Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #8326 in VHS
• Released on: 1998-09-01
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Formats: Black & White, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of tapes: 1

Customer Reviews

CALLING ALL BETTE DAVIS FANS...
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.

GREAT DAVIS PERFORMANCE!
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!!

Midle age and Midle class Bette Davis in this movie
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!