In Praise of The Catered Affair, the Best Bette Davis Performance You Probably Haven't Seen

“That’s very nice,” says Bronx housewife Agnes Hurley (Bette Davis) when her daughter Jane (Debbie Reynolds) announces that she’s getting married to her longtime boyfriend Ralph Halloran (Rod Taylor). When Jane’s father Tom (Ernest Borgnine) comes home and Agnes tells him that their daughter is getting married, he has the same response: “That’s very nice.” Tom is tired from his night-shift job as a cab driver. Agnes has housework to do. Jane’s brother Eddie (Ray Stricklyn), who’s set to report soon for military service, can barely even muster the same polite response as his parents.

In The Catered Affair (released 65 years ago this week), marriage is just one more obligation in life, like getting a job or serving in the military. That’s how it was for Agnes and Tom, who was offered $300 by Agnes’ father, a fellow house painter at the time, to marry his daughter. But “that’s very nice” turns out not to be enough for Agnes, even though it’s genuinely all that Jane and Ralph want. They have a chance to borrow a friend’s car to take a honeymoon trip to California, but only if they get married in less than a week. They plan a short, simple ceremony with the local Catholic priest. Ten minutes at most.

For Agnes, Jane’s wedding becomes a sort of referendum on her own value as a wife and mother, at least in her own eyes. Agnes doesn’t appreciate the gossip among the local busybodies that Jane must be “in trouble” (i.e., pregnant) if she’s getting married so quickly. When Agnes tells her brother Jack (Barry Fitzgerald), who’s lived with the Hurleys for 12 years, that he won’t be invited to the ceremony because it’s for immediate family only, he acts like she’s stabbed him in the heart, and then threatens to move out the next day. At dinner with Ralph’s upper-middle-class parents, Agnes winces at every mention of the fancy wedding receptions and gifts they gave to their older children. What was once about respecting Jane’s wishes is now about protecting Agnes’ pride.

Screenwriter Gore Vidal (working from a play by Paddy Chayefsky) and director Richard Brooks make The Catered Affair into a sort of downbeat counterpoint to every peppy studio movie about a fancy wedding. When Agnes finally breaks down Jane’s resolve and gets her to agree to the catered affair in a hotel ballroom, the music swells, but the look on Jane’s face makes it clear that this is not a triumphant moment.

And indeed every new preparation for the insisted-upon ceremony brings new strife. There’s humor, especially from Fitzgerald as a somewhat stereotypical drunk Irish uncle, but The Catered Affair isn’t Father of the Bride or any other comedy of misunderstandings. Real emotional pain surfaces in each interaction, and Jane starts to see the depressing truth of her parents’ marriage of convenience. She’s horrified when she tells Ralph that her parents have never said “I love you” to each other, and she can’t stand the thought of them alone in their apartment once the other family members have moved out, never talking to each other.

It’s Agnes who drives the family discord, but she’s not malicious and she’s not a villain. The pride associated with class and gender roles is really to blame, as Ralph’s parents could easily afford to pay for the lavish wedding but won’t offer (and wouldn’t be accepted) because the bride’s family is expected to pay. Agnes is terrified of anyone thinking that the Hurleys are “on relief,” even if that means spending every penny that Tom has spent years saving to buy his own taxi and medallion. She doesn’t understand a younger generation that is honestly happy to forgo the traditional trappings of a wedding. She never says so, but she probably doesn’t quite understand that Jane and Ralph are getting married because they truly love each other.

Anyone familiar with Davis’ most famous roles as imperious, domineering women may barely even recognize her as Agnes, just six years after her Oscar-nominated comeback in All About Eve. But what might seem at first like miscasting proves to be a rewarding choice, and Davis immerses herself in the role of this dowdy, self-sacrificing housewife. There’s none of Davis’ above-it-all haughtiness in Agnes, just a bone-deep weariness at every compromise she’s had to make in her life, and a stubborn determination that she’s not going to compromise on this one special day for the daughter she feels guilty for neglecting.

But what’s bracing about The Catered Affair is that compromise and moderation are the movie’s most prized values. There’s an eventual happy ending, but it doesn’t come from the fancy wedding improbably working out for everyone. It comes from Agnes and Tom and Jane and Ralph taking each other’s feelings seriously, giving up on their entrenched ideas of what other people want, and letting go of unrealistic dreams. “You’ll get used to it, like everything else,” Agnes tells Jane about housework, by way of explaining married life. Sometimes getting used to it is all you can do.