Marty the Movie

The Academy Award for the Best Motion Picture of 1955 was won by the movie, Marty, which was produced by the team of Harold Hecht and Burt Lancaster (From Here to Eternity), directed by Delbert Mann (won Academy Award for Best Director), written by Paddy Chayefsky (won Academy Award for Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay), and starred Ernest Borgnine (won Academy Award for Best Actor), whom I have previously mentioned in my blog (October 4, 2015, Parenthood).  Marty was nominated for, but did not win, Academy Awards for Best Supporting Actor, Joe Mantell (who lost to Jack Lemmon in Mister Roberts), Best Supporting Actress, Betsy Blair (who lost to Jo Van Fleet in East of Eden), Best Art Direction-Set Direction, Black-and-White, and Best Cinematography, Black-and-White.

Marty is the story of a self-proclaimed fat, ugly man, a 34 year-old Bronx butcher, who is going through life unhappily lonely, dreaming of finding a woman of his own.  Fate takes a hand one Saturday night when, grudgingly following his mother’s advice, Marty Piletti (Borgnine) goes to a local dance hall to try to find a girlfriend, but instead is approached by a man who wants his help in dumping a rather plain-looking woman whom he got fixed up with.  After turning him down on principle (“you can’t do that”), Marty approaches the woman, Clara (Betsy Blair), after she is abandoned.

Marty and Clara spend the rest of the evening dancing, talking, laughing, crying, walking the streets of the Bronx, sitting in a diner drinking coffee, gradually getting to know each other and experiencing the beginning of a mutual attraction.  After taking her home at the end of a long evening, Marty is on top of the world. 

The next day, Sunday, his mother, believing that if Marty marries this woman she will be abandoned like her sister was when her last son married, criticizes Clara in front of Marty.  Angie (Mantell), his best friend, feeling jealous of the attention Marty gave to this new girlfriend, tells him to dump Clara, whom Angie considers to be a “dog.”  At first Marty takes such advice from his mother and his friend to heart.

However, by Sunday night, Marty, miserable and lonely, speaks his mind to Angie:  “You don't like her, my mother don't like her, she's a dog and I'm a fat, ugly man! Well, all I know is I had a good time last night! I'm gonna have a good time tonight! If we have enough good times together, I'm gonna get down on my knees and I'm gonna beg that girl to marry me! If we make a party on New Year's, I got a date for that party. You don't like her? That's too bad!”

To me, the message of this wonderful film is that there is somebody for everybody, even a fat, ugly man and a plain-looking woman. 

Ernest Borgnine was born in Hamden, Connecticut in 1917.  After graduating high school in 1935, he joined the US Navy and served until he was honorably discharged in October 1941.  Three months later, after Pearl Harbor, he re-enlisted in the Navy.  During World War II, Borgnine was assigned to an anti-submarine ship off America’s Atlantic coast.  He was honorably discharged again in September 1945. 

Upon returning home after the war, Borgnine’s mother encouraged him to pursue an acting career as she felt his personality was well-suited for the stage, even though he had never done anything like that in his prior life.  In 1949, he made his Broadway debut as the male nurse in the play, Harvey.  In 1951, Borgnine appeared in his first film, The Whistle at Eaton Falls, which starred Lloyd Bridges (High Noon).  In 1953, he got his big break when he landed the role of Fatso Judson in the acclaimed film, From Here to Eternity, which I discussed in my blog last month. 

Maybe being a fat man wasn’t so bad.  Borgnine’s acting career extended virtually to the end of his life, for over sixty years.  He appeared in such films as Vera Cruz with Gary Cooper, Bad Day at Black Rock with Spencer Tracy, The Catered Affair with Bette Davis, The Vikings with Kirk Douglas, The Dirty Dozen with Lee Marvin, The Wild Bunch with William Holden, and The Poseidon Adventure with Gene Hackman.  He died in Los Angeles in 2012 at the age of ninety-five.  I’m very sorry we didn’t talk in the VIP lounge at the airport back in ’67.  From what I know, he was a sweet man.