Rating: 
Summary: Wonderful Trip Down Memory Lane
Review: My 11 yr old daughter is going to be in a Hello Dolly school play. After searching around fruitlessly in local stores to find that the movie is out of production and quite rare I came here to get a used copy for my daughter to watch. I had to pay an arm and a leg but after watching it again after over 2 decades I think it was worth every penny. Definitely a trip down memory lane and great to see the young (I think 28 yr old)Barbara Streisand, Walter Matthau and Michael Crawford. I had forgotten how breathtaking some of the scenes were such as the entrance of Dolly into the Harmonia Gardens in that stunning gold dress. For someone that has seen it before a long time ago and liked, buy it, it is a real feelgood movie. For new viewers, this is a musical done in the old style that was popular 3 decades ago. It might be hard to get used to it unless you like old musicals. There is a lot of singing and dancing that nowadays looks a little out of place in a movie. The movie cost over $20 million to make which was a lot in those days, it is reflected in the quality of the sets and costumes which are absolutely beautiful.
Rating:
Summary: Hello Dolly Is My All Time Favorite Musical
Review: I am 70 years young and have been going to Broadway Musicals most of my life. Hello Dolly is just great fun to watch and hear, what else should I say?
Rating: 
Summary: A December to Remember
Review: I first viewed this musical on December 27, 1969 at New York City's Rivoli Theater. This palace, which boasted a wide curved screen and opitimal stereo sound, no longer exsists. For anyone familar with this past lanmark, you can relate to how the ambiance added to the enjoyment of seeing this big, splashy and highly produced musical. The theater was packed with Christmas revelars. The audience applauded when Barbra's close-up appeared. This spontaneous erruption continued after each number was performed. And when Louis Armstrong sang his cameo version of "Hello, Dolly", the enthralled audience sent waves of love with sighs and applause.
I melted that afternoon. I revisted the film six more occassions through summer's end.
Is it the best? Not at all. But was it the most entertaining film during its time? Indeed, it was!!! For all its shortcomings, the joy the film expelled was a gift to those who viewed this valentine to the "good old days" of motion picture musicals.
Rating:
Summary: Hello Dolly!
Review: Anyone who loves Barbra & hasn't seen this will absolutely fall in love. Barbra's style & personal touch adds to its already charming lively score & lends yet another element to this classic. She's made it her own. My rating is 5 stars plus & garners a seat along side Funny Girl & Funny Lady.
Rating:
Summary: Great song and dance movie!
Review: Barbra Streisand stars as Dolly Levi, matchmaker to Walter Matthau's Horace Vandergelder, well-to-do Yonkers businessman. Horace is looking for a wife to cook, clean, and generally work hard for him. Dolly has her eye on Horace, however, and just in time for the happy ending, they marry. His two naive shopclerks, played by Michael Crawford and Danny Lockin, are along for the ride as they pay their first visit to New York City and also fall in love. Forget the plot; it's riduculous. So is the casting: Striesand is way too young for her part; Matthau is way too old for his (What is he doing in a musical?). The point of the movie is to showcase the musical production numbers, and they are fabulous. Streisand, Crawford, and Lockin sing and dance their way across 1890s New York, joined by hundreds of beautifully dressed cityfolk. The songs are sweet, singable, and lovely, and the choreography is amazing. Some standout songs are Put on Your Sunday Clothes and Look! I'm Dancing. This film is definitely worth 5 stars for the grand musical numbers; just overlook Babs and Walter and the plot.
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful and elepantine!!
Review: Someone a few reviews down called it one of the happiest musical productions, and that's what does it for me!! For those of you looking for more anti-Barbra ammunition (too young for the role, too self-absorbed, etc.), you can be relieved that this is probably the one film she's ever starred in where her famous ego is held back long enough to give ample screen (and song) time to just about every other cast member in the film. It is one of the truest examples of a lavish movie musical, and it soars *because* of its fibre-optic thin plot of likable New Yorkers being romantically matched all over Yonkers just before the turn of the century. There are musical soliloquies from everyone-- from Streisand, Walter Matthau, clerks Michael Crawford and Danny Locklin, to boutique mistress Marianne McAndrew, and dance turns with Locklin, E. J. Peaker, and the ridiculously gangly Tommy Tune. In short, there's something for everyone in this very sweet, comic, tuneful film-- even jazz great Louis Armstrong!! Streisand is quite good as a 19th-century yenta, and even shows beauty and pathos in the film's softer moments like the "Parade" number (quietly praying to her deceased husband), and my personal favorite, the 'hair-brushing' solo "Love Is Only Love." I've only seen it on VHS, and would like to see it on DVD, in all of its wide-screen glory.
Rating:
Summary: Enjoyable and Funny
Review: I saw a play version of Hello Dolly, and warmed right up to the light story and catchy tunes. The movie version is much more elaborate and blown-up (haha), however it is hilarious. Barbara Streisand makes a good Dolly Levi, a spritely, joyous matchmaker. But underneath her happiness she yearns to move on from her widowhood, despite her fond memories of her husband. She targets Horace Vandergelder (Walter Matthau), a single, half-millionare and owner of a Seed and Feed Store (okay, really not sure of that one), to be her second husband. Dolly goes about this by being his matchmaker and first matching him up with the pretty Irene Molloy, a hat-maker in "the city". Irene, played by Marianne McAndrew, is a sweet but lonely woman, who sings the lovely son "Ribbons Down My Back". The other plotline has Cornelius Hackl and Barnaby Tucker, Vandergelder's employees, escaping small town life and wooing Miss Molloy and her helper. All in all, quite corny and old fashioned, not for everyone, but some fantastic dance scenes and great instances. Streisand is wonderful. And I must mention that I was laughing all the way through at the thought that Michael Crawford, who played Cornelius, eventually played the sensuous, horrific Phantom of the Opera. In Hello Dolly, he is a gawky youth with a funny little voice, while in other instances (mostly later) Crawford has a beautiful, sweet singing voice. Nevertheless, I thought he was real cute and comical in Hello Dolly. Hello Dolly is not a deep or fantastic movie, but is definitely entertaining and nice.
Rating:
Summary: The Coolest and the Funniest
Review: I just recently rented this movie because my mom said I would love it and she was right! I love this video. It was one of the best musicals I've seen. The costumes were creative and colorful and absolutely faboulous. ( Did I spell that right? )
Any way I could tell that every single penny spent on Hello Dolly was a great success. I mean the real live streetcars, the costumes, the music, and especially the beautifully done Harmonia Gardens. This is my over view of the story. It's about a match maker ( someone who arranges marriages ) named Dolly Levi who has her heart set on the rich man named Mr. Horace Vanderguilder. Dolly will do anything to make sure she is that lucky girl to be his bride. I won't tell you any more so I won't spoil the story! I definatly can promise you this that if you like comedy, musicals, and colorful costumes you will most assuredly love Hello Dolly the one and only!!!!!!!!
Rating:
Summary: One of the Happiest and Most Fun Musicals Ever Produced
Review: It was years before I really was able to get into this musical. But what impressed me about "Hello, Dolly!" when I was a child was that it was a popular musical that came out the year I was born. I remember enjoying the number, "Elegance", and in hindsight, am not altogether surprised that then stick-figured Michael Crawford managed to make at least a little of an impression on me even then. The point he makes in response to the reminder that he doesn't know any girls("I'm twenty-eight and three quarters, I've got to begin sometime.") is rather touching, and only someone with his soft, emotional, faltering voice could make the delivery of such a line so memorable.
But of course, this is Barbra Striesand's show, and she is graceful, impish, and hysterically funny as the upbeat matchmaker of 1890 Yonkers. With her hair dyed red, her stylish outfits and the nuances in her rapidfire way of speaking, she makes Dolly Gallagher Levi one of the funniest and most positive characters on film, and while I am aware of the strong disappointment there was when Carol Channing was not chosen to recreate her Broadway role on film, Striesand does the part great justice.
Walter Matthau is crusty and comically grouchy as Horace Vandegelder. The most hysterical moments in the movie are the ones where Dolly pretty much dogs the staid, mostly unemotional grain merchant, during their tumultous evening at the Harmonia Gardens Restaurant, and hires a friend, Gussie Granger(played with perfect comic timing by Judy Knaiz) to pose as an heiress to keep things interesting.
Louis Armstrong has a spectacular cameo during the performance of the title song. Danny Lockin, Marianne McAndrew, and E.J. Peaker had obvious fun with their roles as Barnaby, Irene, and Minnie. A towering Tommy Tune and petite Joyce Ames make a humorously interesting pair as Vandegelder's niece and her artist suitor.
It all ends quite happily for everyone involved, and we are treated to splendid costumes, splashy numbers,including, of course, Barbra Striesand's beautiful and powerful singing, and and an overall optimistic atmosphere along the way. This is definitely one movie I would highly recommend for getting in a good mood!
Rating:
Summary: Believe It or Not: It's Good!
Review: Alot of folks hate this movie, and with good reasons, but they miss the point. A musical isn't supposed to have a plot! It's supposed to just have enough of one to fit in a bunch of highly choreographed, highly catchy danceable tunes. And Hello Dolly! succedes beautifully. Many people only remember the title tune, but there are so many more wonderful songs. "So Long Dearie" is really cool, "A Dainty Woman" is a feminest nightmare, but fun anyway, and of course the title song is superb, as Babs and Louis Armstong are perfect. If you love plotless wonders this is for you. If you're too concerned about plot to enjoy a musical extravaganza, then you don't deserve this.
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