Hello, Dolly! 1969 Todd-AO, Advertising, Cut Scenes, Soundtrack & Home Video

Streisand / Movies

Hello, Dolly!

Opened December 16, 1969  [Continued ....]

Hello Dolly logo designed by Richard Amsel
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TODD-AO, PUBLICITY, CUT SCENES, SOUNDTRACK & HOME VIDEO

DOLLY IN TODD-AO & ROADSHOW ENGAGEMENTS

Gene Kelly poses with a large format Todd-AO Camera
Filming with the Todd-AO camera

Hello, Dolly! received top treatment from the Fox studios. It was filmed in Todd-AO, which used a 65-millimeter film negative unlike conventional film which used a 35 mm negative. From the Todd-AO 65mm negative, a 70mm print was made (the additional 5mm carried a six-channel audio track). For its general release, Fox downgraded the 65mm film to 35mm and mono sound.


Dolly’s cinematographer Harry Stradling was one of the first cameramen to use the format when he shot tests for impresario Mike Todd, who developed the process.  (AO stands for American Optical, the company who engineered the process.)


For years, Fox had tried to develop its own widescreen format (CinemaScope 55) and could never top Todd-AO’s quality.  Instead, Fox invested in the company in 1958, which allowed them to make and market their movies using the format.  After Mike Todd died in an airplane crash in 1958, Fox bought Todd-AO.


Fox first released Hello, Dolly! in 50 major U.S. cities, giving it a Roadshow engagement. “A Roadshow movie would open only in the best theatres in the largest cities, sometimes playing there for a year or more, before the picture found its way to neighborhood movie houses,” explained T.J. Edwards of cinemasightlines.com.  Edwards continued, “Reserved-seat tickets were sold far in advance, for a limited number of showings a week, usually once a night, with matinees on Saturday, Sunday and Holidays.  Larger cities might add a weekday matinee, and sometimes extra shows on weekends … Colorful souvenir books, and sometimes the soundtrack albums, were sold at the theatre.” 


Dolly did indeed follow the Roadshow format, except that it did not have an overture – unlike Funny Girl, whose overture played against a black screen as the audience took their seats. The Sound of Music, also written and produced by Ernest Lehman did not have an overture either, although his West Side Story film did.  Dolly did have an intermission, intermission music, and play-out music at the end of the movie.


About six to nine months after the reserved-seat Roadshow engagements had made their money, Fox released the film to general theaters, who usually advertised it using the phrase, “Now at Popular Prices.” (The prices were popular!  Roadshow reserved seats usually cost $3 or $4, whereas “popular prices” were .75¢ to $1.50 average.)
Hello Dolly

Dolly’s Advertising

Amsel's original illustration for the Dolly poster

20th Century-Fox sponsored a nationwide contest for the Hello, Dolly! poster. It was 22-year-old Philadelphia College of Art student Richard Amsel's drawing that won. He created a colorful, bold graphic design that paid homage to painting icon Gustav Klimt.


Amsel’s original art for the poster was actually more like a paper collage, with lace, colored paper, and the images drawn with pencil, pen and watercolor paint.


Amsel went on to design iconic movie posters (Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Sting), early Bette Midler album and poster art, as well as many TV Guide covers. Amsel also created the poster image for Streisand's 1972 film, Up the Sandbox.  He died of AIDs in 1985.
Hello Dolly original 1-sheet movie poster

The Dolly Soundtrack Album

20th Century Fox Records released the Hello, Dolly! soundtrack album in 1969. When Streisand was signed to star in the picture, a deal was worked out with her record label, Columbia Records, to allow Streisand’s Dolly vocals to appear on the 20th Century Fox Records label.  The Hello, Dolly! soundtrack was only one of three albums Streisand appeared on that were not released by Columbia Records. (The others:  Funny Girl Original Broadway Cast and Funny Lady).


The Dolly gatefold album unfolded and included liner notes and excerpts from Jerry Herman's lyrics. In later years, Dolly’s music was released on the Casablanca label, and in 1994 for the first (and only) time on CD.


More on the Soundtrack here ....


Dolly’s Singles here ....

Dolly on Home Video

Cover of Hello Dolly VHS tape

20th Century-Fox was the first studio to license some of its films to the home video market on VHS and Beta cassette tapes around December 1978. Dolly, released on two cassettes because of its length by Magnetic Video Corp., cost $59.97!


Early versions of the film were released in “pan-and-scan” format. Universally hated by film enthusiasts everywhere, “pan-and-scan” was utilized on most home video releases in the 1980s.  Because our television screens were shaped square, the video company selected either the left, the center, or the right section of Dolly’s widescreen frame – sometimes with a complete lack of artistic sense.  For instance, Louis Armstrong was usually cut out of the image during the duet at the Harmonia Gardens.


In 1992, FoxVideo/Image released Dolly! in the laserdisc format – letterboxed (for the first time!), extended play, 33 chapter stops, for $70.


It should be noted that all versions of Dolly on home video utilized a 35mm print as their source. In 2002, Fox restored Hello, Dolly! and premiered a brand new 70mm print at the Egyptian Theatre in Los Angeles. Cinemafiles who attended said that Dolly never looked better and Harry Stradling’s cinematography was gorgeous and crisp on the big screen. 
The gorgeous 2013 Blu-ray of Hello Dolly!

Fox released a DVD of Dolly in 2003 which was transferred from the restored 65mm interpositive. This was the first time Dolly was upgraded for the home market, although many Dolly fans complained about the sound mix on this DVD.


In 2013, film post-production studio FotoKem digitally restored Hello, Dolly! and created a new 70mm print and a new 65mm intermediate positive (IP) for Fox Studios for archival purposes. According to its press release, “FotoKem began the restoration process with the creation of a new 70mm answer print and 65mm IP, followed by an 8K scan of the new IP using FotoKem’s large format Imagica scanners. Those files were imported into FotoKem’s digital restoration pipeline at 4K, where cleanup of artifacts, such as dirt, gate hairs, scratches and flicker, was performed.”


The press release continued, “When restoration was complete, the entire film went through a final grading pass at FotoKem, performed at 4K by colorist Walter Volpatto working in tandem with film colorist Kristen Zimmermann. Performing print and digital color timing of Hello Dolly! in sequence allowed FotoKem to deliver a pristine 4K master that closely matched the projected 70mm version of the classic film.”


FotoKem’s Andrew Oran, VP of Large Format and Restoration Services, said, “We’re honored to have played a part in Fox’s efforts to restore this classic musical to its original luster for a new generation to enjoy; and we’re proud of the expertise, high quality tools and custom solutions that distinguish our on-going efforts to preserve cinema’s heritage.”


The restored Dolly was released on Blu-ray disc that year, too.  Most home theater enthusiasts rank the Dolly Blu-ray as one of the best ever released in the format! Film archivist Robert Harris wrote, “Beginning with Schawn Belston and his staff at Fox, to the creation of a new large format film element, and the necessary scanning and color by the team at FotoKem, this particular Hello, Dolly! deserves the exclamation point.”


ORDER “DOLLY” ON BLU-RAY FROM AMAZON.COM

Dolly’s Cut & Trimmed Scenes

Compared to other films, what was in the script for Hello, Dolly! mostly ended up on the screen.  There were no major sequences dropped or cut out. Instead, what was cut from Hello, Dolly! were small moments, or trims. 

Ernest Lehman's screenplay described an opening of the movie that would have been a little different than the multi-colored freeze-frame that it begins with. Lehman wrote that the movie should commence with a helicopter shot of the island of Manhattan, descend through the clouds, then onto the streets of New York.  Lehman also described that when Dolly hands out her cards, the people receiving them would read them aloud.  He even added a few extra ones like “Short Distance Hauling,” and “Varicose Veins Reduced.”

For instance, only a few lines were cut from the scene below, where Dolly climbs up the ladder with Ambrose.  She had a bit of business in which she offered him one of her cards (the wrong one!).  Moments later, in the final film, she offers him another card – maybe they thought it was too much card-business?
Photo of Dolly handing Ambrose a card
Page from the screenplay featuring the cut dialogue
Irene and Minnie's duet was cut from the film
Cut from the movie, immediately following Irene's solo of “Ribbons Down My Back,” was a duet between Irene and Minnie.  These stills show that the comedic duo was actually filmed.  Below is the scene in the Hello, Dolly! screenplay.
Page of Hello Dolly screenplay with lyrics to the duet
The duet ends as the two women put their heads together.  They remove their hats and the scene proceeds as you have seen in the final film, with Minnie asking, “Miss Molloy, you don't love Horace Vandergelder, do you?” [If you look carefully, Irene's hairdo is a bit awry from the dancing and hat.]
Final moment of the girl's duet
Barnaby and Cornelius watch two men in the fountain
There were several moments deleted from the Harmonia Gardens, including this one in which several dining guests end up in the fountain as Barnaby and Cornelius watch.

Also cut from the Harmonia Gardens scenes was some more comedic dialogue between Miss Simple and Horace.  After asking for out-of-season oysters, for instance, Ernestina continues pestering Horace about the chicken he ordered. “Perhaps he meant Chicken Eszterhazy ... Or was it Chicken a la Bourguignonne? ... Chicken Chaud-Froid de Volaille?”

Meanwhile, in  Cornelius and Barnaby's private dining area, they make a toast and Irene gives Barnaby a kiss on the cheek.  There is some more business in which Irene makes a toast to Horace Vandergelder.  It just so happens that Vandergelder's dining room is right next door and he hears his name called out. He steps out, pulls aside the curtains of another dining room, startles the guests, then gets swept up by the dancing waiters and returned to Miss Simple. Then there is more dialogue in which she quizzes him about where Horace spends his summers. “Deauville?  Biarritz? Baden-Baden?”

Later, in Madison Square Park, when Cornelius sings “It Only Takes A Moment,” Lehman had written a much longer monologue for him after he completes his solo of the song. “Of course I've seen women before, but today I talked to one equal to equal, and you know something? They're so different from men!”  

In the final film, of course, they cut more quickly to the drunk who cues the rest of the onlookers to sing another verse of the song.

Here's a still of Streisand holding a lorgnette – spectacles with a handle!  You won't see her wielding them in the movie, though.  Writer Harold Heffernan reported when he visited the set during filming that Streisand intended to stress Dolly's “archness” by using the lorgnette.  “Kelly vetoed it on the ground that the contrast with the open warm-heartedness of the ‘Hello, Dolly!’ number and much of the rest of the picture would be too great.”
End / HELLO, DOLLY!
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