Description: Based on Thornton Wilder's 1955 play, THE MATCHMAKER features Shirley Booth playing Dolly Levi, a young matchmaker determined to find a wife for a widowed millionaire. After finding potential wives for him, Dolly discovers that she's fallen in love with him and does all that she can to ensure he doesn't fall in love with any of the women she's set him up with.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
Rating: - "Money, pardon the expression, is like manure. It's not worth a thing unless it's spread around..."
Thornton Wilder's 1955 Broadway play THE MATCHMAKER was one of his most celebrated efforts, starring Ruth Gordon as the meddling matchmaker Dolly Gallagher-Levi. Paramount snatched up the film rights, and three years later it became a box office sensation with stage/screen actress Shirley Booth (an Oscar winner for 1952's "Come Back Little Sheba") in the title role.
Set in turn-of-the-century Yonkers and New York, the story spins around Mrs Dolly Gallagher-Levi (Shirley Booth), a widow who dabbles in matchmaking. Her most influential client is Mr Horace Vandergelder (Paul Ford), ... Read More
Rating: - Fantastic !
I thought this film is just as good as hello dolly great acting and just a great movie.
Rating: - Wonderful old Classic
I love the old classics and this is one of my favorites. I love Shirley Booth and remember her fondly as Hazel. Matchmaker was the movie that inspired the musical Hello Dolly-which I also enjoy.
Rating: - Memorable Performances and Tremendous Charm
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 ... Read More
Rating: - LIVELY COMEDY SET IN 19th CENTURY OLD NEW YORK
The wonderful stage actress Shirley Booth (later the star of Tv's HAZEL) became a late blooming movie star in the 1950's, winning the Best Actress Oscar for 1952's COME BACK LITTLE SHEBA in her film debut at age 54 (although even at her "authorized" age of 45 she was a good bit past most actresses of the period in the first films). Legendary film producer Hal B. Wallis produced three additional film vehicles for Miss Booth but while ABOUT MRS. LESLIE (1954) was quite good and THE HOT SPELL (1958) was somewhat uneven, the final Wallis/Booth movie THE MATCHMAKER (1958) hit the bullseye.
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