Hello, Dolly!: stage vs screen

Gene Kelly's 1969 film of Hello, Dolly! stars Barbra Streisand as the matchmaker Dolly Levi, with Walter Matthau as Horace Vandergelder, Michael Crawford as Cornelius, and Louis Armstrong as the orchestra leader. It adapts the 1964 Broadway musical by Jerry Herman and Michael Stewart, which starred Carol Channing and was based on Thornton Wilder's play The Matchmaker. The story is the same; the score and scale are not. Here is how.

Stage

Broadway musical (1964)

Screen

Hello, Dolly! (1969), directed by Gene Kelly

1. Streisand plays Dolly instead of Channing

Carol Channing originated Dolly on Broadway in 1964 and won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical. Barbra Streisand took the role on screen, opposite Walter Matthau's Horace. Later stage Dollys include Mary Martin and Ethel Merman, who both turned the role down at first, and Bette Midler, who won a Tony for the 2017 revival.

2. Dolly gets a new first number

The stage score includes "I Put My Hand In" for Dolly in the first act. The film replaces it with "Just Leave Everything to Me," written for Streisand, and the old song is heard only as an instrumental during the dance contest at Harmonia Gardens. In the film's number list it comes right after "Call On Dolly."

3. "Love Is Only Love" comes from Mame

Jerry Herman wrote "Love Is Only Love" for the stage version of Mame, but it was cut before Broadway. The film adds it to Hello, Dolly! and adds a short prologue titled "Mrs. Horace Vandergelder" to set it up. It appears in the film's musical-number list after "Elegance" and has no place in the 1964 stage score.

4. Several stage numbers do not appear

The film drops "Motherhood March," the comic trio for Dolly, Irene, and Minnie Fay. Two Dolly songs some fans expect, "World, Take Me Back" and "Love, Look in My Window," are missing too, but they were never in the 1964 opening: Herman cut them before Broadway and restored them for Ethel Merman in 1970, after the film was made. "Put On Your Sunday Clothes," "Before the Parade Passes By," and "It Only Takes a Moment" all survive.

5. Louis Armstrong appears in the film

Louis Armstrong's recording of the title song was a number-one hit in May 1964, and producer David Merrick renamed the show after hearing his version. Armstrong was never in the Broadway cast. In the film he plays the orchestra leader at the Harmonia Gardens and sings "Hello, Dolly!" with Streisand, a film-only touch that ties the movie to the song's life as a pop hit.

6. Irene's singing is dubbed

Marianne McAndrew played the milliner Irene Molloy on screen, but her singing was dubbed: Melissa Stafford, uncredited, sang Irene's solo numbers, including "Ribbons Down My Back." Eileen Brennan originated Irene on Broadway in 1964, and Kate Baldwin played her in the 2017 revival opposite Bette Midler.

7. A bigger, longer movie-musical

Gower Champion directed and choreographed the stage show, and it won 10 Tonys. The film, directed by Kelly with choreography by Michael Kidd, runs 148 minutes on a budget of about $25 million. It won three Academy Awards (Art Direction, Score of a Musical Picture, and Sound) and was nominated for Best Picture, though critics felt it made little use of the widescreen format.

8. No night court, and the clerks get promoted

On stage, the free-for-all at the Harmonia Gardens lands everyone in night court, where Dolly talks the judge into clearing the young couples and Horace is made to pay damages. The film drops the courtroom: Horace fires his clerks in the restaurant riot and they flee. Both versions end the next morning at the hay and feed store with Horace admitting he needs Dolly, and the film adds that Cornelius becomes his partner and Barnaby takes over Cornelius's job.

Hello, Dolly! movie vs musical: FAQs