--- title: "Hello, Dolly!" year: 1969 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/hello-dolly" fi1m_score: 56 critics_score: 49 critics_reviews: 8 published: "2026-09-20T05:19:23.261885+00:00" updated: "2026-09-20T05:19:38.558955+00:00" region: "US" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Hello, Dolly! (1969) Directed by Gene Kelly · 2h 28m · MPA G · Comedy, Romance **Fi1m score: 56** · Critics 49 from 8 reviews *In a sentence:* They built a whole street to prove one woman could fill it, and for eight minutes on a staircase she does > Gene Kelly builds an entire 1890s New York and marches hundreds of people through it, and Barbra Streisand, too young for the part and undaunted by it, is the one thing on screen that moves faster than the scenery. Stay for the title number; the rest is upholstery. ## Synopsis New York, the 1890s. Dolly Levi (Barbra Streisand), a widowed matchmaker who will arrange anything for a fee, has been engaged by Horace Vandergelder (Walter Matthau), a wealthy feed merchant in Yonkers, to find him a wife. Dolly has decided the wife will be her. Vandergelder means to go down to the city to propose to Irene Molloy (Marianne McAndrew), a milliner, and to stop his niece Ermengarde (Joyce Ames) marrying the artist Ambrose Kemper (Tommy Tune). His clerks Cornelius Hackl (Michael Crawford) and Barnaby Tucker (Danny Lockin) shut the shop and follow him to New York for one day of adventure. Dolly steers all of them towards Mrs Molloy’s hat shop, her assistant Minnie Fay (E.J. Peaker), and a table at the Harmonia Gardens restaurant. ## Review Ernest Lehman writes and produces, Gene Kelly directs, and between them they have taken a stage musical about a matchmaker and made it 148 minutes long. The idea seems to have been that if a musical were big enough, nobody would ask what it was about. Dolly Levi wants to marry Horace Vandergelder, the Yonkers feed merchant who has hired her to find him somebody else, and everything in the film that is not a full-size New York street is in service of that plot. It is not much of a plot, and the film knows it, which is why it keeps building more street. Barbra Streisand is far too young for Dolly, a widow who has spent years in mourning and decided to rejoin the living, and the film never pretends otherwise. What she does instead is play the part as an act: the voice drops into a purr, the hands go to the hips, and she talks to Vandergelder as if she has known him longer than she has been alive. For long stretches it works, because Streisand can sing a line and think a joke at the same time, and nobody else on screen can. When she stops singing, the mannerisms are all that is left, and there is a great deal of not singing. Walter Matthau plays Vandergelder as a man being slowly deafened by everyone he employs. It is a proper comic performance, sour and unhurried, and the film treats it as an obstacle, leaving him in his office while the picture goes off to enjoy itself. He and Streisand have perhaps three scenes in which the match feels like a match. Lehman’s script gives him grumbles rather than lines, and Matthau makes them funny by refusing to speed up. The clerks fare better. Michael Crawford’s Cornelius Hackl is all elbows and breaking voice, a man who has decided to have one adventure and is terrified of it, and Danny Lockin’s Barnaby follows him like a dog that has not been told where they are going. Their number at the Yonkers railway station, with the whole town in Irene Sharaff’s Sunday best and the train arriving on cue, is the one point where the size of the film and the size of the joke agree. We sat forward for it. Marianne McAndrew and E.J. Peaker, as the milliner and her assistant, are handed a hat shop and a farce and play both with more grace than the film notices. Then there is the title number, and we should be honest about it: for the eight minutes Streisand is on the staircase of the Harmonia Gardens, in gold, with a regiment of waiters galloping beneath her, we were entirely happy. John DeCuir’s restaurant is a red and gilt cavern the size of a railway terminus. Harry Stradling lights it so the brass shines and the faces do not sweat, and Lionel Newman and Lennie Hayton let the band swell under her without drowning her. This is the sequence the rest of the film is trying to justify. The rest of the film is the problem. William H. Reynolds cuts the dances so that we see the top of a movement and seldom the feet, and cuts the dialogue scenes so that we see all of them. Ermengarde (Joyce Ames) and her artist Ambrose (Tommy Tune) have a subplot the film keeps remembering and then leaving in a cab. DeCuir has built a 14th Street the length of a real one, and the parade that fills it is exact, enormous and about a minute too long. Somewhere in the second hour we were bored, and then we were cross about it, because a film with this many people in it ought to be able to find something for two of them to do. Kelly co-directed *On the Town* in 1949 and *Singin’ in the Rain* in 1952, films in which the camera moved because the people did. Here the people move a great deal and the film stands still and watches, like a man who has paid for the fireworks and intends to see every one. He was a dancer, and this is a film in which dancing is something that happens in the background of shots of scenery. It is a U, and it is 148 minutes. If you want it, want it for the station and the staircase, and know that between them lies a long afternoon in Yonkers. Children will be asleep before the waiters arrive. *Fi1m score 56, published 20 September 2026.* ## What the critics say Most critics arrive at the same two conclusions and then differ on how much they matter. Barbra Streisand carries the film: even the harshest reviews call her the main asset, and several single out her scenes with Louis Armstrong. The physical production is the other point of agreement. The sets, costumes, Technicolor and photography draw praise almost everywhere, including from critics who dislike the film as a whole. The reservations gather around size and casting. Several reviews call the production elephantine, faulting Gene Kelly for inflating a slight story and for favouring spectacle over performance. Streisand is widely thought too young for Dolly Levi, though Radio Times treats this as a quibble in an otherwise lavish treat. The Jerry Herman score splits the reviews outright: some call it marvellous and enduring, others find it unmemorable. The spread is wide, from warm admiration to flat dismissal, and the negatives outnumber the positives. ### Reviews we read (8) - **Radio Times**, Tony Sloman (4/5): The critic calls it a wondrous treat under Gene Kelly's direction despite Streisand being cast underage as Dolly Levi. It singles out the design, use of colour, marvellous score, and parade of stars including Michael Crawford and Louis Armstrong as breathtaking highlights of this lavish musical. [Read](https://www.radiotimes.com/movie-guide/b-5z9334/hello-dolly/) - **Los Angeles Times**, Barbara Saltzman (70/100, inferred): The laser disc release restores the 1969 film's vibrant Technicolor and expansive choreography to good effect. Streisand's star turn and the supporting cast, along with the enduring Jerry Herman songs, make it a reminder of classic musical energy. [Read](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1992-11-13-ca-357-story.html) - **Variety**, Variety Staff (70/100, inferred): The expensive, opulent filmusical benefits greatly from Streisand's unique vitality and charisma in the title role. It is sentimental and wholesome, with strong pictorial values despite some inconsistencies in supporting performances. [Read](https://variety.com/1968/film/reviews/hello-dolly-1200421913/) - **The New Yorker**, Pauline Kael (50/100, inferred): The massive, overproduced musical is unimaginative and mechanical, with dismal songs and broad acting, but Streisand's energy and talent transform parts of it and make it watchable. The critic singles out her scenes with Louis Armstrong and certain solos for praise. [Read](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1970/01/03/keep-going) - **Empire**, David Parkinson (30/100, inferred): The critic calls the film a misguided adaptation of the stage musical, faulting the miscasting of a too-young Barbra Streisand and Gene Kelly's uneven direction focused on technical spectacle over strong performances. The elaborate sets, costumes and photography are praised as highlights amid the overall disappointment. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/hello-dolly-review/) - **Slant Magazine**, Eric Henderson (30/100, inferred): The critic views the film as a campy, over-the-top production marred by miscasting of Streisand and broad direction from Kelly, turning it into something more frightening than funny on screen. The song score stands out as a highlight alongside some better-aged elements like rapid-fire delivery and story threads. [Read](https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/hello-dolly/) - **The New York Times**, Vincent Canby (30/100, inferred): The critic finds the film adaptation reverential to a fault, inflating the thin source material to elephantine proportions on the big screen. Streisand's performance stands out as the main asset amid the oversized production. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/1969/12/18/archives/on-screen-barbra-streisand-displays-a-detached-cool.html) - **Time Out**, PT (30/100, inferred): The review faults Streisand for hogging the screen in an elephantine production that helped bury the Hollywood musical. It complains that the Jerry Herman score is unmemorable and the choreography is foreshortened to make room for extra dialogue. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/hello-dolly) ## Details - **Director:** Gene Kelly - **Director:** Gene Kelly - **Writer:** Ernest Lehman - **Cinematography:** Harry Stradling - **Editor:** William H. Reynolds - **Music:** Lionel Newman, Lennie Hayton - **Production design:** John DeCuir - **Costume design:** Irene Sharaff - **Producer:** Ernest Lehman - **Cast:** Barbra Streisand as Dolly Levi; Walter Matthau as Horace Vandergelder; Michael Crawford as Cornelius Hackl; Marianne McAndrew as Irene Molloy; Danny Lockin as Barnaby Tucker; E.J. Peaker as Minnie Fay; Joyce Ames as Ermengarde; Tommy Tune as Ambrose Kemper - **Runtime:** 2h 28m - **Certificate (MPA):** G - **Release (the US):** 12 December 1969 - **Genres:** Comedy, Romance - **Budget:** $24 million - **Box office:** $33 million ## Where to watch in the US - Disney+: streaming, hd - Amazon Prime Video: add-on - Amazon Prime Video: rent $3.99, hd - Amazon Prime Video: buy $14.99, hd *Checked 2026-09-20.* Also available in: AR, AT, AU, BE, BR, CA, CL, CO, EC, ES, FI, FR, GB, HK, IE, IT, JP, KR, MX, NL, NZ, PA, PE, PL, PT, RS, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## Awards - Academy Awards 1970: Best Cinematography (nominated); Best Costume Design (nominated); Best Film Editing (nominated); Best Picture (nominated); Best Original Musical Score (won); Best Production Design (won); Best Sound (won) ## If you liked this - *The Matchmaker* (1958): The same story, unsung and unbuilt, with Shirley Booth taking her time over it - *Funny Girl* (1968), Fi1m 70: Streisand a year earlier, in a part her own age, with room to breathe — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/funny-girl.md) - *The Young Girls of Rochefort* (1967): A French town painted pastel, Gene Kelly in it, and the dancing filmed whole - *Meet Me in St. Louis* (1944): Turn-of-the-century America done at family size, and the better for it - *Oliver!* (1968), Fi1m 76: Another late-sixties stage adaptation built enormous, but this one keeps its feet — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/oliver.md) --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/hello-dolly