Just something to think about.... (Considering that "The Matchmaker" was an updated variation of "A Trip to Chinatown").Like another Jerry Herman musical ("Mame"), "Hello, Dolly!" was based upon a hit Broadway play that was later musicalized. And like the original "Auntie Mame", the movie version of "The Matchmaker" (the Thornton Wilder play upon which "Dolly" was based) was released in 1958. Like "Auntie Mame", there are many lines that seem like song cues. For example, the character of Irene Malloy (Shirley MacLaine) indicates that in the summertime, she'll be wearing ribbons down her back. And Cornelius Hackl (Anthony Perkins) says at the very beginning as he is planning a trip to Manhattan with Barnaby (Robert Morse) that even if they come back broke, at least they can remember that once they had a very good day, which in the musical Cornelius says later in the story. Dolly (Shirley Booth) talks about after being widowed making herself a rum toddy, putting out the cat, and thanking God that she didn't depend on anybody. Each of these incidents in the musical leads to a song, and if you know "Dolly" well, you might find yourself humming them at the non-musical version, a delightful comedy that shows Manhattan at a much different time when life may not have been totally smooth, but certainly not as complex as New York City is today."Auntie Mame", the movie, saluted its stage origins by having a blackout in between the important scenes to represent the end of an act. In "The Matchmaker", the stage origins are saluted by having the characters break the third wall and talk to the audience directly. That rarely works in films, but here, it is totally charming, and doesn't make the film seem any more theatrical or lessen its impact. While the basic structure is the same as the musical, there are some slight differences, changed for dramatic content when Michael Stewart wrote the book in the early 60's for the long-running Broadway version.Shirley Booth had been playing only dramatic parts in movies ("Come Back Little Sheba", "About Mrs. Leslie") when she made this, a pre-cursor to her television role as the housekeeper "Hazel". She had showed her comic talents on stage in the original non-musical version of "My Sister Eileen" and threw up her legs as the vivacious Aunt Cissy in the musical version of "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn". While Ruth Gordon originated the role of Dolly in "The Matchmaker" on Broadway, Booth was a perfect choice for the movie, and I can't imagine it without her as wonderful and cheery as she is here.Shirley MacLaine, who would play Booth's daughter in the same year's "Hot Spell", brings in all her growing comic tricks as Irene Malloy, and steals the scene where Cornelius and Barnaby hide under the table and in the closet of her hat shop, as well as the later scene in the Harmonia Gardens restaurant. Paul Ford, so utterly irascible as the mayor in "The Music Man", was a perfect Horace Vandergelder. In an ironic twist of trivia, character actor David Burns, then on the Broadway as the mayor in "The Music Man", would later play Vandergelder in "Hello, Dolly!".Tall and lanky Anthony Perkins is handsome and graceful as the shy Cornelius who longs to come to life, while future Broadway leading man Robert Morse is perfect as his puppy like sidekick Barnaby. Perry Wilson seemed a bit too old as Minnie Faye, reminding me of character actresses Una Merkel or Nydia Westman from a decade earlier. Her reaction to finding a man in the closet in the hat shop is priceless. Instead of the pig-carrying Ernestina Semple from "Dolly", we get Wallace Ford as one of Vandergelder's employees. He gets his own chance to take over for a minute in a very funny scene where he debates his own honesty when finding a wallet full of money in the restaurant.Many hit Broadway musicals were straight plays before having songs added, and once those songs are added, the plays tend to disappear from view. Fortunately, "The Matchmaker" and "Auntie Mame" have turned up from time to time minus those fabulous Jerry Herman songs; Some producer somewhere should consider doing the play and the musical in repertoire together so audiences can appreciate the play for its qualities, and the musical for theirs.

There's a lot of back and forth on this one, comparing the cast, comparing movie to stage, a lot about Streisand being too young. Even on the Hello Dolly reviews, you get that. I wonder if people didn't know how old Barbra Streisand was if they would still say that. I also wonder how different people's reviews would be if they didn't have the chance to read others'. And, just because someone's been on stage, doesn't make them a demigod. When I saw Hello Dolly, it was love at first sight, along with a lot of other people. Probably those who didn't know all the background and about other productions. Ignorance can be bliss maybe. Probably more like too much information is just confusing. There's even some outrage that someone dared remake their little gem. Well they dared and did and kicked it up a notch, which was needed. The musical version rocked the house from start to finish. The songs stay with you. The scenes come alive and have greater interest. Mathau was a fine curmudgeon, really funny. Streisand was that Levi woman, age immaterial. She had a full figure and easily passed for a middle aged widow. She came up to what is a strong part. Her outrageous handling was sheer delight. Her more alive and youthful aspect was much better than that rather tired old lady. If you're going to pick on age, I think it's more like Shirley Booth seemed too old for the part. This current movie under review seems kind of tired to me in general, like players doing their umpteenth performance at the end of a run. Phoned in. I never saw Shirley Booth on Broadway, and with what I see here, no regret. She's better cast as Hazel on television. Streisand stood up and put some bump into this grind. Whoever did Hello Dolly was a real movie maker who took the same stuff to another level. In my view, it made a much more solid contribution to the movie world than Match's rather slow and odd mix of things.

Thornton Wilder's play about a matchmaking busy-body named Dolly Levi in 1880s Yonkers, New York who has been hired to find a mate for a wealthy, grumpy business owner; she comically attempts to keep him for herself, while the gal he admires is quickly falling for one of his own employees. The later stage (and film) musical "Hello, Dolly!" actually improved upon this scenario--there are pauses here which practically call out for a song--but there's evident charm in Shirley Booth's lead portrayal; at times addressing the audience directly (with many of the players following suit), Booth sounds a lot like Thelma Ritter (and has some of Ritter's spunk), but she doesn't get her share of the good lines. Scenes of Dolly getting a wedding ring stuck on her finger or delightedly finding men hiding in Shirley MacLaine's hat shop don't really come off. Booth is friendly but frivolous, and we never quite become involved in her quest to have a man--this man--in her life (in the film-version of "Hello, Dolly!", Barbra Streisand was much more persuasive about her need to share her life with a mate--even if it was Walter Matthau!). The film flutters about in a jolly, folksy way, but some of its gags (such as Anthony Perkins and Robert Morse having to dress in drag) are just silly. It begins and finishes on an upbeat note, but the leaden handling drags its midsection down, even though the cast is quite good. ** from ****

"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.