The Matchmaker (1958)

User Rating:

7.1/10   

Director:

Joseph Anthony

Writers:

Thornton Wilder (play)
John Michael Hayes (screenplay)

Release Date:

14 July 1959 (West Germany)

Genre:

Romance | Comedy

Plot:

Thornton Wilder's tale of a matchmaker who desires the man she's supposed to be pairing with another woman.

Plot Keywords:

Matchmaker | Yonkers New York | Clerk | Milliner | Shopkeeper

Cast

Shirley Booth	...	Dolly 'Gallagher' Levi
Anthony Perkins	...	Cornelius Hackl
Shirley MacLaine	...	Irene Molloy
Paul Ford	...	Horace Vandergelder
Robert Morse	...	Barnaby Tucker
Perry Wilson	...	Minnie Fay
Wallace Ford	...	Malachi Stack
Russell Collins	...	Joe Scanlon
Rex Evans	...	August
Gavin Gordon	...	Rudolph
Torben Meyer	...	Alex, Headwaiter, Harmonica Club
Rhubarb	...	Himself - a Cat

Runtime:

103 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Westrex Recording System)

Certification:

USA:Approved (PCA #18757) | Finland:S | West Germany:12

Company:

Don Hartman Productions

Trivia:

Basis for the musical "Hello, Dolly", first on Broadway in 1964 and later on film: Hello, Dolly! (1969).

Quotes:

Irene Molloy: Mr. Vandergelder is a substantial man they tell me, and very well-liked.
Cornelius Hackl: Oh, he's a lovely man.
Irene Molloy: And a large circle of friends.
Cornelius Hackl: Oh, yes indeed. Five or six.
Barnaby Tucker: Five.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Family Ties: Matchmaker (#5.28)" (1987)

One can see why it was prime material for a musical treatment.

"Hello, Dolly!", that marvelously overblown, elephantine 1969 movie musical starring Barbra Streisand, can trace its cinematic origins to this charming film, which, in its stage incarnation, had enjoyed a successful Broadway run a few years before.

Paramount wisely employed the inimitable Shirley Booth to head the cast and, perhaps since she was no guarantee of big box office, despite her Academy Award for "Come Back, Little Sheba" (1952), they filmed it in VistaVision but not Technicolor. Too bad, because it's nicely mounted, smartly directed and well cast, with Paul Ford deserving of particular praise. His wonderfully humorous Horace Vandergelder makes one wish he'd been allowed to play the role again opposite Streisand (though, to be sure, he would have appeared to be much too old for Barbra, who was only twenty-seven years old when Twentieth practically bankrupted itself filming that monumentally successful Broadway bonanza.)

Anyway, this version is genuinely charming and always repays a re-viewing. Its equivalent from a major American motion picture production company is almost inconceivable today, what with audiences whose tastes have been so brutally coarsened. Thank goodness there's a video version to pop into the VCR for those of us who'd occasionally like to take a bit of a holiday from all the troubles that beset us now.