Marty is a 1955 American film directed by Delbert Mann. The screenplay was written by Paddy Chayefsky, expanding upon his 1953 teleplay of the same name. The film stars Ernest Borgnine and Betsy Blair. The film enjoyed international success, winning the 1955 Academy Award for Best Picture and becoming the second American film to win the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. Marty and The Lost Weekend (1945) are the only two films to win both organizations' grand prizes.

Characters and story[link]

The film stars Borgnine as Marty Piletti, a heavy-set Italian-American butcher who lives in The Bronx, New York City, with his mother (Esther Minciotti). Unmarried at 34, the good-natured but socially awkward man faces constant badgering from family and friends to get married, pointing out that all his brothers and sisters are already married with children. Not averse to marriage but disheartened by his lack of prospects, Marty has reluctantly resigned himself to bachelorhood. In spite of his failed love life, Marty maintains an optimistic outlook on life characterized by his frequent ejaculatory outbursts such as "Perfect!" or "Fantastic!"

After being harassed by his mother into going to the Stardust Ballroom one Saturday night, Marty connects with Clara (Betsy Blair), a plain schoolteacher, who is quietly weeping on the roof after being callously abandoned at the ballroom by her blind date. Spending the evening together dancing, walking the busy streets, and talking in a diner, Clara and Marty discover many affinities that they share. He eagerly spills out his life story and ambitions, and they encourage each other. He brings Clara to his house, and they awkwardly express their mutual attraction, shortly before his mother returns. Marty, delighted with his new-found love, takes her home by bus, promising to call her at two o'clock the next afternoon, after Mass. In an exuberant scene, he punches the bus stop sign and weaves between the cars, looking for a cab, a rare luxury matching his mood.

Meanwhile, his cranky, busybody widowed aunt moves in to live with Marty and his mother. She warns his mother that living alone, when children marry, is a widow's fate. Fearing that Marty's romance could spell her abandonment, his mother belittles Clara. Marty's friends, with an undercurrent of envy, deride Clara for her plainness and try to convince Marty to forget her; and, to remain (with them) unmarried; in their fading youth. Harangued into submission by the pull of his friends, Marty doesn't call Clara.

That night, back in the same lonely rut (among his regular cast of male friends), Marty realizes that he is giving up a chance of love with a woman whom he not only likes, but who makes him happy. Over the objections of his friends, he dashes to a phone booth to call Clara, who is disconsolately watching television with her parents. When his friend asks what he's doing, Marty bursts out saying:

Marty's ending lines are a masterpiece of understatement and social commentary. Marty has distilled the essence of the belief in individual freedom that lies at the core of the American social outlook and system. It is that the measure of the value of social intercourse of the people of a civilization that are committed to individual freedom. Such people are free, to define for themselves, what they value, in the world in which they live. All the other “actors” and factors in the equations of the social intercourse, in Marty and Clara’s life: their parents, friends, society at large, social convention, or the deadweight of history, all fall, before the sovereignty of their freedom and dignity to view themselves, and to act, solely according to their judgments. In the end, it is the American society’s commitment, to accept as the final word, Clara and Marty’s decisions regarding their lives, and their happiness, that gives the hopeful and upbeat tone to this film’s ending.

Marty then closes the phone booth's door and calls Clara. In the last line of the film, he tentatively says "Hello...Hello, Clara?"

Production[link]

For the film, Esther Minciotti, Augusta Ciolli and Joe Mantell reprised their roles from the live television production. The screenplay changed the name of the Waverly Ballroom to the Stardust Ballroom. The film expanded the role of Clara, and subplots about Marty's career and his mother and her sister were added.^[1]

Shooting for the film began on September 7, 1954, in the Bronx, and included many aspects of the borough into the film, such as Grand Concourse, Arthur Avenue, Gun Hill Road, White Plains Road, and several Bronx subway and elevated train lines, including the Concourse, Third Avenue, White Plains Road, and Jerome Avenue lines. On-set filming took place at Samuel Goldwyn Studios on November 1, 1954. Bronx native Jerry Orbach made his film debut in an uncredited role as a ballroom guest. Chayefsky had an uncredited cameo as Leo.

Reception[link]

With an April 11, 1955, premiere (followed by a wide release July 15), the film received overwhelmingly positive reviews from critics. Ronald Holloway of Variety wrote, "If Marty is an example of the type of material that can be gleaned, then studio story editors better spend more time at home looking at television."^[2] Time described the film as "wonderful".^[3] Louella Parsons enjoyed the film, although she felt that it would not likely be nominated for Oscars.^[4] At a budget of $343,000, the film generated revenues of $3,000,000 in the US alone, making it a box office success.^[5]

Film review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that all 28 sampled critics gave the film positive reviews and that it got an average score of 8 out of 10.^[6]

Accolades[link]

Academy Awards[link]

Cannes Film Festival[link]

Winner Palme d'Or^[8]

Legacy[link]

In 1994, Marty was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.

The film's plot was remade in the 1991 comedy film Only the Lonely. The television film Queen of the Stardust Ballroom (1975) has been reviewed as a "gender reversal" of Marty.^[9]

One line of dialogue, "I don't know. What do you want to do tonight, Marty?", was often satirized and became a catchphrase during the 1950s.^[10]

On the TV quiz show Twenty One, the question "Which movie won the Academy Award for Best Picture for 1955?" was given to Herb Stempel. He was pressured to answer it incorrectly even though Marty was one of his favorite films. This milestone moment from the 1950s quiz show scandals was dramatized in the film Quiz Show (1994).

The animated series Rocko's Modern Life featured a parody of the character Marty, and modeled partially on his physical likeness, in the Season 1 episode "Rocko's Happy Sack".

Comedian and Curb Your Enthusiasm star Jeff Garlin is a fan of Marty, and his 2006 film, I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With, contains numerous references, including a subplot involving a studio remake starring singer Aaron Carter as the title character and actress Gina Gershon as Marty's mother.

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Marty (film)

• Marty at the Internet Movie Database
• Marty at AllRovi
• Marty at the TCM Movie Database
• Marty at Rotten Tomatoes
• Internet Movie Script DataBase