BootDigest Such a frustrating disappointment

Abbigail Bush what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Jenna Walter The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Matylda Swan It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

George Wright In this movie, writer Paddy Chayefsky (Marty, Middle of the Night) teams up with director Richard Brooks with the result being a very realistic and heart warming movie about a mother, played by Bette Davis, who gets caught up in her daughter's wedding and feels guilty unless she can turn it into an expensive, "catered affair". As with other movies, Chayefsky skilfully handles a family in conflict. For Davis, as Mrs. Aggie Hurley, it is an unusual role as the housewife and mother of an Irish Catholic family. The1950's setting of New York City's working class borough of the Bronx is well portrayed with its tenements, bridges and grocery markets. The strong cast includes Debbie Reynolds as her daughter Jane, Ernest Borgnine as her husband Tom, Rod Taylor as Jane's fiancé Ralph Halloran and Barry Fitzgerald as uncle Joe Conlon. The small walk-up apartment becomes the setting for family infighting over the size, cost, invitation list and other contentions associated with the wedding. While the circumstances have changed since the 1950's, we can easily imagine this scenario and the social pressures playing out. While Davis initially goes along with the daughter's idea of a small, family wedding, she finds it impossible to resist a more grand event with guests, food, entertainment, rented hall, music, etc. This flies in the face of her husband's plans for his own taxi business, which he has put his life savings towards. Aggie's ambitious wedding plans will eat up all his hard earned money. Neither the daughter or son in law really want it, much less the expense involved. Davis and Borgnine are forced to assess their own marriage and come to terms with a family that is suddenly taking on a new focus. I've always liked Ernest Borgnine although here he seems young compared to Davis. Barry Fitzgerald plays his usual role as the reliable Irish stand-in. Debbie Reynolds gives an excellent performance trying to be the sensible one keeping things from spiralling out of control. Rod Taylor seems a bit out of place in this early movie but he and Reynolds together have great chemistry as the young couple trying to navigate through the family battle. A fine and pleasantly simple movie that still has appeal, I was pleased to catch it on TCM.

Gideon24 Despite some dated plot elements and some performances that are a matter of personal taste, 1956's The Catered Affair is a warm and engaging family drama that, if caught in the right mood, can definitely tug at the heartstrings.The story revolves around the Hurley family, who live in a cramped Brooklyn apartment. Daughter Jane (Debbie Reynolds) comes home one day and quietly announces to her parents Tom (Ernest Borgnine) and Agnes (Bette Davis), that she and her fiancée Ralph (Rod Taylor) are getting married in a week. Jane explains to her parents that they want a quiet simple ceremony with no frills and no reception. Tom has no problem with this since he has been saving his money to buy his own cab, but Mama Agnes is another story...Agnes' obsession with saving face because friends and neighbors suspect they can't afford a fancy wedding and Agnes' personal disappointment at her own no- frills wedding has her pressuring Jane into an elaborate wedding with all the trimmings that the family can't afford.Gore Vidal's screenplay, based on a play by Paddy Chayefsky, provides believable characters and realistic situations that can arise from the story presented. The issues confronted in this film regarding wedding expenses are just as timely today as they were in 1956, though the prices have definitely changed. The film does come off like a photographed stage play, but a watchable one.Ernest Borgnine is strong and sincere as Tom and despite a questionable Brooklyn accent, Bette Davis offers one of her most understated yet effective performances as Agnes...critics were sharply divided regarding her performance at the time of release, but I liked it...Davis keeps scenery chewing to a minimum and creates a character who we don't always sympathize with but we completely understand. Debbie Reynolds' performance as the pressured bride-to-be is surprisingly rich.Director Richard Brooks creates a warm family atmosphere and pulls some very effective performances from his cast, including a fun turn from Barry Fitzgerald as Agnes' brother Jack. Classic film buffs should eat this one up.

Steve Gruenwald (Steve G-2) I had seen this movie mentioned here and there for years, but neither the title nor the cast list suggested to me that I would enjoy it. (Ive never been that big a fan of either Ernest Borgnine or Bette Davis, although I knew they were fine actors; and putting sweet young Debbie Reynolds in the same scenes with them did not seem promising.) Finally someone whose taste I respected recommended it, so I gave it a try. What a delight! A subtle, intelligent script, with a cast that absolutely did it justice. None of the characters are perfect; none are terrible; and above all, none are simple. What is remarkable to me is the complexity and depth of the characters that is revealed without any one of them ever explaining him- or herself any more articulately than real people do. It took fine writing (Chayevsky may have done this better than anyone else), fine directing, and fine acting all around to accomplish this. Somehow it escapes being distinctly melodramatic, "gritty," bleak, or even particularly sentimental - while at the same time avoiding being too light, or too witty. It is just eminently watchable.

bkoganbing Paddy Chayefsky wrote this second ode to the Bronx to follow up what he had received in acclaim from Marty. Though The Catered Affair did not win all the awards that Marty did, it certainly is a well done film with a lot of merit on its own. The Jewish Chayefsky certainly was a good observer of the other cultures where he grew up. Marty was about an Italian butcher who starts to find romance late in his life. The Catered Affair is about a young Irish couple getting married and the effect a big wedding is having on the family finances and structure.Ernest Borgnine switches quite easily from working class Bronx Italian to working class Bronx Irish. He barely makes enough to support a wife, two surviving children and a brother-in-law, Barry Fitzgerald who lives with them. One son was killed during World War II.Bette Davis was at her most drab on the screen, but that's not to say she was not great. Richard Brooks put a tight rein on all her Betteisms and got a fabulous performance out of her as the Bronx housewife who wants to live vicariously through a big wedding for daughter Debbie Reynolds. It's been a hard life for her and the family and she wants a little glamor in it.Rod Taylor and Debbie Reynolds are an appealing young couple and Robert F. Simon and Madge Kennedy do fine as Taylor's parents. The best part of A Catered Affair is Barry Fitzgerald and Dorothy Stickney as the woman who woos him away from free loading on his sister. Davis and Borgnine certainly had a challenge just to keep the whole picture from being stolen by Barry Fitzgerald in what was really his last great part.A few people have compared The Catered Affair with Father of the Bride and the problems that upper middle class lawyer Spencer Tracy faces as compared to lower middle class cab driver Ernest Borgnine faces in giving their daughters an expensive wedding. It's that other Bronx family of the same era, the fabulous and illegally rich Corleones that beggars comparison. I look at that wedding scene that from The Godfather and the lavishness that was bestowed on Talia Shire's wedding and who wouldn't want a wedding like that. But I have a feeling that Reynolds and Taylor will make it last, a lot more than the much married Connie Corleone did. I did so like looking at the Bronx in the Fifties where at least some establishing shots were done. The first time I was in the Bronx was for my first Yankee game. It's changed a lot now, but a place like Morris Park for the Italians and Woodlawn for the Irish still has the flavor of the areas where the Hurleys and Hallorans of The Catered Affair and the Pilettis from Marty lived and worked.And if you like seeing the New York of your childhood, The Catered Affair is a film to enjoy.