As Mil Faces do Amor

This is one of the funniest wedding pictures I have ever seen. The film pretty much accurately portrays a lot of the things that go on around the time of a wedding. Things like the mother of either the bride or groom about to suffer a nervous breakdown, one couple on the verge of a divorce while the brother (or sister) is getting married or one of the groomsmen trying to make it with one of the bridesmaids. The writer must have been to a lot of weddings to really come up with this great slice of life comedy.

As for the cast, Bonnie Bedelia and Michael Brandon are perfectly cast as Susan and Mike, who seem to be the only ones that are happy while everyone else isn't. Cloris Leachman (a few months before taking the role of Mary Richard's annoying and overbearing neighbor Phyllis) is also great as Susan's mother, who is oblivious to her husband's philandering. Also, in a very quiet performance, Dianne Keaton makes a solid debut as Mike's soon to be ex-sister-in-law, who show's up even though she know's she has to face her in-law's as well as her estranged husband. However, Bea Arthur (a couple of years before her career defining role as overbearing liberal Maude) steals the show as Mike's overbearing, devoutly Catholic mother. This film is definitely a sleeper.

This was the first "R" rated film that we ever took my mother to see. The whole family saw it at the Dyker Theater in Brooklyn, and we just about fell out of the balcony from laughing so hard! Nobody does the culture clash between Italian-Americans and the rest of the US of A better than Joe Bologna and Renee Taylor.

Although some of the humor is a bit dated, most of the gags hold up very well. The interplay between all of the various Vecchio family members is timeless. The whole rap about "they're STILL together" is classic!

While Gig Young is spot on as the philandering father of the bride, the best repartee is by and between Bea Arthur and Richard S Castellano. Joseph Hindy is a stalwart foil for Castellano. Bob Dishy, Ann Meara and Harry Guardino have memorable character turns to flesh out a top-shelf ensemble.

The characterization of a working-class Italian-American family is perfect. When Mama Vecchio uses "Have some more soup, Frank" as the double -edged sword of nourishing her family while attempting to steer away from conflict, I could almost hear my Nonna (grandmother). She used soup to solve all the world's problems one bowl ata a time, too! My Mom still thinks that this is one of the funniest pictures she ever saw. I concur.

I have been searching for this for years and finally found it on DVD. It is well worth seeing though not quite as funny as I once thought it was. It doesn't all work but the parts that do are great.

A young couple (Michael Brandon and Bonnie Bedelia) are about to get married but have not told their parents that they have been secretly living together. The supporting cast is great, many of them achieved bigger fame in TV. Anne Meara plays a frustrated wife whose husband (Harry Guardino) is not interested in sex anymore. The father of the bride (Gig Young) is a "with it" guy who does not believe in the Generation Gap. He is also cheating on his wife (Cloris Leachman) with a hysterical Anne Jackson. Bob Dishy is a lecherous usher who is desperately trying to bed a spacey bridesmaid (Marian Hailey). Best of all Beatrice Arthur and Richard Castellano (nominated for an Oscar for this) are the Italian Catholic parents of the groom. Their chemistry is hilarious and they also find out their other married son is looking to divorce his wife (played by Diane Keaton). Castellano is so old fashioned he threatens to give his 30 year old son a beating with his belt! There are two interesting bits by uncredited Conrad Bain and Jerry Stiller. Bain plays a priest who hears the confession of his future "Maude" co star Bea Arthur. Stiller (Anne Meara's real life husband) plays a wedding guest. The beautiful song "For All We Know" won the Oscar, it was later a big hit for the Carpenters.

Quite a few reviewers accuse this film of being dated. But when I first saw it in 1970, it already defied that idea because it saw through the zeitgeist. Rather than getting mired in passing fads and causes, the writers fondly made light of the clash of generations. Writers Joe Bologna and Renée Taylor exaggerate the tensions and conversations in the two families of the engaged couple, as well as the period fashions and furnishings, just enough to make the film entertaining, but also witty and touching.

The movie spares nobody. Hidebound Italian Catholics, bourgeois suburbanites, a macho ex-marine married to a feminist, an usher seducing a bridesmaid, counterculture cohabitation-- the superb cast delivers it all. Superficially, they all represent stereotypes, but-- and here's the trick-- they also defy simplistic categories they are unique individuals, and you cannot predict what any of them will say or do next. No Archie Bunkers or Meatheads here.

It's not Balzac, but it is a classic human comedy realized as popular art, two families afloat in the late '60s, when parents thought they were losing their offspring, because their kids were questioning traditions. But those kids were questioning ingrained habits, not traditional virtues, the deep values and ethics that form our larger society. "No gap here," is the refrain of Gig Young, a buffoonish patriarch determined to keep everybody happy-- but ultimately he's right. They all have more in common than they know, and by the time the young couple is married, we don't have to be told that their marriage will be every bit as complicated as their parents' are. The movie already told us.

If the movie has a core, it's Richard Castellano's speech to his elder son who is about to divorce his wife, an unthinkable first in the family. Castellano (in the same role he played in the original Broadway play) got an Oscar nomination, and he's wonderful throughout, but especially delivering the speech that becomes the spoken soul of the movie. It includes: "We're all strangers. But after a while you get used to it. You become deeper strangers. That's a sort of love."

One of the finest ensemble comedies ever. A first rate cast delivers warmth and tenderness to Joseph Bologna and Renee Taylor's play about marriage, infidelity and the true meaning of love. Young, Arthur and Castellano are especially marvelous. Castellano also starred in the stage version of the play.