The Matchmaker | |
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Directed by | Joseph Anthony |
Written by | Thornton Wilder (play) John Oxenford (play A Day Well Spent) Johann Nestroy (play Einen Jux will er sich machen ) John Michael Hayes (screenplay) |
Produced by | Don Hartman |
Starring | Shirley Booth Anthony Perkins Shirley MacLaine Paul Ford Robert Morse |
Cinematography | Charles Lang |
Edited by | Howard A. Smith |
Music by | Adolph Deutsch |
Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
Release date |
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Running time | 101 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Box office | $1 million [1] |
The Matchmaker is a 1958 American comedy film directed by Joseph Anthony. The film stars Shirley Booth in her final film, Anthony Perkins, and Shirley MacLaine. The screenplay by John Michael Hayes is based on the 1955 play of the same name by Thornton Wilder. The costumes were by Edith Head.
Set in 1884, the story focuses on Dolly Gallagher Levi, a widow who supports herself by a variety of means, with matchmaking as her primary source of income. Horace Vandergelder, a wealthy but miserly merchant from Yonkers, New York, has hired her to find him a wife, but unbeknownst to him Dolly is determined to fill the position herself. When he expresses his intent to travel to New York City to woo milliner Irene Molloy, Dolly shows him the photograph of a woman she calls Miss Ernestina Simple and tells him the buxom beauty would be a far better choice for him. Horace agrees to have dinner with Ernestina at the Harmonia Gardens after visiting Irene.
Meanwhile, Horace's head clerk Cornelius Hackl convinces his sidekick Barnaby Tucker that they, too, deserve an outing to New York. The two cause cans of tomatoes to explode, spewing their contents about the store, which justifies their closing it for the day and heading to the city. [2] While there, they come across Irene's hat shop and Cornelius is instantly taken with her. The pair are forced to hide however, when Mr. Vandergelder and Dolly arrive. Though Dolly and Irene cover up for them, Mr. Vandergelder still realizes that Irene is hiding people in her shop (though he doesn't know who) and leaves in disgust. Irene furiously demands that Cornelius and Barnaby repay her by taking her and the shop assistant Minnie out to a fancy restaurant for dinner (Dolly had led her to believe that the men were secretly members of high society).
By total coincidence, Cornelius, Barnaby, Irene, Minnie, Horace, and Dolly all dine at the same restaurant. Horace realizes that Dolly tricked him and that there is no such person as Ernestina Simple. Cornelius worries over how to pay for the meal until a well-meaning diner gives him Mr. Vandergelder's wallet (which the diner believes Cornelius dropped). Over the course of the evening, Irene and Cornelius fall in love as Barnaby falls for Minnie. The two men escape being caught by Mr. Vandergelder by disguising themselves as women and dancing towards the door. Before going, they leave the two women a note confessing who they really are and that they love them.
The next day, Dolly and Cornelius pretend to be setting up a store of their own across the street from Mr. Vandergelders. Frightened by the competition, Horace gives the shopkeepers better working hours and wages. Realizing how foolishly he's been acting, he agrees to marry Dolly as well.
Don Hartman acquired the story for Paramount Pictures and took it over when he left Paramount to become an independent producer. He died shortly before its release. [3]
Stanley Kauffmann of The New Republic wrote- 'The film-script by John Michael Hayes condenses and alters the original but not in any outrageous fashion; it is the director and actors who fail it'. [4]
The 1964 Broadway musical Hello Dolly! starring Carol Channing and the 1969 film of the same name with Barbra Streisand and Walter Matthau were both based upon Wilder's play.
Hello, Dolly! is a 1964 musical with lyrics and music by Jerry Herman and a book by Michael Stewart, based on Thornton Wilder's 1938 farce The Merchant of Yonkers, which Wilder revised and retitled The Matchmaker in 1954. The musical follows the story of Dolly Gallagher Levi, a strong-willed matchmaker, as she travels to Yonkers, New York, to find a match for the miserly "well-known unmarried half-a-millionaire" Horace Vandergelder.
The Matchmaker is a 1954 Broadway play by Thornton Wilder, a rewritten version of his 1938 play The Merchant of Yonkers.
Cabell Calloway III was an American jazz singer and bandleader. He was a regular performer at the Cotton Club in Harlem, where he became a popular vocalist of the swing era. His niche of mixing jazz and vaudeville won him acclaim during a career that spanned over 65 years.
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Hello, Dolly! is a 1969 American musical romantic comedy film based on the 1964 Broadway production of the same name, which was based on Thornton Wilder's play The Matchmaker. Directed by Gene Kelly and written and produced by Ernest Lehman, the film stars Barbra Streisand, Walter Matthau, Michael Crawford, Danny Lockin, Tommy Tune, Fritz Feld, Marianne McAndrew, E. J. Peaker and Louis Armstrong. The film follows the story of Dolly Levi, a strong-willed matchmaker who travels to Yonkers, New York in order to find a match for the miserly "well-known unmarried half-a-millionaire" Horace Vandergelder. In doing so, she convinces his niece, his niece's intended and Horace's two clerks to travel to New York.
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The Merchant of Yonkers is a 1938 play by Thornton Wilder.
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Daniel Joseph Lockin was an American actor and dancer who appeared on stage, television, and film. He was best known for his portrayal of the character Barnaby Tucker in the 1969 film Hello, Dolly!.
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Dolly Gallagher Levi is a fictional character and the protagonist of the 1938 play The Merchant of Yonkers and its multiple adaptations, the most notable being the 1964 musical Hello Dolly! Levi's main profession is matchmaking in Yonkers, New York. She also begins a romantic involvement with businessman Horace Vandergelder, when she sends his niece on a date with a local town boy.