The Bachelor Party

Infobox Film
name = The Bachelor Party


image_size = 180px
caption = US VHS cover
director = Delbert Mann
producer = Harold Hecht
writer = Paddy Chayefsky
narrator =
starring = Don Murray
E.G. Marshall
Jack Warden
Carolyn Jones
music = Paul Mertz
Alex North ("uncredited")
cinematography = Joseph LaShelle
editing =
distributor = United Artists
released = April 9, fy|1957
runtime = 92 mins.
country = United States
language = English
budget =
gross = USD$38,435,947 [Cite web| url=http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=bachelorparty.htm| title=The Bachelor Party| publisher=Box Office Mojo |accessdate=2007-06-30]
preceded_by =
followed_by =
website =
amg_id = 1:72866
imdb_id = 0050156

"The Bachelor Party" is a fy|1957 film written by Paddy Chayefsky and directed by Delbert Mann, with Don Murray, E.G. Marshall, Jack Warden, and Carolyn Jones. Jones was nominated for the 1958 Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for her portrayal of a party girl who is actually very lonely.

Plot summary

Charlie Samson (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 (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 prolem, and Eddie (Jack Warden) who is a happy-go-lucky bachelor. This 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 girl he meets at a bar (Carolyn Jones). 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 and 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.

Cast

*Don Murray as "Charlie Samson"
*E.G. Marshall as "Walter"
*Jack Warden as "Eddie Watkins, the Bachelor"
*Philip Abbott as "Arnold Craig"
*Larry Blyden as "Kenneth"
*Patricia Smith as "Helen Samson"
*Carolyn Jones as "The Existentialist"
*Nancy Marchand as "Mrs. Julie Samson"

Awards

"The Bachelor Party" was nominated for one Oscar, one BAFTA award, and one award at the Cannes Film Festival: [Cite web|url=http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050156/awards|title=Awards forThe Bachelor Party (1957)|publisher=Internet Movie Database|accessdate=2007-06-30]

Television Play

The screenplay was an adaptation of a television play written by Chayefsky in 1953, produced by Fred Coe and directed by Delbert Mann with the following cast:"The Collected Works of Paddy Chayefsky" (1994), Applause Books, New York ISBN 1-55783-191-2]

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 he Young Fellow................Walter Kelley The Girl.............................Bettye Ackerman The Fiancée......................Olive Dunbar

Chayefsky on Chayefsky

Afterword to "The Bachelor Party" :"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 womewhat 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."

Notes

External links

*imdb title|0050156
*tcmdb title|67893
*amg movie|72866
*rotten-tomatoes|id=1100826-bachelor_party
*mojo title|id=bachelorparty.htm