Throwback Thursday: The Matchmaker is a match made in heaven for this Valentine’s Day

With Valentine’s Day looming ever closer on my singles radar, I decided now would be the ideal time to review a classic romantic comedy that has been graciously provided from the Warner Archive Collection. I selected The Matchmaker (1958), starring Shirley Booth, Shirley MacLaine, Anthony Perkins, Paul Ford and Robert Morse. I love screwball romantic comedies, and this here-to-now unseen gem was everything I’d hoped it’d be and more.

What I found most enjoyable about The Matchmaker was the way the characters draw you immediately into the story by doing asides to the camera for the audience’s benefit. In fact, I’d say this movie featured some of the best asides I’ve ever seen. Right away, you’re given a first impression into each main character’s psyche with a simple — albeit cleverly written — phrase or two. You can tell that Dolly “Gallagher” Levi (Shirley Booth) is a bit of a meddling matchmaker, Horace Vandergelder (Paul Ford) is an impatient, selfish curmudgeon and Irene Molloy (Shirley MacLaine) is a little bit of a tart taunting you with her pretty petticoats as she steps off a stagecoach in Yonkers, New York, 1884. You’re also left with the assumption that Cornelius Hackl (Anthony Perkins) is an incorrigible flirt, as he’s seen admiring ladies passing by him on the street while he charms you with that devilishly handsome smirk of his, asking if you’re alone and then nodding his head in understanding that your date is out getting your popcorn. (Or maybe that’s just me. I’ve been in love with Anthony Perkins since the first time I saw Psycho. Norman Bates was just tragically misunderstood, haha)

Apparently, this movie, released by Paramount Pictures and based on a play written by Thornton Wilder, was eventually remade into the more recognizable title Hello, Dolly! However, I’m a little sad to admit I’ve never seen that musical before either so the story was fresh to me. The Matchmaker follows the crazy antics of Dolly Levi, who has set her eyes upon millionaire Horace Vandergelder to be her next husband. At the ripe age of 60, Horace is looking to make a second marriage. He tells the audience that he was once young, poor and foolish and that his first wife died. He grew older and richer and now considers himself a man of sense (and perhaps cents). He is eager to get married again, to a much-younger bride who will run his house well. He says that marriage is a bribe, in that you make a housekeeper think she’s a householder.

Horace has set his eyes upon Irene Molloy, a pretty, young milliner in New York City, to be his intended bride. Dolly learns of his intentions and, unthwarted in her quest to make him her own husband, invents a more suitable match for Horace in the fictional Ernestina, a woman “who cooks like a great chef but eats apples and lettuce herself and who makes all her own clothes from tablecloths and window curtains but is among the best dressed in New York City.” Naturally, these qualities sound very appealing to spendthrift Horace, who agrees to giving Dolly a respectable matchmaker’s fee and agrees to meet Ernestina while embarking upon the same trip to meet Irene.

Meanwhile, enter Cornelius Hackl and his chum Barnaby Tucker. Cornelius is the chief clerk in Horace’s store who has worked extremely hard and has aspirations of earning more pay and time off so he can embark upon adventures with pretty women. The two young clerks decide while the fat cat is away, the mice will be at play. They close down the store and set out for New York City for a bachelors’ jaunt of their own. Naturally, they encounter Irene and Cornelius instantly falls in love with her, and she with him, although she erroneously believes he is a millionaire playboy thanks to some convincing from Dolly. It’s not that Irene is a bad person. She just has dreams of marrying a rich man to help her escape the monotony of her everyday life in the shop.

The screwball antics continue to build to a nice crescendo as Cornelius and Horace both pursue Irene and Dolly doggedly pursues Horace. The audience is given philosophical words of wisdom from each character with memorable one-liners such as:
“99% of the people in the world are fools. The rest of us are in great danger of contagion.”
“You can know a woman for 100 years without really knowing whether or not she really liked you.”

However, my favorite line in the movie comes from none other than Dolly herself, who proclaims that the very young and the very old are smart – it’s in the middle where you get confused! I’ve got just two words for that: Amen, Dolly! I’m about to turn 32 in a few weeks and I have no clue what direction I want my life to take other than I’m determined to land a husband of my own, hopefully by the age of 40. If you’ve never seen The Matchmaker, do yourself a favor and seek it out. I thoroughly enjoyed it because I felt the cast was convincingly witty and captivating with their asides. If only everyone could be that clever in real life. Maybe now I’ll finally sit through Hello, Dolly! since I know I would enjoy the story.

The Matchmaker DVD was provided for review by the Warner Archive Collection.