Betsy's Wedding

When fashion student Betsy (Ringwald) visits her parents in the West Hamptons, she announces to dad and mom - motormouth Italian-American architect Eddie (Alda) and talkative Jewish-American Lola (Kahn) - that she's gonna marry straight WASP Jake: it's Betsy's last word on the matter. Mom wants the wedding Jewish; financially overstretched Dad, despite killing looks from his wife, wins a verbal poker game with the wealthy in-laws and gets to foot the bill. Plans are laid for a reception tent larger than Yankee Stadium, and the invitation list takes on telephone book proportions. Betsy and Jake are tempted to call the whole thing off. Alda's foray into the wedding movie may lack the acerbity of Minnelli or the cinematic competence of Altman, but it's a warm, wordy, middlebrow crowd-pleaser. Alda's skill is with witty, fast-talking patter and in coaxing fine performances from his actors (playing an extended family of gently caricatured New York types). The values are bollocks, but the film is fun.