Wow. Of course you are entitled to your opinion, but I believe you are the only person I have ever heard say that Michael Crawford is "very good" in the movie of HELLO, DOLLY! A great many people -- most recently including two friends who went to see the movie screened yesterday at the Quad in NYC -- seem to agree with me that he's unwatchable and unlistenable. In fact, when I went with a bunch of friends to see a 70mm screening of DOLLY! at the Walter Reade Theater at Lincoln Center a few years ago, one member of our party literally put his fingers in his ears whenever Crawford started singing. All of us find his casting inexplicable, and another mystery is his hugely prominent billing -- in BIG letters before the main title credit, right after Barbra Streisand and Walter Matthew. All I can say is, Crawford must have had a really great agent. But I wish he hadn't, because his performance is by far the major flaw in the movie.
P.S. As for Simard's role in the show as compared to Ernestina in the movie, although it's true that most if not all of the lines are different, the two characters function in pretty much the same way, so I think there's more basis for comparison than you do. |
