, she was 27 looking 35 playing 38.

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In case we don't come back to it, I wanted to return to this "Matthau hated Streisand" bit.

From what I've read, on a lot of movies, stars hated each other. Particuarly stars of similar magnitude who were jealous of each other.

Or you had the "just plain nuts" Marilyn Monroe driving everyone crazy on Some Like It Hot, so that Billy Wilder, Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis(especially) hated her too.

But again: that shouldn't matter to us, the audience out here. Those people get paid a lot of money to do their work, and if they have to do it hating each other, or waiting for hours for the other actor to get the take(MM, who was GREAT in the finished "Some Like It Hot")...well, that's their job.

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That said, I think a little of the Matthau-Streisand feud creeps in on screen at the end. Matthau, singing of his love for Streisand, pauses and "hits too hard" the line about Streisand -- "Wonderful Woman!" -- with a bit of self-joking sarcasm, and you can tell at the very end that they barely kiss at all. (Imdb says that they DON'T kiss...Matthau held his head behind Streisand and inches away and it is filmed in long shot.)

[–] mikwalen 13 years ago

Well, atleast Babs and Walter made friends later on in life.

Every actress will bring his/her own "stamp" to a role. I'm sure Pearl Bailey's Dolly was nothing like Channing's, and I'm sure Greer Garson's Auntie Mame was nothing like Roz Russell's. True, Babs does play a lot of her roles in that "NY" vocal inflection, but Dolly was not as broad as Fanny Brice. So, I think that the critics should have lightened up on her interpretation. They attacked that as well as the age issue.

[–] movibuf1962 13 years ago

[–] ecarle 13 years ago

I always thought the attacks on Streisand were thinly veiled personal resentments- aimed at her perfectionism, control freak-ness, her liberal politics, etc., and that often gets in the way of any objective criticism of her talent- which in this case, was remarkable.

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Something fascinating to me about Streisand...and very much on display in "Dolly," is how she could segue, on a dime, from snappy-patter Groucho Marx spoken dialogue to a singing voice that was as heartfelt and sexy as any that has ever graced record or screen. But she maintained BOTH personas in a single person who could whipsaw you from one extreme(boy is she funny!) to another(boy is she sexy and sad) in seconds.

That was an incredible talent and it came with an ego the size of the Ritz...that was earned. Streisand was an instantaneous movie star -- from Funny Girl to Hello Dolly to On A Clear Day(a bunch of musicals directed by old guys like Wyler and Kelly and Minnelli) to The Owl and the Pussycat(R-rated sexy with the extremely funny New York comedian George Segal on board) to Peter Bogdanovich's "What's Up Doc" to co-starring with supercool Robert Redford. But thorugh all of those movies, with all of those directors, and all of those major co-stars -- Streisand reigned supreme.

And burned out rather fast. Streisand was a Seventies Star. From "The Main Event" (1979) on, and accounting for the lovely "Yentl"((1983), Streisand's superstardom didn't transfer. She's still here, she's still legendary, but her "period" is from long, long ago.

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One of the reasons I've always loved DOLLY on film as much as I do is precisely for the enigma of the production: it was a period musical made at the height of war and social revolution, AT THE END of the musical film genre. (Practically every other major film from here on is drama, social message, horror, western, etc.) Its high-budget production looks marvelous and there is no expense spared, no shoe unbuttoned or corset unfastened.

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"Its all on the screen" and actually, I think the counterculture "seeps in." Streisand's youth, Matthau's ethnicity...they weren't Nicholson and Dunaway, but they were "something new." A production with, say, Doris Day and Robert Preston wouldn't have had the same cachet.

"Hello, Dolly" opened in the year of "Easy Rider" and "Midnight Cowboy" and "Bob And Carol and Ted and Alice" and took some unearned lumps. It was a leftover from 1964(when the musical hit Broadway) and 1965(when The Sound of Music drove the start up of many musicals like Dolly) and met with unfair criticism in 1969.

But it is there to look at today, big and bounteous and expensive and very much out to entertain its audience. I mean, look, the director directed "Singin' in the Rain" and the book adaptation was by the man who wrote "North by Northwest." These men knew how to entertain. "Hello, Dolly" reflects that.

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I love the fact that Gene Kelly- another musical veteran- directed the production- even though history writes that it was a FOX project assigned to him more than anything else (but he makes that brilliant pullback shot at the end of "Parade-" with Ms. Streisand holding that last long note- his own, IMHO). I also love that this was a large, mammoth cast, with singers, dancers, comics, icons, and Streisand at the helm, but artfully blended in.

Agreed. And the opening shot of the picture is "hip" and technically adroit, as a Super Panavision freezeframe on Fox's vaunted "New York City Street" stays on the screen a very long time until a train appears in the tippy-top upper right corner of the screen...in motion WITHIN the corner of the freeze frame. The freeze frame then "opens up" and the city street comes to life. Very 1969 dazzling.

[–] movibuf1962 13 years ago

>>And the opening shot of the picture is "hip" and technically adroit, as a Super Panavision freezeframe on Fox's vaunted "New York City Street" stays on the screen a very long time until a train appears in the tippy-top upper right corner of the screen...in motion WITHIN the corner of the freeze frame. The freeze frame then "opens up" and the city street comes to life. Very 1969 dazzling.<<

That opening shot is the s---!! I mentioned it in Mikwalen's thread about who saw DOLLY on the big screen. I saw it for the first time when I was eight years old, in an old-fashioned stage theater with balcony, draped stage, and widescreen in 1970. Even then I was blown away by that long, frozen cross-corner shot that says NEW YORK CITY, 1890. I also remember that everyone in that theater was hushed-- the whole hear-a-pin-drop thing, etc. Then when the train whistles, it seems to simultaneously wake up eveyone on-screen, and they begin that rhythmic walk- although some appear to be jogging, for some reason, LOL.

(Which begs a question: you mentioned SuperPanavision. Are SP and Todd-AO the same animal? There's a T-AO film credit in the train-chugging opening credits. If it was actually filmed in T-AO, that would explain at least part of its mammoth budget. Looks awesome on DVD, BTW.)

P.S.-- I just saw two others you mentioned in the last two weeks: MIDNIGHT COWBOY and B&C&T&A (which was just on TCM the other night at 4:00 in the morning). I forgot they were ALL from 1969. What a diverse year of films!!

[–] ecarle 13 years ago

(Which begs a question: you mentioned SuperPanavision. Are SP and Todd-AO the same animal? There's a T-AO film credit in the train-chugging opening credits. If it was actually filmed in T-AO, that would explain at least part of its mammoth budget. Looks awesome on DVD, BTW.)

I will rat myself out: I used the phrase "SuperPanavision" as my own made up concept -- I might as well have said "superdooperpooperPanavision." I just know that image was BIG.

---P.S.-- I just saw two others you mentioned in the last two weeks: MIDNIGHT COWBOY and B&C&T&A (which was just on TCM the other night at 4:00 in the morning). I forgot they were ALL from 1969. What a diverse year of films!!

Diverse indeed: In 1969 "Old Hollywood" was shuffling out with Hello Dolly and Paint Your Wagon and True Grit(and, on a smaller scale, Alfred Hitchcock's Topaz)
while "New Hollywood" was staking its claim with the above films.

The same month he took second billing in "Dolly," Walter Matthau got top billing in "Cactus Flower," with Old Hollywood Matron Ingrid Bergman and New Hollywood Babe Goldie Hawn as the women in his life(Matthau started out with Hawn, ended up with Bergman.)

And then there was the ultra-violent The Wild Bunch, a movie by a middle-aged director(Sam Peckinpah) with a direct line to the hearts and souls of nihilistic youth.

And then there was the biggest hit of the year, "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," which used much of The Wild Bunch true backstory to tell a "cuter" tale of doomed outlaws.

And hey, we had the first Connery-free Bond("On Her Majesty's Secret Service") and the first "true Woody Allen comedy"(the skimpy but funny "Take the Money and Run") and Michael Caine leading the car chases of "The Italian Job" and Italian Sergio Leone giving us his peaking spaghetti Western "Once Upon a Time in the West."

Helluva year, 1969. Helluva lot of movies.

And "Hello, Dolly" came in at Number Five! I guess Barbra Streisand WAS a star.

[–] DryToast 13 years ago

you mentioned SuperPanavision. Are SP and Todd-AO the same animal?

Just to answer your technical question, after 1956, Todd-AO and Super Panavision 70 were exactly the same process. (Before that, i.e., for Oklahoma! and Around the World in 80 Days, Todd-AO was photographed at 30 frames per second instead of the standard 24 frames per second, but that was abandoned as too expensive and too difficult to transfer to 24-fps CinemaScope for general release prints.)

"Oh look, the neighbors are recording us."

[–] movibuf1962 13 years ago

Thank you for that clarification. I remember OKLAHOMA! and AROUND THE WORLD... (and SOUTH PACIFIC, I thought) having especially crisp surfaces, and not understanding what made T-AO different from other processes- until now.

[–] mikwalen 13 years ago

Just to answer your technical question, after 1956, Todd-AO and Super Panavision 70 were exactly the same process.

Hi,DT! That makes me wonder - FAIR LADY and CHITTY were filmed in the Panavision 70 process. DOLLY, STAR, and SOM were Todd-AO.

On the dvd of CCBB, STAR, DOLLY, and SOM, the letterboxed image is 2:20.
However, MFL is 2:35.

I suppose when the studios are putting together the dvd's, they can choose how "wide" they want the letterboxing?

This is a wonderful thread - and I'm glad to find folks who love the film of HD as I do!!

[–] DryToast 13 years ago

when the studios are putting together the dvd

Aspect ratios on DVDs are a huge, aggravating quagmire. You get all sorts of offenses, standard-frame movies being cropped for widescreen, widescreen being cropped for full frame, films meant to be cropped for widescreen being released full-frame, etc. Once you start paying attention to the whole issue, it becomes a real nightmare.

"Oh look, the neighbors are recording us."

[–] ecarle 13 years ago

I'll give you all the comments about Doris, but (can't believe I'm saying this), in her defense, I think the criticisms about her being out-of-date were launched primarily at her most recent attempts at *modern* romantic comedies. She was doing odd things like CAPRICE, DO NOT DISTURB, and the *western* THE BALLAD OF JOSIE (not to mention getting incredible mock for being so 'virginal' in THAT TOUCH OF MINK when she was almost 40)- but then hit a fairly nice coda with the family comedy WITH SIX YOU GET EGGROLL.

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It is rather incredible what happened to Doris Day in the sixties. At the "front end" she was the biggest female star out there. At the back end, she collapsed...indeed because of those "odd movies." But there was something more. I've read a biography on her and you'd be surprised how much she suddenly became THE target for counterculture movie critics and movie stars and movie moguls as "the enemy, the past, the fake Hollywood that had to be destroyed."

And they got her. But they left her the room to move to TV. And indeed, "With Six You Get Eggroll" was a nifty film, she was smart to make that her last(oddly enough, it hit the same year as the similar "Yours, Mine and Ours" with fellow Old Folks Lucy Ball and Henry Fonda.)

-- Having said that, I think the character of Dolly required an actresss with a much more aggressive, almost zany, personality (which Doris never really was)- which is why La Streisand scores so well. But this then makes me wonder about Doris's "Jumbo" co-star Martha Raye- who was more of a singing comedienne (sp?), and closer to the age of "Dolly," as were Arden, Reynolds, Grable, and the rest.

(Lainie Kazan? Joan Blondell? Kaye Ballard?)

--

I suspect of your list, only Lainie Kazan MIGHT have gotten a shot at Dolly. "Hip for the time." Fox knew they had a zillion dollar budget movie on their hands. It needed "bankable." As I recall, Liz Taylor was considered for a time. Shirley MacLaine, too. But all arrows pointed to La Streisand as the "biggest" casting they could do.

That's Hollywood.

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Never saw the entire "Paint Your Wagon," but your observations make me curious about that one too.

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I like "Paint Your Wagon" a lot. Just like "Hello, Dolly," it got plenty of patrons and made plenty of money...but not NEARLY enough(just like Dolly) to cover the huge budget and promotional costs.

"Paint Your Wagon" looks incredibly expensive and "beats" Dolly in one way -- gorgeous mountain-meadow-stream outdoor locations(Oregon filling in for Gold Rush California.) The songs(both old Lerner-Loewe ones and hip new Andre Previn ones) are good. Trained baritone Harve Presnell gets the best-sung number "They Call the Wind Mariah." But the movie is way too long, with too much story getting in the way of the songs. "Paint Your Wagon" is a great "DVD watch" -- just skip to the musical numbers and the "Entire Gold Rush town falls into the center of the earth" disaster movie finale(no CGI, all big collapsable sets.)

White-haired, drunk and ornery Lee Marvin is damn funny in it, and handsome young Clint Eastwood is just plain odd...sweet, gentle, bland, a man of little temper or violence at all. It is Clint's most placid role.

[–] bmbdsm 13 years ago

I love this movie, and I find it very underrated. I need to watch it soon, because I haven't seen it in a while.

A lot of the reviews I've come across for this film almost always mention that Barbra was too young to play Dolly. I find it interesting that Thornton Wilder describes Dolly (in his play "The Matchmaker," from which "Dolly!" comes from) as: "Uncertain age; mass of sandy hair; impoverished elegance; large, shrewd but generous nature, an assumption of worldy cynicism conceals a tireless amused enjoyment of life."

Jeff Kurtii, in his book THE GREAT MOVIE MUSICAL TRIVIA BOOK (which contains an entire chapter devoted to DOLLY!), brings up an interesting discussion on this very topic. I would repost it here, but it is a bit long. Here's the Amazon link (very good book; a few errors, but very good): http://www.amazon.com/Great-Movie-Musical-Trivia-Book/dp/1557832226/re f=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1331344289&sr=8-1

[–] mikwalen 13 years ago

Thank you, Bmb!! I thought Babs was spot-on as Dolly!!

"So full of FIRE and MUSIC!!!"

[–] ecarle 12 years ago

Very interesting trivia!