This lavish screen adaptation of the Tony Award-winning Broadway smash is one of the last of Hollywood’s giant movie musicals. Fresh off her Oscar-winning screen debut in Funny Girl (1968), superstar Barbra Streisand won the coveted role of Dolly Levi, a matchmaker in 1890s New York who has her sights set on making a match for herself with the grumpy, but wealthy Horace Vandergelder (Walter Matthau). Streisand thought herself too young to play the middle-aged widow Levi (she was only 26 at the time) and reportedly did not get along with her costar, but she still makes the famous role her own and beautifully sings the joyful Jerry Herman score. Just wait till you see the Louis Armstrong cameo in the title number! — Jack Fields

Rated: G