The Bachelor Party (1957).......came from the same producing and creative team that gave American cinema the iconic poignant slice-of-life "Marty" two years earlier - the Hecht-Hill-Lancaster company, director Delbert Mann and most importantly, playwright and screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky
Once again, Chayefsky returned us to struggling-to-make-ends-meet lower middle classes of New York City.......but rather than the blue collar folk of "Marty", Chayefsky turned his attention to the white collar crowd, a group of low-level pencil-pushers barely making enough of a living to support their families.
Unlike Marty the butcher's optimistic search for companionship and love, "The Bachelor Party" concentrates on men already beaten down by their roads not taken, their dreams deferred or dashed altogether, and their settling for lives far removed from their initial hopes and dreams.
Are we having fun yet?
If you think this sounds overwhelmingly depressing.....well, you're right. We hate to even tabulate the litany of woes and mid-life angst overtaking these four guys as they step out for a night of bachelor party fun on behalf of the fifth member of their group, Arnold Craig (Phillip Abbot).....who's secretly a virgin traumatized and panicked by women in general.
What a recipe for an all night bash.....there's Charlie (Don Murray) exhausted from trying to better his prospects with accounting night school and worried over his wife's pregnancy and shouldering the responsibility of fatherhood ......then there's Walter,(E.G. Marshall) a severe asthma sufferer who needs to uproot his family to Arizona to breathe air that won't kill him....also Ken( Larry Blyden), a sad sack family man who's come deal with his lowered expectations.
Bossing and bullying the guys into party mode is Eddie (Jack Warden), the aggressive, obnoxious alpha male bachelor of the bunch, who uses his bluster and bravado to conceal the lonely emptiness of his own life. (he's not that far removed from Warden's equally brutish juror in "12 Angry Men")
Meanwhile, as the boys carouse through the streets and bars, Charlie's wife, (Patricia Smith) uneasy about her hubby's attitude, sips tea with her morose sister-in-law (Nancy Marchand).....who proceeds to unload her tales of her philandering husband and collapsing marriage. Oh joy, unconfined.......
Who's ready for an a good time all nighter? Big surprise ......not this crew.
We wish we could tell you that Paddy Chayefsky gives these guys reams and reams of memorable dialogue to work out their problems and dazzle us with insights.
Doesn't happen. All of the lines between these characters are deliberately realistic and mundane. So you won't hear any Chayefsky-ian verbal showstoppers as the boys (and we viewers along with them) sink into ever deeper depression and self revelation.
Chayefsky's golden talent for memorable writing does briefly come alive when the boys encounter a quirky Greenwich Village bohemian (Carolyn Jones) at a crowded party they crash. Jones launches into a dazzling, hilarious stream-of-consciousness monologue that only lasts a few minutes, but earned her a Best Supporting Actress nomination. (the only nom the film got)
All of this non-stop misery finally leads to a hasty, last minute love-conquers-all reconciliation between Charlie and his wife. (which even Chayefsky and Delbert Mann later revealed their dissatisfaction about)
Though performed by a uniformly superb ensemble of actors, we can't honestly include this film among Paddy Chayefsky's other stellar achievements, such "Marty", "The Americanization Of Emily", "Network" and "The Hospital" . It's slow, obvious and its sudden Hollywood-ized final scene looks and plays like it was deliberately tacked on.......so audiences wouldn't leave the theatre having lost the will to live.
For the cast, including Carolyn Jones brief stab at pumping some life into it, 2 stars (**)
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