Talk:Hello, Dolly! (film)

Yes, but if it's class Start, where are the Plot and Cast sections? They were there, but were "condensed" into the intro: [1]. Hoverfish Talk 23:03, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Article Summary Expansion

I'd like to improve the plot summary for this article. However, instead of starting from scratch, I'd like to copy/paste the material from the plot summary of the original show to the plot summary of the film. I'll alter it to include the major changes. Since I wrote most of the original plot summary, and it's reasonably good quality, it seems foolish to rewrite the parts that are the same for the film. Is this ok?MarianKroy (talk) 18:34, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Sure, as long as you make the changes right after you copy it over. BTW, the film project likes thier plot summaries pretty short: 700-900 words usually. Also, the film articles name the actors after their character name, like this: "Dolly (Barbra Streisand) is a brassy widow...." -- Ssilvers (talk) 21:51, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Sentence in lede section

The following sentence is in the lede section:

Ironically, Barbra Streisand lost the 1964 Tony Award (as a nominee for her role in Funny Girl) to Carol Channing, who originated the role of Dolly Levi in the Broadway production.

Again, I don't mean to be too aggressive (only bold) but does this really belong in the lede, if anywhere in the article? It's a little bit of an irrelevant fact, because although both Channing and Streisand played Levi in versions of the musical, the statement itself really doesn't have anything to do with the film itself. Thoughts? —Mizu onna sango15^Hello! 18:04, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

As an additional note to include, the reception section should be expanded including critical commentary if possible. (Yes, I realise the film came out long before the invention of the internet, but it's probable to find something even in 2008.) What's there now is good, but it could use more detail. —Mizu onna sango15^Hello! 18:11, 1 August 2008 (UTC).

I guess that sentance isn't really lead-worthy (I didn't write it!). Yeah, the reception section could use some work. MarianKroy (talk) 19:36, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Also, do you see Hello, Dolly! under "nominated" at the list of Barbra's award nominations? I don't seem to find it, but I'm pretty sure she was nominated for her portrayal. Perhaps this was a mistake? —Mizu onna sango15^Hello! 19:43, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

I checked on IMDB, and it looked like she was not nominated. MarianKroy (talk) 20:52, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Oh, in that case it's not relevant at all. :-) No problem then. Cheers, —Mizu onna sango15^Hello! 21:04, 1 August 2008 (UTC).

It's a minor point, but...

...Just for accuracy's sake, didn't Horace actually fire Cornelius and Barnaby, but then they told Vandergelder he couldn't fire them because they quit first? I don't think it's an incredibly big deal, but it would be more correct, anyway. Cheers, —Mizu onna sango15^Hello! 02:40, 6 August 2008 (UTC).

Yes, that's right. I didn't include that in the synopsis because it was getting long anyway. I think film synopses are supposed to be under 900 words unless the plot is incredibly convaluted. If you want to add it, you could either shorten some other aspect of the synopsis or just ignore the word count and we'll live with the consequences. MarianKroy (talk) 14:14, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, I was thinking about trimming down (and/or further cleaning up) the plot section, but I realised how hard you worked on expanding it, so I didn't want to end up tearing all that down just to remain within the general word count. Should we re-cut it down? (If so, I'm going to need help in rephrasing 'Horace actually fired Cornelius and Barnaby but then they told Vandergelder he couldn't fire them because they quit first' to sound more encyclopaedic—it's kind of an awkward sentence the way I put it. :P) Thanks, —Mizu onna sango15^Hello! 17:16, 6 August 2008 (UTC).

If you want to trim it down, go right ahead. I like detailed synopses, so maybe if it could end up right below 900 words it would be ok. As for the rephrasing, how about 'Horace fires Cornelius and Barnaby, but they tell him he can't fire them because they quit first'? If you don't like it, feel free to ignore it. MarianKroy (talk) 16:12, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Sounds fine. I won't trim it too much, I'll merely keep it just under 900 or so (and only aproximately, and it won't really matter anyway until GAN-time). Cheers, —Mizu onna sango15^Hello! 04:48, 8 August 2008 (UTC).

Sets reused

I'm not sure if this would be more than trivia, but certain sets from "Hello, Dolly!" were reused in other films. I know some shots from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid were filmed on sets from "Hello, Dolly!", while other films may have used said sets as well. Orville Eastland (talk) 22:09, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

A making-of Butch Cassidy explained that they only had permission to take period, sepia-tinted "stills" of the principals walking around the Dolly citystreet sets because the musical had not yet been released and they did not want Butch to steal their thunder by disclosing the impressive sets. So apparently no motion picture "filming" was done on the Dolly sets by the Butch crew. I'm not sure about other productions.GBS2 (talk) 14:32, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Disputed box office section

There has been a recent spate of edits to the box office section, replacing sourced content with unsourced claims and misrepresenting/misinterpretating the data: [2]

I am going to tackle the problems one by one:

• The replacement of the exact budget with "The film's budget has been estimated at between 20 to 25 million, The Numbers website states 24 million." The budget is not in doubt. Regardless of what The Numbers says (which is most likely estimating or basing its figure on an old news source), we know that the true budget was $25.335 million (see Solomon, p.256). Aubrey Solomon has extensively researched Fox's corporate history and these figures are constructed from Fox's historical records with their assistance (see Solomon, p.216).

• It has not "earned another 26 million in rentals" on top of the domestic gross "for a total domestic gross of 59,208,099, which more than recouped its budget, making it a commercial success". Neither has it "grossed another 15.2 million in video rentals for a total gross to date of 74,408,099". First of all, the studio does not get to keep all the box office gross, since they split it with the exhibitor. This is an example of WP:SYNTHESIS (combining multiple claims to construct a new claim not in the source), and this is a prime example of why Wikipedia policy forbids it. The theatrical rental and the box office are not distinct amounts (see Cones, p.41). As explained in the box office section, the "theatrical rental" is "the distributor's share of the box office after deducting the exhibitor's cut". This is explained in more detail by the source used for that statement (see Williams & Hammond, p.176). Hello Dolly earned $33 million at the domestic box office, and the theatrical rental from this amount (the share of the box office that is paid to the distributor for the film) was $15.2 million. This is corroborated by Williams & Hammond, and also by Solomon, p.231. The worldwide box office is unknown, but The Numbers states the total theatrical rentals were $26 million. So to summarise: the domestic box office gross, domestic rentals and total theatrical rentals are not separate amounts; the "rentals" are the studio's share of the box office and not video income.

• The removal of "Despite being one of the highest-grossing films of 1969, it still lost its backers an estimated $10 million" (sourced to Turner Classic movies) and replacing it with the unsourced "Box office, theatrical rentals, video sales and sales to television, are all part of a films earnings. Its success is not based solely on what it did at the box office, although Hello, Dolly! proved to be a financial success, its grosses may have proved to be disappointing, but certainly not disastrous" is WP:Original research. As per MOS:FILM#Box office, we should determine a consensus from objective (retrospective if possible) sources about how a film performed and why, but editors should avoid drawing their own conclusions about the success or failure of the film i.e. we should not draw our own conclusions. While films derive their income from many revenue streams, they also incur many expenses besides the production budget: participation points for the talent, advertising costs, prints and distribution, so it is impossible to assess whether a film broke even or not by comparing its box office earnings to its budget. That is why Wikipedia requires us to back up our claims with sources (see WP:Verifiability). We have a source that states the film lost $10 million so that is what we use, unless other sources provide a more thorough account of its financial balance.

• Replacing "ranking it in the top five highest-grossing films of the 1969–1970 season" (sourced to Williams & Hammond, p.176) with "It was the 4th highest grossing film of 1969" is original research. No source is provided to back this up. This is a complicated issue since there are contradictory claims. Williams & Hammond place it in 5th position, Turner Classic movies state "despite being the fifth top grossing film of the year", while Reid, p.55 concurs and places it is fourth position. There are a number of different reasons for this: as Williams & Hammond explain, some totals change because Variety simply recalculated their estimate at a later date, and sometimes positions change due to a film being re-released. There is no way of knowing which rank is correct in this case. Rankings are also complicated by the fact that Variety assigns the films to the year they earned the most money in; thus, since Hello Dolly was released in December 1969 and did most of its business in 1970, both the Williams & Hammond and the Reid sources have it on the 1970 list. It is therefore factually inaccurate to say it was the "4th highest grossing film of 1969" since it almost certainly wasn't. It may or may not have been the 4th highest-grossing 1969 release, but neither source confirms this, and if we were to state that in the article we would need a source that explicitly says it. In the absence of such a source, saying it finished in the "top 5 of the 1969/70 season" probably best sums up the contradictory information we do have. Ultimately it is irrelevant whether it finished 4th or 5th; what matters is that it was still a popular movie that finished near the top of the sales charts, and the current wording conveys that.

By all means, feel free to expand the section, but it is important to supply sources for any claim, and it is important to not misrepresent the sales data we currently do have. Betty Logan (talk) 08:05, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Film gross at the box office, and film rentals are two entirely different amounts. A film can gross at the box office 3 or four times wht it did in rentals. If you bother to look at the top grossing film rankings for 1969 according to Variety, it ranked at number 4. They do not split the box office gross with the distributors, they receive a percentage. When Hello, Dolly! was playing in the theaters, it was a percentage deal for them as well, not a flat fee. The barometer that is uses to determine a films success is, it would have to gross double its production costs, to also cover distribution and advertising costs.The budget of this film is estimated at between 20 and 25 million, I have never heard an exact figure. So lets say it cost 25 million. It would have needed to gross 50 million to break even, which it did, leaving a profit, albeit small but still profit of 9 million. And all of these grosses are only domestic figures, there is nothing on what it did worldwide. It also sold over a million copies on video, if it had not been successful in sles it would nto have been released on Blue-ray. The fact is this film's gross may have been disappointing, but it was not the big failure people have been led to beleive it was, and it was a commercial success.