La meneuse de jeu

This is the film that "Hello Dolly" strives to be but can't. Everything about this film is so sweet and Shirley Booth gives a performance that is just hilarious. I also like the way the actors talk to the audience every now and then. At least Miss Booth is more convincing as a middle-aged widow than Miss Streisand was. I wonder what "Hello Dolly" would have been like if they gave the part to Shirley Booth?

Do you like situation comedy? How about clever dialogue? Do the elements of classic farce make you laugh? Many a film has sustained itself on one of the foregoing. In "The Matchmaker," you get all three. The picture is perfectly cast, with the peerless (though by now, nearly forgotten) Shirley Booth as a sly but gentle, voracious but sweet, determined yet vulnerable Dolly. Paul Ford huffs and puffs in his characteristic manner, without overplaying. Anthony Perkins reminds us of his versatility with this twinkle-in-the-eye triumph in romantic comedy. A young Shirley MacLaine is simply adorable. Too bad the talented Robert Morse has so little to do, but with such a strong cast in more prominent roles, he had to save his elfin hijinks for another day.

After a lifetime of arranging couplings for others Dolly Levi has decided it's time that she settle down with somebody. Her target in her sights is merchant Horace Vandergelder in turn of the last century Yonkers, New York. Of course Horace the old goat is looking at young Irene Molloy. What to do, especially since his young clerk Cornelius Hackl has eyes for her also.

Shirley Booth who originated many parts on the Broadway stage, but had few screen credits up to that time takes over the role that Ruth Gordon played on stage in the 1955-1957 season for 481 performances. Another Shirley named MacLaine with few screen credits at that point to her name plays young Irene.

And the object of all this fuss is potbellied old Paul Ford giving one of his patented bellowing performances. It was interesting to read how Ford had come to the acting profession rather late in life. He certainly is ham enough that you wonder why didn't do this all of his life. Ford had just completed a four year run as the harried and harassed Colonel Hall, object of many of Sergeant Bilko's con games in the Phil Silvers Show. For most of his career Ford was a blusterer whether here or in The Music Man or Never Too Late. He looked a lot like Edgar Kennedy, but his boiling point was always quickly reached.

Anthony Perkins who really did other things besides Norman Bates in Psycho is just fine as the wistful young clerk at Ford's mercantile and he's partnered in his adventures by young Robert Morse who repeated his stage role as Barnaby Tucker.

Of course most know The Matchmaker as the basis for Hello Dolly and seeing it now is like seeing Shaw's Pygmalion which for better or worse is now known as My Fair Lady without the songs. Still The Matchmaker is fun to watch for the nostalgically inclined.

The history of THE MATCHMAKER is quite interesting from an academic point of view. In 1835 English playwright and drama critic created a one-act play titled A DAY WELL SPENT, a lightweight comedy of mismatched lovers, mistaken identities, and foolish misbehavior. In 1842 Austrian playwright and actor Johann Nestroy developed Oxenford's work into a full-length comedy titled EINEN JUX WILL ER SICH MACHEN, which was (and remains) very popular in German-language theatre. American writer and scholar Thornton Wilder came to the material in the 1930s--and in 1938 returned the story to the English language under the title THE MERCHANT OF YONKERS. It was an instant disaster, receiving incredibly dire reviews and running all of 39 performances in its New York debut.

It was quite a setback for Wilder, who had previously won Pulitzers for the novel THE BRIDGE OF SAN LUIS REY and the play OUR TOWN. Even so, actress Ruth Gordon and Tyrone Guthrie strongly felt the play was sound, and in the 1950s both began to pressure Wilder to rework his script. With Gordon starring and Guthrie directing, and with the title changed to THE MATCHMAKER, it opened on Broadway in 1955--and was a smash hit. It attracted the attention of Hollywood, and in 1958 it became a vehicle for Tony and Academy Award-winning actress Shirley Booth.

The film version alters Wilder's script quite a bit, and not always for the better, occasionally over-reaching itself in a grab for broad farce; all the same, it does manage to capture the innate charm of the original. Much of this is due to Shirley Booth. Although she is not well recalled today, she was easily among the finest actresses of her era, and her performance here is a warm and glowing jewel, clever, witty, and very gently sly. The remaining cast follows suit--and what a cast it is! Memorable character actors Paul Ford, Perry Wilson, and Wallace Ford; rising stars Anthony Perkins and Shirley MacLaine; and even a very young Robert Morse. Few films can lay claim to an equally gifted line up. The production values are also quite fine, capturing the charm of the 1880s without recourse to the gaudy edge one so often sees in films set in that period.

The story itself is equally beguiling. Miserly businessman Horace Vandergelder (Paul Ford) is eager to marry and employs professional busy-body Dolly Levi (Shirley Booth) to fix him up--but when he takes the day off to visit prospective bride Irene Malloy (MacLaine) his two clerks (Perkins and Morse) follow suit. A series of chance encounters bring all concerned together--and with a little not-so-gentle nudging from Dolly, Vandergelder makes the discovery that the matchmaker herself is his own perfect match. If all this sounds a bit familiar, it should, for THE MATCHMAKER had yet another, slightly later incarnation: with music by Jerry Herman and book by Michael Stewart, it became HELLO, DOLLY!, one of Broadway's most celebrated musicals, which itself reached the screen in 1969.

There is nothing in the way of bonus materials--a tremendous pity given the astonishing cast--but the DVD does offer the film in near-pristine transfer, and while THE MATCHMAKER doesn't quite rise to the level of the stage play's spark, it is nonetheless a gentle, amusing, and extremely well performed film, an overlooked gem from late-1950s Hollywood.

GFT, Amazon Reviewer

Some of Thornton Wilder's ironies about love and money get mangled in the dumbing-down of his stage material, and the theatrical conceits (characters constantly breaking down the fourth wall) probably worked better in the legit theater. And then there's that damned toy train, too cutesy by half. Nevertheless, this is a handsome and diverting little comedy with a great cast. Shirley Booth conveys some of the magnetism that made her a stage favorite; it's not necessarily great acting, but a warm and whimsical performance. Anthony Perkins and Shirley MacLaine are young love personified; I'm not sure either of them was ever this appealing again. Compliments, too, to Adolph Deutsch, who wrapped the whole thing up in a terrifically evocative waltz theme.

It's a trifle, but a tasteful and well-paced trifle. I notice that whenever AMC shows it, I watch it, so that says something.