Main Cast: Don Murray, E.G. Marshall, Jack Warden, Philip Abbott, Larry Blyden, Carolyn Jones, Patricia Smith
Release Year: 1957
Country: US
Run Time: 92 minutes
Plot
Like his earlier Marty, Paddy Chayefsky's The Bachelor Party began life as a TV play. The film version centers around the impending wedding of thirtyish Arnold (Philip Abbott). As they gather for the traditional "wild" bachelor party, Arnold's married pals begin reflecting on their own lives. Most of what develops is seen through the eyes of Charlie Samson (Don Murray), a staid bookkeeper who intends to cut loose at Arnold's premarital bacchanale. The unexpected pathetic figure in the proceedings is Walter (E. G. Marshall), a self-described "swinger" who after a few drinks bursts out in a uncontrolled fit of self-loathing. Though by necessity their characters are secondary, the women in The Bachelor Party--including Nancy Marchand, Patricia Smith, and Karen Norris - also reveal their true natures in ways both mundane and profound. Particularly memorable is Carolyn Jones in a brilliant, Oscar-nominated turn as a "good time girl" with whom Charlie Samson briefly dallies. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
The Bachelor Party features great dialogue from writer Paddy Chayefsky, who adapted his television play of the same name for the screen. The performances are uniformly strong, particularly those of lead actor Don Murray and supporting cast members Carolyn Jones and Nancy Marchand. The strength of the story lies in Chayefsky's ability to create credible characters with insightful views on the nature of their lives. The film's tech credits are adequate: Delbert Mann directed the television version of Bachelor Party, and he helms the film in a similarly straightforward manner; Joseph La Shelle's cinematography is capable and unobtrusive. Mann's by-the-numbers approach allows character interaction and sharp dialogue to be the film's centerpiece. ~ Richard Gilliam, All Movie Guide
Helen ...............................Kathleen Maguire
Charlie..............................Eddie Albert
Kenneth............................Bob Emmett
The Bookkeeper................James Westerfield
The Bachelor.....................Joseph Mantell
The Groom........................Douglas Gordon
Julie..................................Anna Minot
The Bartender....................Ely Segall
The Bar Hag.......................Elaine Eldridge
The Young Fellow...............Walter Kelly
The Girl.............................Bettye Ackerman
The Fiancée.......................Olive Dunbar
Charlie Samson (Don Murray) is a hard-working married bookkeeper, struggling to advance himself by attending night school to become an accountant. He and four other of his bookkeeper coworkers throw a bachelor party for one of them, Arnold Craig (Philip Abbott), who is about to get married. After the party, they decide to go bar-hopping. Charlie is Arnold's best man. Other coworkers attending the party including the older married man, Walter (E.G. Marshall), who has an unspecified health problem, and Eddie (Jack Warden), a happy-go-lucky bachelor. The night becomes a turning point for all five men.
Charlie finds his loyalty to his wife tested during the evening, and he almost has an affair with a young woman (Carolyn Jones) he meets at a bar. Walter, in despair about his situation, wanders off during the evening. Arnold becomes drunk and ambivalent about getting married, and he breaks off the wedding only to change his mind after he sobers up and Charlie gives him a lecture about the benfits of married life. This, in spite of the fact that in the beginning of the story, Charlie had been regretting his marriage and had gone to the party with a serious intention of committing adultery. We last see Eddie at a bar, striking up a conversation with an older unattractive woman. In the end, Charlie decides that married life is the way to go, and that his struggle to build a home with his wife is worthwhile, and better than the empty and lonely existence of his friend Eddie, whom he used to envy.[2]
I am not sure to this day where the basic approach was wrong; but obviously the line of the story is six inches off from beginning to end, and the third-act resolution is hardly an inevitable outgrowth of the preceding two acts. I have also found that most directors take a somewhat different approach to my scripts than I do. A director whose mother abandoned him when he was four years old is going to have a definite attitude on how to treat the role of a mother in a given script. The homosexual director cannot have an accurate understanding of either the relationship between two men or that between a young man and a young woman. The writer must protect his script against these violations.
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