Cast:
Don Murray (Charlie Samson), E. G. Marshall (Walter), Jack Warden (Eddie Watkins), Philip Abbott (Arnold Craig, the Bachelor), Larry Blyden (Kenneth), Patricia Smith (Helen Samson), Carolyn Jones (The Existentialist), and Nancy Marchand (Mrs. Julie Samson) Directed by Delbert Mann (#136 - Marty)
Review:
"My method of working is to try to rehearse before filming if we can. It's not often possible with filmmaking, but I try to get a big of rehearsal. Even just sitting around a table talking a day or two with the actors and writer saves an enormous amount of time when you're on the set and the costs are mounting."
You might remember that Delbert Mann became a feature film director with Marty (1955), which you might the "Little Best Picture winner that could". Mann actually had studied political science at Vanderbilt (at the time, there was no dramatic arts curriculum there, but he did community playhouse) before serving with the Army Air Corps as a bomber pilot; after the war, he attended the Yale School of Drama and got a master's degree in directing. He worked in community theater and later television, whereupon he directed hundreds of live television dramas in the golden age of television. Anyway, with Marty (1955), it came around as an adaptation of the teleplay of the same name that had been broadcast on The Philco-Goodyear Television Playhouse in May 1953 as written by Paddy Chayefsky with the intent of making "the most ordinary love story in the world" (among other things); it was Chayefsky who insisted Mann come along with him in making the movie. Chayefsky wrote a number of scripts for television, and wouldn't you know it, the one that came out after Marty was the one that would be adapted by Mann for a movie: The Bachelor Party.* Originally broadcast in October of 1953, The Bachelor Party featured a quintet of men in Eddie Albert, Bob Emmett, James Westerfield, Joseph Mantell, and Douglas Gordon. Harold Hecht and Burt Lancaster, who had formed their own production company that had been involved with the aforementioned Marty, served as producers here (alongside James Hill). With the film adaptation, apparently the character played by Jones was among the striking additions done. Apparently, folks at the time thought the movie was just as incisive (if not more) than Marty, but folks seem to remember Marty best nowadays. Mann would maintain consistent work in directing for both movies and television all the way into the 1990s, which included works such as Separate Tables (1958), Lover Come Back (1961) and Fitzwilly (1967). Chayefsky would be busy in writing, following Bachelor Party with The Goddess (1958) before doing one more collaboration with Mann (albeit without Hecht as a producer) with Middle of the Night (1959).
Admittedly, it is a starkly strange movie. Sure, it might be a bit glib in its overall message when driving the movie down in the end, but it is the kind of movie you could believe in more often than not in the wayward road of revelry that comes with people who are weird as you or me at night. Sure, I wouldn't know the first thing about a bachelor party**, but I do know that there are plenty of foolish decisions that lurk within insecurities with people, whether that involves guys who think the grass really is greener on the other side or people who dwell on what lies ahead or, well, self-realization. Incidentally, this was the second feature film for Murray, an actor who honed his work in television before making his film debut with Bus Stop (1956), which garnered him an Academy Award nomination. Bachelor Party was the movie he made right after this one (along with one of two movies he did in 1957 next to A Hatful of Rain). His worries and doubts do make for a fairly balanced performance to hold a good chunk of the ship together, one that doesn't aim for pity but rather the understanding that comes in the cloying trouble that could be summarized as "is that all?" Abbott makes for an adequate shell to play the doubts as the, well, bachelor in the story that seems lighter in troubles when one considers the party might as well resemble a dirge. Marshall plays the worry in his middle-aged doubts with resolute effectiveness that you would expect from him, but it is Warden who likely shows his might in terms of illusionary bluster that sure drives a hard sell when you last see him in the heat of another chase, where any girl with a pulse is fair game because of what could be up next. The darndest thing is that the one award-nominated role[***] came from Jones, with a performance that comes out to less than ten minutes. But she sure makes it count in the pit of loneliness and ones with their own illusions in what it means to want and to be wanted. Even just hearing words is better than hearing nothing at all (crowded room or not). Apparently, Chayefsky was quoted later as saying later that he is unsure just where the "basic approach was wrong" with the film, and the climax does strain a bit in actually justifying itself to landing where it believes it has to land, where it is just a bit too easy, but that can be just enough for some people anyway, especially when one is merely peeling the curtain a bit at a specific set of people (call it people with not enough to do in the city). Overall, this is a decent ensemble piece that will fit nicely within the confines of looking at a sobering movie about people trying to make sense of their surroundings at night in the guise of a party that works in parts with its staging for a relatively fine time.
Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.
*Funny enough, the next of his scripts to be adapted in a movie after Marty was actually with The Catered Affair, where he was nearing the end of TV scriptwork - it was televised in May 1955 and turned into a film the following year with a script by Gore Vidal that had the star from Marty in it: Ernest Borgnine.
**I either know (read: associate with non-betrayers) people who are already married or aren't getting married anytime soon. This isn't a sidenote to anything meaningful, I thought it was funny.
***That year, Jones lost to Miyoshi Umeki for Sayonara.
