Customer Reviews

The Catered Affair [VHS]

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

With a brilliant screenplay by Gore Vidal, based upon a play by Paddy Chayefsky, this is an outstanding drama with fine direction from Richard Brooks. Bette Davis, Ernest Borgnine, Barry Fitzgerald, Debbie Reynolds, and Rod Taylor make up the superlative cast.

This slice of life drama focuses upon a lower, middle class Bronx family, headed by Tom Hurley (Ernest Borgnine), a cab driver, and his wife, Aggie (Bette Davis). Their daughter, Jane (Debbie Reynolds), has just announced that she is getting married, but that she and her fiance (Rod Taylor) want no formal wedding reception.

Aggie soon insists upon giving her daughter the wedding she never had, which promises to wipe out their entire paltry savings, as well as Tom's dream of owning his own taxi medallion. Aggie's plans are the catalyst for some much needed family changes.

Barry Fitsgerald is wonderful as Aggie's bachelor brother, who has been living with the Hurleys for many years. Jane's impending nuptials and Aggie's plans make him take stock of his own life. Aggie and Tom are also forced to take stock of their own relationship with each other. This is a character driven, rather than plot driven, film.

The sets are wonderfully dreary, setting the stark tone for the claustrophobic, narrow lives lived by the characters. Bette Davis is terrific as the wife and mother who lives a life unexamined, until her daughter's own life change forces her to look at what she has. Ernest Borgnine is excellent as the taciturn father and husband, who knows his limits, but has his dreams. Aggie's and Tom's lives appear to have been running on parallel tracks until Jane's leaving home forces them to choose between going on as they had, in dreary loveless, isolation or forming a commom bond and one track upon which they will ride together. It is a situation with significant implications.

This is a superb film that all Bette Davis fans will enjoy, as will those who love superior, well acted dramas.

It is so easy to understand why Davis rated her "Aggie Hurley" in "The Catered Affair" as one of her proudest achievements as an actress. She plays the role with honesty and devoid of her distracting mannerisms. It is poignant and touching.

The rest of the cast is equally fine as well.

Why this movie doesn't rate higher among the Davis admirers, I do not know. I cannot add anything to the other reviews about the plot. They covered the synopsis well enough. All I know is the film, the acting, the production values and a beautiful musical score warrants a five star rating from me.

Davis really shines in this picture and I think she should have been nominated for an academy award in 1956 for this role.

"The Catered Affair" is a wonderful film!!

It is charming as well as realistic. It describes middle class family effervescence before a wedding! At one point, when her daughter refused to have a big wedding, Bette replied" You are going to have a big wedding and if you don't like it you don't have to come!" The character of her Cabby husband is very touching but as always it is Bette who makes it a great movie!

I have enjoyed many Bette Davis movies, but had never seen this underrated gem. There are so many layers of this story that really blend together, as well as a truly talented cast. This film should be a must see guide for the single and engaged women who fall under the pressures and outrageous expense of getting married. So many women make the mistake of falling in love with the fantasy of a wedding and not the reality of taking vows and knowing the true meaning of being married after the honeymoon is over.
I liked when Bette's character pointed out the importance of marriage in the bad times as well as good. Too many people forget the challenges of really sharing your life with a person and sometimes putting their needs above your own. Thank goodness I can always pop in a Bette Davis movie and be truly amazed by her talent!!! She is and will always be the First Lady of Film!!!

Watched this movie this week on AMC and decided I wanted to add this movie to my collection and began searching the web. This movie should be required viewing for all newlyweds. I LUV, LUV, LUV this movie. Excellent message! The actors/actresses were outstanding, and no one took their clothes off!

In the 1950's the fledgling television industry not only threatened to lure audiences away from motion pictures, but also was attracting fresh, stimulating writing talent such as Gore Vidal, Rod Serling, JP Miller and of course Paddy Chayefsky who first sprang to national prominence with the teledrama "Marty". He followed this success with "The Catered Affair" which was originally televised in May 1955 on the "Philco Television Playhouse" starring the incomparable Thelma Ritter. "Marty" was adapted to the big screen and wound up winning Oscars for Best Picture and Best Actor - Ernest Borgnine for 1955, and more importantly took in a nice haul at the box office. Under the circumstances it was only natural that Hollywood would adapt "The Catered Affair" to the big screen next.

The story is set in the Bronx at the present time (1956), and concerns the Hurleys, a lower middle class Irish-American family. Tom Hurley (Ernest Borgnine) is a middle-aged cab driver whose big dream is to someday own his own taxi. His wife Aggie (Bette Davis) is a housewife pretty well resigned to the drabness of her existence. They live in an apartment building with their two children, Jane (Debbie Reynolds) and Eddie (Ray Stricklyn) plus Aggies's older bachelor brother Jack Conlon (Barry Fitzgerald). Jane's announcement that she is going to marry her steady boyfriend Ralph Halloran (Rod Taylor) in the next several weeks in a quiet, simple ceremony with just the immediate family, (no she's not pregnant!), causes a major disruption. Aggie torn between guilt at not doing enough for Jane growing up and pride at wanting to keep up with the groom's more affluent parents wants a big fancy catered wedding. Neither Jane nor Ralph wants it, and Tom is horrified this will wipe out their hard earned savings. Despite this, Aggie plows forward doggedly determined to do what she thinks is right until events finally come to a head and the inevitable family explosion occurs.

This slice of life or kitchen sink type of drama was a departure for the MGM studio whose product usually had a more glossy finish. Realism is the key here, the sets, costumes, locales all look very true to the milieu of the working class Bronx of this era, very plain and worn and photographed in stark black and white. Surprisingly, Paddy Chayefsky didn't do the screenplay but rather Gore Vidal, an odd choice since his patrician WASP background was totally alien to that of the characters in the film, yet he does capture the idiom, the flavor of the speech and thought process.

Tom and Aggie lead what Thoreau called "lives of quiet desperation", as many people did then and sadly still do. Neither is happy with their lot in life and both Davis and Borgnine work well at bringing this out, this couple worn down by poverty and drudgery both just going through the motions of marriage. Believing either of them as lower class Irish Americans was a little bit of a stretch though, and Davis' acquired Bronx accent every once and awhile betrays the cadences of New England.

Debbie Reynolds as the bride to be Jane is the revelation in this film, firmly leaving behind the arch, cutesy, ingénue mannerisms of prior films and turning in a finely honed low-keyed dramatic portrayal that was a giant step forward in her development as an actress. It was worthy of a Best Supporting Actress Oscar Nomination if not the actual award itself. She is well matched by Rod Taylor as Ralph Halloran her bespectacled fiancé, a very likeable, easygoing, bright young man. They make a most appealing couple, quite suited for one another and unlike Jane's parents this will not be a marriage of convenience, they truly love one another, the odds are this marriage will be a success. They share several very good scenes together but there is one especially well played where they are in Ralph's one room apartment. First they are talking but then wind up kissing on the bed and their desire for each other builds accented by Andre Previn's simmering musical score, then ebbs away as they regretfully break the mood and decide to go to the movies as planned.

The other notables in the cast are Barry Fitzgerald as Jack Conlon, Aggie's fussy, hypochondriac bachelor brother and Dorothy Stickney as Mrs. Rafferty, his close card-playing companion. His thick Irish brogue is explained away by the fact that he was born in Ireland whereas Aggie was born in America. At first annoying with his querulous ways, Jack becomes more human and likeable in the last part of the film, when he finally makes some positive adult decisions. As the sprightly widow, Mrs. Rafferty, who plays her cards right in more ways than one, Dorothy Stickney has a nice little twinkle in her eyes. Robert Simon and Madge Kennedy give good support as Ralph's upwardly mobile parents the Hallorans as does Joan Camden as Jane's woebegone best friend Alice.

The director Richard Brooks did a craftsman like job in putting all the elements together and making them work. I particularly liked Andre Previn's musical score, which has elements of Irish themes that complemented the Hurley family background.

At the movie's conclusion there is a hopeful sense of resolution, now that the air has been cleared between Tom and Aggie. Life will go forward with the two of them getting to know one another all over again, and perhaps finding some measure of contentment and hopefully love. While not an extraordinary movie, it is I feel a true one that is rooted in reality. The Hurleys are common, ordinary folk but in their basic flawed humanity, the wish to achieve the American dream for their children and themselves, and the often frustrating quest for a better way of life we can all recognize something of ourselves.

I really enjoyed this movie the first time I watched it because the plot really thickens as the story stirs up. Bette Davis was exceptional. It's not just about a mother who will stop at nothing to give her daughter a first-class wedding. Instead, "The Catered Affair" is a complex yarn about a family, not unlike any other family who has many problems; both big and small. Mr. Ernest Borgnine was excellent as the hopeless and harried father because he said and did everything one would expect and it was done with such conviction that I almost got the feeling that I was watching someone's old home-movies. I thought the ending dated the movie, but all movies of the '50s are dated. The movie comes on TCM fairly often, don't waste your money on this used VHS.

This movie is kind of depressing in some ways, but it hit me in a special way, and I love this film. I think the reason I like this so much is the fact that the characters are real, and the situations are real. The relationships are frustrating to say the least, but the actors do such a good job of selling themselves to you, that you are able to relate to them in some way. You may even realize that you are one of the characters on the screen!

I never was a Bette Davis fan until recently, but I have realized she is a great actress, and this movie accentuates this. Good acting all around and, although I have watched plenty of films more fun than this, "The Catered Affair" is very entertaining.

Enjoy this special movie with a loved one!

At long last, The Catered Affair - a black and white fifties drama - is out on DVD and remastered.Gore Vidal wrote the script, and Richard Brooks directed.
The story is set in the Bronx,in a down at heel apartment where the Hurley family live. Jane Hurley (played with sensitivity by a 24 year old Debbie Reynolds) arrives home from work and informs her parents that she and Ralph Halloran (Rod Taylor) have decided to get married, with no fuss,expense, and just their two immediate families present.
The news is met with understated happiness by her parents,Agnes and Tom (Bette Davis and Ernest Borgnine.)Tom is a taxi driver who works nights and rarely sees his family, and Aggie is the family "engine,"driving everyone on to be better and do better. Her brother Jack Conlon, played with typical audacity and rat cunning by Barry Fitzgerald,rents a room from them, which leaves only the kitchen as a place all the family can sit together in.
The wedding is set for a few weeks away,and Ralph's parents are invited over to dinner to meet the Hurley's who have explained to Jack that day that only the immediate family will be attending the wedding. Jack is outraged that he is not on the guest list, but as Aggie explains to her brother,they have numerous other siblings who would be offended if Jack was invited but not them.
The Hallorans arrive to meet the family, Jack is out with his lady friend,so the room he knows as his bedroom has been hastily converted into a dining room/sitting room for entertaining the guests. The Hallorans appear comfortably off with Mr Halloran only too ready to brag about his business prowess and the big send offs for his daughters on their wedding days - paid for by him. He is prepared to help his son and daughter inlaw-to-be financially,which embarrasses and rankles the Hurleys, and soon Aggie is committing the family finances to something they can't afford, just so they will be seen doing right by their daughter.
Tom Hurley has been saving for 12 years to scrape together enough money to buy a cab with his friend. Both men need $4,000 each to buy a new cab and licence from a driver about to retire. This is the money that Aggie is pledging to spend on a big wedding (at one stage she orders 10 limosines to take their complete family to the reception in grand style).
In the midst of all this anxiety and shame,arrives Jack,who has been making his own arrangements with his lady friend, Mrs Rafferty. He's a wee bit under the weather, and after informing Mrs Halloran the sofa she is sitting on is his bed,his barely concealed anger at his earlier argument with his sister,Aggie, mixed in with his naturally mischievousness encourages the Hallorans to bid a hasty good night.
The relationship between Aggie and Tom is strained. He is silent,glowering,moody,trying hard to be a good provider, and resenting the lack of attention his wife gives to him. When Jack announces he is marrying and moving in with Mrs Rafferty, Tom explodes at the suggestion that someone else might take Jack's room.
For the first time in their married life,Mr and Mrs Hurley will be on their own,as their daughter is getting married and their son joining the army,(their elder son was killed in Korea several years earlier),and Uncle Jack has moved out,too.
On the morning of the wedding, Aggie allows her husband to sleep after his night shift until the last minute,and irons his shirt and presses his suit, then sits by him and waits patiently for him to wake up. This is a new day, a new start,and rediscovered respect between them,leaving us with the feeling that they will get to know each other, and enjoy their new lives.

Bette Davis - probably the biggest female star of them all in Hollywood's "Golden Years,"was a great actress given to playing roles (as did Crawford,Shearer etc)
that were overly dramatic and thus difficult for later generations to get their teeth into. She wanted to work, and was so desperate for roles she advertised herself in the Variety and other papers. She struck gold with All About Eve and then again in the Catered Affair. The star had turned herself into a first rate character actress. A wonderful portrayal of poverty and hardship, trying to make ends meet, and doing one's best. Ernest Borgnine was perfect as the gentle battler with the sensitive soul, and Debbie Reynolds really surprised with the depth of her performance - a fine effort.

I really love old movies that have stood the test of time. I loved Ernest Borgnine in "Marty" so it seemed perfectly logical to purchase "The Catered Affair" I thoroughly enjoyed the movie which showed the human struggle for something better in life. The story line may be simple but it rang very true and the viewer could certainly relate to the story and the actors portrayal of the situation.