The Wedding Party

The weakest De Palma's film, as Murder a la Mod, Greetings & Hi Mum are still interesting underground movies worth seeing, not this one, clearly poor.

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.

This is a pleasant little film by De Palma, and is a light hearted comedy. It has a traditional comedic feel to it with it being in black and white and it's use of speeded up footage. It does however get a little tiedious at points but is an appealing quaint little comedy about eccentric family and friends. The young De Niro in the film gives a fairly empty performance, but works well in the double act with his other zany friend. The improvised dialouge adds a more realistic/un-predictable feel to the film and it's worth seeing for it's light-hearted entertainment and humour.

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.

Mr. De Niro's first film, credited Denero. It's his first because it was filmed in 1963 and only released in 1969. Unknown actors in the cast, except for a very young Jill Clayburgh (19 years old) who, although she doesn't have too much screen time, she is the most compelling. De Niro does not make much difference in his role, he is only present in the landscape, it could have been anyone in his place. First Feature Film directed by De Palma too. Zero stars!