The Bachelor Party (1957)

In a nutshell: office workers are off to celebrate an upcoming wedding. One's an older, sick, family man, one's an ambivalent young married, one's a dedicated young man with a blossoming family, one's a party boy, and then there's the scared virgin groom about to marry a war widow. Their attempts at a fun evening just get sadder as the night wears on. None of them have any fun and neither did I. At least they all learned some life lessons.

Although we spend the bulk of the night following the guys, the best part of the movie is back in the apartment of the ambivalent young married. His young, newly pregnant, wife is entertaining his sister, a resigned middle-aged housewife with some of the saddest, but honest-feeling, advice for her young sister-in-law.

One of those patience-testing exercises where we're stuck watching a bunch of not-very-likable characters act like the tedious jerks they are until they finally slap "The End" up on the screen.

C-