The Catered Affair (1956)

The Catered Affair
Directed by Richard Brooks
Written by Gore Vidal from a teleplay by Paddy Chayefsky
1956/USA
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
First viewing/YouTube

Agnes Hurley: You’re going to have a big wedding whether you like it or not! And if you don’t like it, you don’t have to come!

Once I got used to Bette Davis playing a dowdy Irish-American housewife, I began to enjoy this kitchen-sink drama.

Tom Hurley (Ernest Borgnine) is a cab driver.  He has been saving all his life to buy a taxi cab medallion and own a cab and now has the $4,000 necessary to do so.  His buddy will go in halves with him on the taxi.  When he arrives home dead tired, his daughter Jane (Debbie Reynolds) announces to him and her mother Agnes (Davis) that she plans to get married that Saturday.  Jane and her intended have the opportunity to drive a friend’s car cross country and want to use the time for a honeymoon.  She wants only her parents at the simple wedding. That means her Uncle Jack (Barry Fitzgerald) who lives with them will not be able to attend.  He is mightily offended to be excluded.

That night the family entertains the fiance’s parents at dinner.  The Hallorans are much better off financially than the Hurleys.  They start talking about their daughters’ formal weddings and the apartment they plan to gift to the couple.  Between her brother threatening to move out, the Hurleys’ comments, and implications of acquaintances that Jane must be “in trouble” to want such a rushed marriage, Agnes rebels and insists on a fancy catered wedding.  Her hidden reason is that she was denied a big wedding and never has felt really loved by her husband.

The formal wedding turns out to be a bad idea for a number of reasons, not least that Tom will not be able to afford his cab.  We follow the tense wedding preparations for the remainder of the film.  With Rod Taylor as Jane’s fiancé.

Ernest Borgnine had one golden year following his Oscar-winning performance in Marty before he was relegated to playing one-dimensional bad guys (expertly I might add).  This is one of the nuanced and moving roles he had in him.  Davis is good too but slips in and out of a New York Irish accent.  It’s quite a shift from her glamour roles and she ends up being very moving.  Debbie Reynolds is fine but has the same trouble maintaining a consistent accent.  The writing is solid and I was in tears by the ending of the film.  Recommended for fans of domestic drama.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qv_ksA4S–Q

Clip

This was my contribution to the Bette Davis Bogathon hosted at “In the Good Old Days of Classic Hollywood”.  Many excellent articles about the actress’s films and life are gathered here.