The Wedding Party

I chose to watch the DVD because Robert De Niro was included in the cast. It turned out that he was a member of the supporting cast in a role of no great importance. It was however of historical interest to see him in one of his earliest roles.

Charles Pfluger played the role of Charlie a frustrated young man uncertain if he should fulfil his wedding commitments. Many a man has had an attack of the jitters just before marriage so he will have many sympathizers. The film is broken up into chapters each covering the events that lead up to the marriage ceremony. In the lead role Charles Pfluger outshone all the actors The film is a farcical comedy that uses accelerated motion to get laughs. The nonsensical behaviour of men overloading a car with luggage and falling out of the car as they do so was shear clowning and not particularly funny or clever. Speeding off and then returning to pick up luggage which had fallen off was pathetic.

I don't know what they were doing in the cutting room. There were some abrupt changes which suggested some of the frames had been omitted.

One thing is certain . The music dominated the film. It was deafening at times and drowned out the dialogue. This may have been intentional especially in the dinner scenes and party scenes in which everyone talks at once and nobody listens or replies. This is typical of all parties where drinks flow freely.

Many of the actors tried hard to become amusing characters by assuming annoying voices that were very false and did not ring true.

On the whole a disappointing comedy.

I had heard for many years that this film was pretty bad, especially considering the talent involved. Took me decades to finally get the time to see it; it just never seemed to bubble up to the top of my must-see list despite my being a huge fan of De Niro, DePalma, and Clayburgh. Well, I'm here to say don't listen to the critics: it's actually a pretty good film.

Okay, I will admit part of why it's good is that one sees it now thru the lense of the careers the principal participants had after they made this. Further, I suspect many are disappointed expecting De Niro to always be operating at 'Taxi Driver' and 'The Deet Hunter' level and Clayburgh shining as she did in 'An Unmarried Woman' and 'It's My Turn.' But the truth is that both have some very fine moments here and both are engaging despite thr fact that the gentleman who plays the groom, Charles Pfluger, seems like he would be the one to rise to stardom (he never made another movie). Jennifer Salt ('Sisters') also appears in the film, lensed the same year as she appeared in 'Midnight Cowboy' (1969).

The film, about a group of people assembling in a large house for a long weekend for a wedding, seems like it was probably too long and too boring so DePalma and company found myriad of ways of punching up the proceedings: fast motion, comic music, sound effects. But all this seems pretty effective.

The thin plot idea was better mined by Robert Altman in his film 'A Wedding' (1978), an ignored masterpiece in my book, but 'The Wedding Party' is a fun, funny and diverting if sometimes shallow and even lax night at the movies. Don't expect too much and you might be pleasantly surprised.

Being the first feature film with Robert De Niro (although not released for years later), this is worth the watch. De Niro's role isn't huge, yet amusing as one of two friends who first try to prevent another friends marriage only to later chase him down to force him into it. Any die hard De Niro fan will get a kick out of an early performance by arguably the best actor today.

Wedding Party, The (1969)

1/2 (out of 4)

Incredibly bad comedy was the second feature for director Brian DePalma. A groom (Charles Pfulger) shows up at his wedding party only to discover there's more to marriage than he thought. This film doesn't work on any level and the worse part is that I only laughed once throughout the 90 minute running time. Not even the young and chubby Robert DeNiro (spelled DeNero in the credits) can help this thing. The film uses faster frames per minute than normal, which I'm guessing is an attempt at silent slapstick but this doesn't work either.

This slight film is mostly going to be of interest to de Palma or Robert de Niro fans, but not many others. Shot in black and white, the tale of a man who plans to get married and has second thoughts, is peppered with more radical cinematography than the plot deserves: the speeded up walking and 'zany'/'madcap' car driving.

But the idea of a threesome of men talking through jump-cuts ended up being used to much better effect in de Palma's Greetings, which also starred a young de Niro again.

Also the film's strength or weakness - depending on your mood - is that much of it clearly was shot on film stock that had no sound, so the genius is that much of the film is 'silent' ie it only has accompanying music. This adds to the scenes when dialogue does kick into the film. Unfortunately, the insignificance of the improvised conversations hardly make you want to wait for the next such discourse.

Worth watching once, but don't spend too much on the ticket!