Now while I can’t speak on personal experience with this, after a lot of research onto this subject, have come to my own opinion that yes, Dolly did indeed have braces and for some inexplicable reason, this was edited out of the films.
There is so much controversy surrounding this conclusion, however, that it’d be easy to dismiss everything as just a fluke, and I’d have to concede that she never had them. Some allege that even the actress who played Dolly claims that she never wore braces for the film. But on top of all of the “residual” evidence, have come to this final answer.
Reading a lot of people’s accounts of their recollection of watching this movie time and time again, AND knowing, for sure, that Dolly had braces, because this is what intrigued Jaws to begin with, it MAKES SENSE. In the above video we can see their attraction to each other slowly building until it culminates fully after Dolly reveals her full-fledged, toothy smile. Which, if I am surmising correctly and if all of these people’s remembrances is right, that it was indeed full of metal.
(and, actually, it is Dolly’s reaction to Jaws’ shiny metal mouth FIRST that starts the initial attraction. After seeing the metal, Dolly is taken aback – as if it is love at first sight, and this is what gets Jaws to smile broadly, after seeing Dolly’s enamored reaction. Then she smiles, allegedly showing her mouth full of metal as well.)
This would be the perfect cinematic move to match Jaws – a huge, towering giant with a mouth full of shiny metal, to a petite, tiny “doll” of a girl, with pig-tails, glasses, AND shiny metal braces. The context just fits and, like my and countless of other’s remembrance of Berenstein Bears to Berenstain Bears, they are SURE of their memory. The whole scene would not make sense otherwise.
There are also some residual evidence that points to Dolly having braces in the film: