The Catered Affair - 1956 ****

I was surprised by this film. In fact from the beginning I could tell it was made for the stage.

Bette Davis is a really brilliant actress, and each time I see her in a film my appreciation of her grows. And Ernest Borgnine was a really good addition to the family.

The story basically encapsulates this one family. The young daughter (played superbly by Debbie Reynolds) announces to her parents that she is getting married. Her mother Aggie (Davis) is determined that she will have a big, exciting wedding despite the fact that the family are barely surviving on the father's (Borgnine) low income as a taxi driver. The daughter herself and her fiance don't actually want a big wedding, just a simple affair with their closest family. But the mother wants her to have the wedding she never had, with hundreds of people, limos, champagne. The more Aggie pushes the daughter, the more the daughter feels trapped into doing what her mother wants and what will be right for her. Added to which the father realises how much it will put him in debt paying for the extravagance of a reception for people that he doesn't really know.

The film is tense, gritty and quite hard to watch, and Davis nails her part exactly as the tired and worn housewife who never had an exciting or worthwhile part to play in life.

I realise that times were different then and being a housewife was the norm, but I found Aggie's attitude to money really awful. I hate the fact that she doesn't work and instead of looking for work herself when she knows how expensive the wedding will be, leans harder on her husband to give up the last amount of money that he has scrimped and saved for years and years because of something she wants. She has an attitude that the money is also hers to do what she wants with it, and I think that's a very arrogant way to behave. She actually has the nerve to go off and start booking a totally over the top venue for the wedding without even consulting her husband.I feel so sorry for him!

Anyway, my rant over, it's a well acted film, and as usual Bette Davis makes me feel strongly about a character that she plays.