The Bachelor Party | |
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US VHS cover
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Directed by | Delbert Mann |
Produced by | Harold Hecht |
Written by | Paddy Chayefsky |
Starring |
Don Murray E. G. Marshall Jack Warden Carolyn Jones |
Music by | Paul Mertz Alex North (uncredited) |
Cinematography | Joseph LaShelle |
Distributed by | United Artists |
Release date
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Running time
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92 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Box office | $1.5 million (US) |
"The Bachelor Party" | |
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Episode no. | Season 6 Episode 2 |
Directed by | Delbert Mann |
Written by | Paddy Chayefsky |
Produced by | Fred Coe |
Production code | Showcase Productions |
Original air date | 11 October 1953 |
The Bachelor Party is a 1953 television play by Paddy Chayefsky which was adapted by Chayefsky for a 1957 film.
Chayefsky's teleplay was produced by Fred Coe for The Philco Television Playhouse on October 11, 1953. Delbert Mann directed the following cast:
The 1957 film was directed by Delbert Mann, with Don Murray as Charlie, co-starring 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. Mary Grant designed the film's costumes.
Charlie Samson (Murray) is a hard-working married bookkeeper, struggling to advance himself by attending night school to become an accountant. He and four co-workers throw a bachelor party for a fellow bookkeeper, Arnold Craig (Philip Abbott), who is about to get married. After the party, they decide to go bar-hopping. Charlie is to be Arnold's best man.
Colleagues attending the party include the older married man, Walter (Marshall), who has recently been diagnosed with asthma, and Eddie (Warden), a happy-go-lucky bachelor. The 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 young woman (Jones) he meets on the street heading to a Greenwich Village party. 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 benefits 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 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.