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MARTY
A simple story rich with universal themes, sensitive Oscar-winning direction by Delbert Mann, and an Oscar-winning lead performance by one of our most reliable character actors combine to make Marty, the surprise hit of 1955 that became one of the few "little" movies that actually won the Oscar for Best Picture.
Paddy Chayefsky created the role of Marty Pilletti, a 34 year old butcher in the Bronx who is the eldest of six children and the only who has yet to marry. Constant pressure from BFF Angie (Joe Mantell) and his mother (Esther Minicotti) have Marty thinking about finding someone special, though he has been burned in the past romantically and has him thinking is an obligation that should be his priority, even though he has a dream of buying his own butcher shop.
One night, Marty is shoved to the Starlight Ballroom a local dance hall where he runs into a guy who offers him five bucks to take his homely date off his hands so that he can go after another girl. Marty refuses the money, but befriends the young woman anyway...a lonely schoolteacher named Claire, who is apparently receiving the same kind of pressure from people in her life to get out there. Marty and Claire actually hit it off and spend the rest of the evening together culminating in Claire actually returning to Marty's apartment with him.
Of course, as expected in a story like this, as soon as Marty has finally connected with someone, everyone who has been pressuring him to get out there has a problem with Claire...his buddies don't think she's pretty enough and his mother offers an entire laundry list of things that are wrong with her. Marty also gets a glimpse at the dark side of married life with his long suffering brother and sister-in-law who are having troubles adjusting to becoming new parents.
Chayefsky and Mann have taken a pretty standard and predictable love story and made it something special by taking away all the Hollywood gloss...simple black and white photography, characters that entertain and remind us of ourselves, and lead actors who aren't pretty, but create rich, deliciously human characters you can't help but root for.
Ernest Borgnine, an actor known for playing bad guys, proved his versatility with a character who is lonely and in pain and always tries to do what the next right thing is and was awarded with a richly deserved Oscar and Betsy Blair matches him scene for scene as the painfully shy Claire...I love the first scene of them dancing together and Claire is talking to Marty but is unable to look him directly in the eye. Mann and Chayefsky knew they had something very special here and chose not to tamper with it too much....letting a really wonderful actor make a story so engaging that you don't miss the fancy production values.
A simple story rich with universal themes, sensitive Oscar-winning direction by Delbert Mann, and an Oscar-winning lead performance by one of our most reliable character actors combine to make Marty, the surprise hit of 1955 that became one of the few "little" movies that actually won the Oscar for Best Picture.
Paddy Chayefsky created the role of Marty Pilletti, a 34 year old butcher in the Bronx who is the eldest of six children and the only who has yet to marry. Constant pressure from BFF Angie (Joe Mantell) and his mother (Esther Minicotti) have Marty thinking about finding someone special, though he has been burned in the past romantically and has him thinking is an obligation that should be his priority, even though he has a dream of buying his own butcher shop.
One night, Marty is shoved to the Starlight Ballroom a local dance hall where he runs into a guy who offers him five bucks to take his homely date off his hands so that he can go after another girl. Marty refuses the money, but befriends the young woman anyway...a lonely schoolteacher named Claire, who is apparently receiving the same kind of pressure from people in her life to get out there. Marty and Claire actually hit it off and spend the rest of the evening together culminating in Claire actually returning to Marty's apartment with him.
Of course, as expected in a story like this, as soon as Marty has finally connected with someone, everyone who has been pressuring him to get out there has a problem with Claire...his buddies don't think she's pretty enough and his mother offers an entire laundry list of things that are wrong with her. Marty also gets a glimpse at the dark side of married life with his long suffering brother and sister-in-law who are having troubles adjusting to becoming new parents.
Chayefsky and Mann have taken a pretty standard and predictable love story and made it something special by taking away all the Hollywood gloss...simple black and white photography, characters that entertain and remind us of ourselves, and lead actors who aren't pretty, but create rich, deliciously human characters you can't help but root for.
Ernest Borgnine, an actor known for playing bad guys, proved his versatility with a character who is lonely and in pain and always tries to do what the next right thing is and was awarded with a richly deserved Oscar and Betsy Blair matches him scene for scene as the painfully shy Claire...I love the first scene of them dancing together and Claire is talking to Marty but is unable to look him directly in the eye. Mann and Chayefsky knew they had something very special here and chose not to tamper with it too much....letting a really wonderful actor make a story so engaging that you don't miss the fancy production values.