I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

Joseph Anthony's direction of Thornton Wilder's comedy provides a nearly perfect example of French farce. Why "French"? Because The Matchmaker plays in the tradition established by Parisian "Boulevard theater," and especially by the master playwright of the form, Georges Feydeau. Watch carefully as Anthony Perkins and Robert Morse unite the timing of their quips with their physical activity. While farce is normally distinguished by the superiority of plot over character, the French style gives extra attention to precise timing, as when one actor glides smoothly behind a door or under a table just in time to avoid the entrance of another actor. Pratfalls, double-takes, and asides are exactly combined with punctuated line-readings in a way that demands extraordinary artistry. This script gives the boys plenty of opportunity to emphasize their skillful timing, and they make the most of it. Paul Ford provides a fine "old geezer" foil, and a young Shirley MacLaine matches the men gag for gag.Director Anthony's early career as a dancer/choreographer and his extensive credits as a Broadway director have prepared him well to handle the farcical demands of this stylish screenplay. Regardless of the pluses or minuses that one may find elsewhere in the production, it is a real standout as a model for students of acting and directing.

This a great film with outstanding actors and is a take off on, "Hello Dolly". Shirley Booth, (Dolly Gallgher Levi) plays the role as a matchmaker who is always broke but manages to get by one way or the other. Dolly has her eyes set on Horace Vandergelder, (Paul Ford) who is a very rich man and is very tight with his money and pays horrible wages to his employees at his General Store. Cornelius Hackl, (Anthony Perkins) is the chief clerk in the store along with another male co-worker who are very under-paid and actually are given no time off and work seven days a week. This story takes place in Yonkers, N.Y. in the 1800's, and one day, Dolly decides to find a young girl for Horace in New York City who sells ladies hats and is very pretty. Horace says he will go with her and meet this young woman named Irene Molly and possibly ask her to marry him. This is a very romantic and great comedy from 1958 and Paul Ford and Shirley Booth give outstanding performances, don't miss seeing this film.

This has, through no fault of its own, become a bit of a curiosity. Long ago eclipsed by it's musical version "Hello, Dolly!", the film seems like an introduction to the songs (particularly in the earlier part) which never come. This is largely due to the fact that the musical picked up many of the song titles from lines in the play. ("Put On Your Sunday Clothes", "Ribbons Down My Back" etc.) There are many more differences from, at least, the film version of "Dolly". In the Harmonia Gardens scene, Dolly is hardly the celebrated personage of the musical but just another guest. As played by Shirley Booth, she is hardly the miscast young diva Barbra Streisand was.The character of Malachi Stack, perhaps a sort of cousin of Alfred P. Doolittle of Shaw's "Pygmalion" or the musical "My Fair Lady", played by Wallace Ford, doesn't exist in the musical. There is no one posing as Ernestina Simple here; she "Simply" doesn't show at the Harmonia Gardens! And Ambrose and Ermengarde are also nowhere to be found.The play by Thornton Wilder is itself based on his own "The Merchant of Yonkers" which itself was based on earlier (early to mid-19th century) plays by the Austrian Johann Nestroy and the, even earlier, British John Oxenford.The film, I think unwisely, has many of the characters directly addressing the audience and no doubt this worked better in the theater. And I think the story and settings cried out for color but, of course, Paramount was clearly too cheap.How would these stars have done in the musical? Perkins, here a considerable improvement over Michael Crawford as Cornelius, could have done the songs not much worse (He did sing on the Broadway stage in the short-running 1960 musical "Greenwillow", but none too well.). Robert Morse would have been more than passable as Barnaby (He sang in "How to Succeed" of course.) and Shirley MacLaine could obviously sing well enough but Miss Booth was not known as a vocalist, at least to my recollection. But Babs' acting ability at the time "Dolly" was made was pretty non-existent and she couldn't sing a single note without milking it for all it was worth. I think Marianne McAndrew and Danny Lockin were fine as Irene and Barnaby.I think this film, for all its problems, is a considerable improvement over that of "Hello, Dolly!" but it is hoped that a decent version of the musical becomes available in the not-too-distant future.

I have always loved the "straight play" version of the Dolly story. Actually Thornton Wilder's play had a previous incarnation set in Austria, in the German language. He had written it for Broadway in the fifties, it was filmed in 58 in this version, and Jerry Herman must have seen it and fallen in love with it for the musical "Hello, Dolly!". Parts of this are superior to the original stage version of the musical. The film version of the musical is dreadfully over danced and Streisand was way too young for the lead role. Shirley Booth, here in this "Matchmaker", is much closer, in a way to Channing's Dolly of Broadway. I have often wished that SOMEONE would re-do the musical for either video or film. I saw the 1964 Channing production and it was magical. Hollywood so often trashes these brilliant stage works. Anyway, rent this film when you can and compare it to the Streisand "Dolly".