The Catered Affair

A film set in the Bronx in New York. Tom drives a taxi. He has been saving for years, meaning to buy his own cab and work with a partner. The plan is nearly complete. His daughter Jane says she is getting married. She wants a small ceremony; a short celebration with her fiancé's family would do. Her mother Agnes refuses. She wants her daughter to have a large wedding: a hall, a guest list, food and a gown. The reason is not display so much as something else; she had no wedding of her own, and what the neighbours will say matters. The cost of the wedding equals what Tom has saved. Where the film goes is that arithmetic. The family takes sides in turn, the lists grow, relatives come into it and the bride and groom are left outside their own wedding. What the narrative is really describing is a marriage: Tom and Agnes have been together for years, and the argument about the wedding brings out everything between them. Bette Davis plays Agnes, Ernest Borgnine plays Tom and Debbie Reynolds plays Jane. Barry Fitzgerald is in the cast. The source is a television play; Gore Vidal wrote the screenplay. Richard Brooks directed. A solid production for anyone who likes the realistic family dramas of the 1950s. For a viewer expecting melodrama, the film proceeds plainly and stages no big scene.