The Wedding Party
The Wedding Party is mostly noted for being Robert De Niro’s first film appearance, but that all depends on how you look at it. Released in 1969 but made in 1963, The Wedding Party certainly would seem to mark De Niro’s first film appearance had you been able to watch The Wedding Party in 1963. With a release of 1969, however, De Niro’s first “appearance” would be in Brian De Palma’s Greetings. Greetings would mark the first time Robert De Niro would “appear” on film released to the public. So there may be some debate as to when De Niro actually debuted, but in terms of theatrical release, Greetings is his first film.
Using the same dateline techniques, one could assume that The Wedding Party was Brian De Palma’s first feature film after having made a collection of shorts. Using the theatrical release dateline, however, this would mark De Palma’s third feature film. Whatever. The direction of The Wedding Party was, in fact, a joint collaboration between De Palma and theatre professor Wilford Leach, as well as another fellow student of De Palma’s, the wealthy Cynthia Monroe. Monroe bankrolled the film and helped with the direction, giving full directorial billing to the trio. The trio also shared credits as writers and producers. De Palma’s style can be seen in the film rather clearly through it’s technical aspects and it appears that Leach’s style is mostly scene through the direction of the performers. The film was made on a budget of $43,000.
Another interesting component of The Wedding Party is that it was distributed by Troma Entertainment. Troma Entertainment is one of the world’s longest running movie studios. The studio mostly produces low-budget genre-bending films, many of which have developed broad cult followings internationally. The DVD of The Wedding Party featured an extended “introduction” cut featuring Troma Entertainment and some “goofy hijinks” before the film began. Troma Entertainment is probably most known for distributing many of the “slapstick gore” contributions to film, such as The Toxic Avenger, Class of Nuke ‘Em High, and Poultrygeist to name a few. It’s too bad The Wedding Party didn’t include any of that slapstick gore because this project is a complete and utter mess.
De Palma directs this film like he’s having a seizure. The first seven-to-ten minutes are so dizzying and scattered that it becomes hard to watch. It’s hard to pick up on any performances or actors or actresses here because De Palma’s direction begins with such a strange feel, speeding up the opening segment and then suddenly slowing it down again. I thought something was wrong with my DVD before I realized that was how it was supposed to be and that was De Palma’s “style” for the scenes. Essentially, I gathered that we were witnessing the arrival of a wedding party to a large and incredibly overcrowded home. The groom, played here by Charles Pfluger in his only film role, arrives unsure of whether or not he should go through with his commitment to marry his bride-to-be.
Along the way, the groom gets the advice of two groomsmen. One of them is Cecil (De Niro, here billed as Robert Denero to cover embarrassment) and the other is Alistair (William Finley). Basically, the film features the men running around and trying to help him with the jitters while, at the same time, offering him a way out of the situation. The film is designed as a farce, yet it lacks any humour. Instead, De Palma seems convinced that speeding the film up and then slowing it down to a crawl is the best way to gather some big, big laughs. He also seems to think that the voices shouldn’t really match any characters and that the dialogue should simply flow like wine. I’m not even sure there was a script, but if there was, I’m dying to see it because I want to know what happened.
De Palma’s direction does present some interesting insight into how things would arrive at their present state with this overhyped director of films such as Carrie, Scarface, and Carlito’s Way. We can see De Palma making tons of quick, sudden cuts, for one thing. Characters reappear in different positions, hopefully on purpose, after spouting a line or two of dialogue. The whole thing works like a “what not to do” manual for aspiring directors, as the scenes unfold with such crazy energy via De Palma’s direction that it becomes impossible to tell what’s happening. It would be funny in a sort of unintentional way had it not been so dizzying. And it is very dizzying, especially the opening seven or so minutes.
All in all, it’s hard to say anything about The Wedding Party without drawing back to the inexorable slide of nonsense that De Palma’s direction takes this film on. De Niro or not, this film is pretty much a heaping turd. I read one review from a young woman who commented that De Niro was magical and humourous. He may well have been, but for all the chaos and madness – not to mention the shoddy sound editing – I didn’t notice a thing. This film is worth seeing if only for a sign of things to come from Brian De Palma and a strange vision of performance from De Niro. Other than that, skip it. I couldn’t stand it.
