Great - even with no songs

The part of Minnie Fay is almost unplayable because the character is so underwritten. The role should have been cast with someone with more of their own personality, like a Kay Ballard or Mary Wickes. As it happens, Perry Wilson, who played the part in the movie, was the wife of Joe Anthony, the director of the film, which might explain a few things. This version is much better than I remembered, and certainly better than the movie version of the musical that starred Streisand, who was 30 years too young to play Dolly Levi when the film was made. Now she would be perfect!

I'll have to screen the film again because I don't remember much about Perry Wilson's performance but I do want to say Irene Ryan was an outstanding actress, even Shirley Booth herself publicly praised her when she won the 1962 Emmy over Irene, Lucille Ball, and Mary Tyler Moore, "Boy, I was in some category you know. Those are some wonderful gals in there."

Just watched the movie again and loved it as always. I didn't remember your post but I definitely noticed Perry Wilson has a slight resemblence to Irene Ryan, not as her "Granny" character, but facial characteristics. It's quite a small part though and doesn't have that many lines, she's really just around to be a quasi-chaperon for MacLaine's character. Minnie is not meant to be anything but a minor character so a loud character comedienne in the part would not have made much sense; Miss Wilson, like Wallace Ford in the only other sizable part beyond the five leads, is fine enough in this insignificant part.

Ha, it's 6 years later and it's on TV again. I DVRed it in case I needed something to watch and it came up in the rotation yesterday. I didn't really expect to like it but I did. I don't normally like Shirley Booth but even she was ok in this. The other main characters were all perfectly cast and played. I had not seen Perkins, Morse, or Ford in anything in years and it was great to see them again. Perkins and Morse were wonderful as the two guys on their adventure. I don't recall where I first saw Morse but his characters were always so infectious that there was no way not to like them. This movie is definitely a relic of a different time and place but a nice one. I figured all the leads were dead but not so apparently. Looked at Morse's imdb entry and surprised to see he was in Mad Men for a bit. He's older of course but still has that twinkle in his eyes and gap between his teeth. I wonder how many people told him he should get that fixed when he first started out!!