1954's "The Catered Affair" - Bette Davis and Debbie Reynolds

Musical version.

It’s very touching and, IMO, Debbie Reynold’s best performance. Chayefsky while he was still good (“Marty,” too) before he became insufferable. What on earth did Vidal add to it?

So much better than the misguided William Finn, which Harvey Fierstein made all about him. Too bad, because Faith Prince, Tom Wopat, Keslie Kritzer, and Matt Cavenaugh were all quite good.

And it has Rod Taylor in his early prime!

I thought her favorite was Dark Victory, but yes, it’s worth watching.

I just finished watching it - very entertaining. I think this was one of Bette Davis' best roles. Debbie Reynolds really surprised me - she was great in this movie.

Thanks everyone !

Also, Barry Fitzgerald was hysterical as 'Uncle Jack'. So believable as the old Irish uncle.

LOVED this movie

Debbie walks away with it. Lovely performance. Bette has her moments but she's miscast. The role belongs to Thelma.

I saw it,wasn’t “ fun” like her other pictures. Seemed kinda pointless. And I’m sorry-NO GLAMOR Rod Taylor was beautiful,Debbie was great,did I mention Rod was beautiful!- I don’t have it but there’s a famous pic of him fishing off a boat -something like that, with no shirt-Amazing man.

It was 1956, not 1954.

The son is played by Ray Stricklyn, who later became a publicist. Friend of Robert Osborne.

The scene where Debbie's best friend has to admit to Debbie that she can't afford to be her Maid of Honor is painful to watch. Both actresses are sublime. Definitely Debbie's picture. She was so much more than fluff. The ex Mr Ethel Merman is pretty good, too.

I love Bette Davis (she's my favorite actress from Golden Age Hollywood), but she was completely miscast in this role. Thelma Ritter, who originally played the character in the televised staged production, should've reprised her role in the film.

I think Chayefsky was right when he said that it was "an unfocused piece, in which the first act was farce, and the second was comedy-drama and the third was abruptly drama. There aren't a dozen actresses who could make one piece out of all that; Miss Ritter, of course, did."

[quote]It’s very touching and, IMO, Debbie Reynold’s best performance.

Oh, dear.

It seems like the kind of role Shirley Booth could've played.

She didn't have the toughness, r14.

Davis was pretty amazing in her emotional breakdown at the end. She brought tears to my eyes. There was such raw, deep emotion in that. I don’t know what Thelma Ritter did, but I wonder if she did anything like that.

Bette wasn't quite Bronx. She was more South Boston. But I thought she did remind me of the urban Irish-American housewives of that era. But why they stuck that awful wig on her is another matter.

Kathleen McGuire and Thelma Ritter:

Btw Ray Stricklyn later did a one-man show as Tennessee Williams that won awards in LA and played on Broadway.

Todd Fisher wrote about walking in on Bette Davis on the toilet at a party at Debbie’s house. Apparently she was amused, ad a good sport.

Eddie Fisher claimed to have had an affair with Bette,

I'm not understanding all the love for Rod Taylor . I thought he was 'OK' looking in this film, not really all that handsome or sexy. I guess we really all see different things in people.

The Jane / Alice conversation was heartbreaking. And once they met again with their guys, it was heartbreaking all over again - you know Alice wasn't telling the truth, yet she was dedicated to her friendship with Jane.

Overall, a very touching movie that moved rather quickly - worth watching.

Bette Davis’s halting speech is annoying. And her accent doesn’t remotely match her brother’s. She doesn’t quite have the simplicity that I imagine Thelma Ritter would have brought to the role.

Debbie Reynolds is very good in this. She’s much more than her later styling of Vegas showgirl.

Ernest Borgnine is also very good.

Oh dear is here.

Gore Vidal, who did the screen adaptation of the play, claimed it was "Bette Davis' favorite picture of her middle period, and easily Debbie Reynolds' best picture."

R19 Her brother is much older than her. He probably was born in Ireland, while she was born in the US.

R22. Really? Bette looks so much older than Barry.

Rod Taylor wasn't all that handsome, but he was attractive and magnetic.

The casting is strange - Rod Taylor was Australian, Debbie was from LA. There were probably a lot of young actors from New York who would have been more authentic in the roles without trying. Borgnine was Italian-American, from Connecticut. Bette was a Yankee. Ray Stricklyn was from Texas, I think.

I don't think anyone's mentioned Dorothy Stickney, yet (as Uncle Jack's girlfriend). She was good, too. And Jay Adler as Tom's partner in the plans for the cab. Madge Kennedy and Robert Simon as the Hallorans. Dan Tobin as the caterer.

Mae Clarke apparently has a small part as a saleswoman. She starred in the original film of Waterloo Bridge, in which Bette had a rather unimportant supporting role. She also took a grapefruit in the face from James Cagney in The Public Enemy, and was the female lead in Frankenstein. All in the early '30s. (Bette was up for the part in Frankenstein.)

The musical was NOT written by William Finn, R2, but rather John Bucchino.

Harvey’s book wasn’t so much the problem, but his performance was. It was obnoxious and overwhelmed the restrained performances of his cast mates. His character also pulled too much focus.

Still, it wasn’t half bad (I saw it three times) and Faith Prince was truly wonderful.

I didn’t like it. Thought Bette’s speaking rhythm was very mannered and pretentious. She did that in some roles. It just seemed like a nothing movie to me with the casting.

And if ya don't like it ya don't hafta come!

Mr. Fierstein has rewritten the role of Aggie’s brother, who shares the family’s cramped apartment, changing him from a twinkling Irishman (Barry Fitzgerald in the movie, natch) to a twinkling homosexual.

Well, maybe twinkling is the wrong word. As played by Mr. Fierstein, Uncle Winston is occasionally witty but more often sad and snarly, given to barking admonitions to an uptight world unready to accept him and his (unseen) partner.

“I have broken the vows of silence,” Winston says in the requisite disastrous meet-the-potential-in-laws dinner party scene. He goes on to sing: “Immediate family can have such narrow minds/You’d think their heads were up their behinds.”

[quote]Mr. Fierstein has rewritten the role of Aggie’s brother

He also retitled the musical. The movie is called *The* Catered Affair. The musical is called *A* Catered Affair. Obviously a marketing ploy to get it listed first in the Broadway ABCs listing.

I watched the movie because of this thread. When Debbie Reynolds is making breakfast, she accidentally drops an egg shell into the bowl. I bet Bette Davis was off to the side thinking, "Christ, can't even break an egg. I should have insisted they cast Shirley Jones."