Hello, Dolly!

Perhaps... just perhaps... Gene Kelly INTENTIONALLY cast Barbara Streisand as a younger, more sexual Dolly rather than the older version because he thought it would make more money... obviously wrong, but nonetheless an interesting strategy. I don't remember much of that time (late 60's) but I do remember seeing the movie with my mother at a drive-in way back then, and then catching a commercial-ridden version on a local TV station in the 80's after I had significantly fallen in love with Babs by way of Yentl. I believe, if I remember correctly, that Rudy's line at the Harmonia Gardens says that Dolly has not made an appearance there in over 2 years (not 20, not 40, not 50)... Let's assume that Ephraim died some 2 years ago and Dolly in despair cut herself out of her old life. Even at 27 (Babs age at the time), she could have been widowed at 25, which at the turn of the century would have been about 7 years of marriage for most ladies... How long did she have to have been married to qualify as "experienced". She purposefully picks on Horace because she has decided not to look for another "love of her life," but rather has chosen to affect someone who is bound to spend his life alone (like she has been facing) and make something more of his life than he alone could have done. Remember she even says in her prayer to Ephraim "Oh it won't be a marriage in the sense that we had one..." Get off the "She's too young" kick and look at the movie for what it is... a big, splashy, excellent produced bit of Americana. Movie musicals will never be this audaciously classy and clever ever again.