The film follows the story of Dolly Levi, a strong-willed matchmaker who travels to Yonkers, New York, to find a match for the miserly "well-known unmarried half-a-millionaire" Horace Vandergelder. In doing so, she convinces his niece, his niece's intended, and Horace's two clerks to travel to New York City.
In 1890, well-known widowed matchmaker Dolly Levi plans to travel to New York City. She seeks a wife for Horace Vandergelder, an unmarried "half-a-millionaire". Meanwhile, young artist Ambrose Kemper wants to marry Horace's niece Ermengarde. Horace opposes this, feeling that Ambrose cannot provide financial security.
Horace, who owns Vandergelder's Hay and Feed, plans to travel to New York to march in the 14th Street Parade and to propose to milliner Irene Molloy, whom he met through Dolly. After arriving in Yonkers, Dolly sends Horace ahead to New York. Before leaving, he tells his clerks, Cornelius Hackl and Barnaby Tucker, to mind the store.
Cornelius, however, decides that he and Barnaby need to get out of Yonkers. Dolly overhears and decides to set them up with Irene and her shop assistant Minnie Fay. Dolly also helps Ambrose and Ermengarde, entering them in a dance contest at the fancy Harmonia Gardens restaurant, which she and her late husband Ephram frequented. The entire company takes the train to New York.
In New York, Irene and Minnie open their hat shop for the afternoon. Irene does not love Horace, but the marriage can provide her with financial security and an escape from her boring job. Hoping to escape her loveless marriage, Irene plans to look for real love before the summer is over.
Cornelius and Barnaby arrive at the shop, pretending to be rich. When Horace and Dolly arrive, Cornelius and Barnaby hide. Minnie screams when she finds Cornelius hiding in an armoire. Horace is about to open the armoire, but Dolly "searches" it and pronounces it empty. After hearing Cornelius sneeze, Horace storms out, realizing that there are men hiding in the shop but unaware that they are his clerks. Dolly arranges for Cornelius and Barnaby, who are still pretending to be rich, to take the ladies to dinner at Harmonia Gardens, to make up for their humiliation.
The clerks and the ladies attend the Fourteenth Street Association Parade. In a moment alone, Dolly asks for her late husband Ephram's permission to marry Horace, requesting a sign. She resolves to go forward with life. After meeting old friend Gussie Granger on a parade float, Dolly catches up with the annoyed Horace, who is marching in the parade. She says that the heiress Ernestina Simple would be a good match for him and requests that he meet her that evening at Harmonia Gardens.
Because the clerks have no money to hire a carriage, they tell the girls that walking to the restaurant is more stylish. At the Harmonia Gardens restaurant, head waiter Rudolph prepares his crew for Dolly's return. Horace arrives to meet his date, who is really Gussie. She is neither rich nor elegant as Dolly implied, and leaves after being bored by Horace, as she and Dolly had planned.
Cornelius, Barnaby and their dates arrive, unaware that Horace is also there. Dolly shows up and is greeted by the staff. She sits in the now-empty seat at Horace's table, and says that no matter what he says, she will not marry him. Fearful of being caught, Cornelius confesses to the ladies that he and Barnaby are not wealthy.
Irene, who knew all along that they were pretending, offers to pay for the meal. However, Irene realizes that she left her handbag containing all her money at home. The four try to sneak out during the polka contest, but Horace recognizes them, then spots Ermengarde and Ambrose. In the ensuing confrontation, Horace fires the clerks, who are forced to flee as a riot breaks out. Cornelius professes his love for Irene. Horace declares that he would not marry Dolly if she were the last woman on earth.
The next morning, at the hay and feed store, Cornelius and Irene, Barnaby and Minnie, and Ambrose and Ermengarde all come to collect the money that Horace owes to them. Chastened, Horace admits that he needs Dolly, who is unsure about the marriage until Ephram sends her a sign. Cornelius becomes Horace's business partner at the store, and Barnaby fills Cornelius's old position. Horace says that life would be dull without Dolly, and she promises that she will "never go away again".
The film was beset by tension on the set, with Streisand clashing with co-star Matthau and director Kelly. Choreographer Michael Kidd had conflicts with costume designer Irene Sharaff and Kelly, to the point at which he and Kelly were no longer on speaking terms.[7] Tensions came to a head in a heated argument between Streisand and Matthau on June 6, 1968, on a hot day in Garrison on the day after the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy.[3]
Most of the original Broadway production's score was preserved for the film. However, "Just Leave Everything to Me" and "Love Is Only Love" were not in the stage show. Jerry Herman wrote "Just Leave Everything to Me" specially for Streisand; it effectively replaced "I Put My Hand In" from the Broadway production. However, an instrumental version of parts of "I Put My Hand In" can be heard in the film during the dance competition at the Harmonia Gardens.[8] Herman had written "Love is Only Love" for the stage version of Mame, but it was cut before its Broadway premiere. It occurs in the story as Mame tries to explain falling in love to her young nephew Patrick. A brief prologue of "Mrs. Horace Vandergelder" was added to the song to integrate it into this film.[9]
The film premiered in New York at the Rivoli Theatre on December 16, 1969. Production had wrapped more than a year prior, but release was significantly delayed for contractual reasons.[11] A clause in the 1965 film-sale contract specified that the film could not be released until June 20, 1971, or when the show closed on Broadway, whichever came first.[12]
In 1969, the show was still running. Eager to release the film to recoup its cost, Fox negotiated and paid an "early release" escape payment to release the film, which cost Fox an estimated $1–2 million.[11] The following day, the film started 45 roadshow engagements around the United States and Canada, before opening worldwide on December 18, starting in Belgium, the Netherlands, New Zealand and South Africa.[13]
Box office
The film opened strongly, finishing in third place at the US box office, behind On Her Majesty's Secret Service and Easy Rider in its opening week,[14] and initially grossed more than The Sound of Music, but lost momentum and became a disappointment at the box office.[3] It grossed $33.2 million at the box office in the United States,[15] earning a theatrical rental (the distributor's share of the box office after deducting the exhibitor's cut)[16][17] of $15.2 million,[18][19] ranking it in the top five highest-grossing films of the 1969–1970 season.[19][20][4]
In total, it earned $26 million in theatrical rentals for Fox,[15] against its $25.335 million production budget.[18] Despite performing decently at the box office, the losses worsened. Over the last few decades, however, it has gone substantially into profit due to successful home-video sales, beginning in 1978, when it went "gold" for VHS and Betamax sales at a then-suggested retail price of $69.95 USD.[4]
The soundtrack album's sales also did not live up to expectations, peaking at number 49 on the Billboard chart.[3]
Critical reception
The film received favorable reviews on release,[3] but some critics felt that it was not a success as a musical, with Kelly and Kidd making little use of the widescreen format of the film. Critic Tom Santopietro described their approach as "shoveling more and more bodies on-screen with no apparent purpose".[21]
Vincent Canby in his review for The New York Times said that the producer and director "merely inflated the faults to elephantine proportions".[22]
In more recent years, Hello, Dolly!'s critical reputation has cooled considerably. It holds a 45% rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, based on 31 reviews, with an average rating of 6/10. The consensus states: "Though Barbra Streisand charms, she's miscast as the titular middle-aged widow in Gene Kelly's sluggish and over-produced final directorial effort."[23]
Eric Henderson of Slant Magazine said, "More infamous for bringing Fox financially to its knees than for being the last major musical directed by Gene Kelly, Hello, Dolly! is one big-assed bull in a china shop. The film cost nearly as much to produce as Cleopatra and made far less at the box office, thus earning the film its reputation as one of Hollywood’s foremost turkeys."[24]
Hello, Dolly! was one of the first theatrical films to be released on the new VHS and Betamax home-video formats in fall 1978.[citation needed] It was released on DVD in 2003[34] and Blu-ray in 2013.[35] It began streaming on Disney+ on May 22, 2020.[36]
In other media
Upon the movie's release, Dolly's Restaurant opened in Garrison, NY, directly across from the train station where the Yonkers scenes were filmed. The restaurant closed in 2008 and reopened in 2018 under new ownership.[37]
Songs and footage from the scenes "Put on Your Sunday Clothes" and "It Only Takes a Moment", as well as still images from the film in general, were prominently featured in the 2008 Disney-Pixar film WALL-E. In the movie, WALL-E watches the footage from an old Betamax tape and learns about the concept of love from the film.[38][39]
The songs "Elegance" and "Put on Your Sunday Clothes" are heard through any day at the Main Street section of the Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World, with the addition of "Before the Parade Passes By" at Disneyland in Anaheim.
The song "Just Leave Everything to Me" is heard in the Season-2 opening of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.
