lasttimeisaw MARTY, Delbert Mann's director feature debut still holds the record as the least costly Oscar BEST PICTURE prizewinner with a light flyweight budget of $350,000, more exceptionally, it is also that year's pick of Palme d'or, which inexorably courts suspicion of whether it can uphold its cachet out of its kitchen-sink make-up. Parlayed onto the celluloid by Paddy Chayefsky from his namesake teleplay in 1953, The story of MARTY is contracted within a two-days span, which recounts the humdrum life of an unassuming 33-year-old butcher Marty Piletti (Borgnine), who lives in the Bronx with his widowed mother (Minciotti). Marty is the last singleton among his siblings, and after a series of self-confidence- wreckage life experiences, he has learnt from the reality check that for a fat, ugly, Catholic Italian bachelor, marriage is a dashed dream, although he is exactly the marriage type. Yet, on one Saturday evening, urged by his mother, he tries his luck again in the Stardust Ballroom with his best friend Angie (Mantell), that's where he meets Clara (Blair), a plain-looking 29-year-old schoolteacher, who is ditched by her blind date for being undesirably unattractive. So here comes the most ordinary love story in the world, but do we buy the fact that Marty and Clare belong to the same league on the face value? Admittedly, Betsy Blair, aka. Mrs. Gene Kelly, has to demean herself in this role just for the sake of appearance, her Clara is a comely woman radiant with quiet sensibility and kindness (her hairdo is the main inconvenience but no prosthetic appendage was applied to uglify her), the double standard in sexes is as expectedly ingrained in a movie made 60 years ago, so when coming to the point that her fate is entirely put in the hand of a waffling Marty, the pungent trace of patronization cannot be smoothly dissipated, one's inner voice may exclaim "Clare is not a damsel-in-distress, she doesn't need Marty as much as he needs her", but according to the film's slice-of-life guide-line, the patriarchal society cannot allow that, otherwise, the film would be more aptly coined as "Marty and Clara", that's one crucial reason why today's audience might hold a grudge over the picture due to the sneaking phallocratic overtone. Another hiccup is in its depiction of the distaff characters, frankly speaking, all the peripheral roles are designated as negative influence around Marty, the nagging housewives clientele, his self- involved cousin Tommy (Paris) and his wife Virginia (Steele), his crude buddies, even Angie, enmeshed in the pleasure-seeking bachelorhood, fails to be a true friend to him, then there is the bellyaching aunt Catherine (Ciolli), a defeatist who prattles on and on that life is finished when a widow is in her 50s and has no one to cook for. Finally, Marty's mother, the only one we assume that loves Marty without any selfish reasons, to the convenience of the plot, turns out not to be that wise at all. All those characters are realistic enough for viewers today to mirror in our own lives, but lumping them as a collective nuisance certainly is not the best way of characterization. Be that as it may, MARTY has its down-to-earth charm thanks to Borgnine's touching performance, Marty is a far better person than his appearance suggests, especially compared with those who are around him, and Borgnine cuts his teeth into his Oscar-winning role whose inner warmth, guilelessness and gentleness (even when dolor is prevalent in his attempt of a Saturday night date through a telephone call) would gradually percolate into every scene, to the point he sublimates the material and elevates Marty's belated realization to be utterly rewarding, although the ending feels somewhat hasted, and his final barb to Angie is far too vindictive for a character like Marty, which only sounds good in theory as an echo to the beginning. Betsy Blair, in her hard-earned Oscar-nominated role (she was blacklisted and reportedly it took her husband's relentless lobbying and threat to secure her involvement), brings about an indelible trait of tangible sensitivity and self- abasing humanity without sacrificing Clara's fragile dignity. A decent win or is it just a bad year for USA movies? Personally I incline to the latter, MARTY is an above-average character drama with winning performances, but pales conspicuously in comparison with most Academy's BEST PICTURE champs both before and after it.

l_rawjalaurence On its release in 1954, MARTY was feted by critics and audiences alike as an accurate portrait of a certain strand of working-class life in New York at that time.Shot in and around the Bronx, Delbert Mann's cinematic rendering of a play that had already been a success on television captures a world long past, of small shops, seedy bars, and crowded streets, where people could walk out at all times without fear of being attacked or molested. Although comprised of different ethnic communities, everyone managed to get on with one another, even though there was not much recreation except to go to the dance-hall every Saturday night.Produced by Burt Lancaster, MARTY brings familiar television techniques to the big screen. Much of the action unfolds in a series of close- ups, two-shots, and tracking shots, focusing our attention on the relationships between the protagonists. One particularly memorable sequence occurs when Marty (Ernest Borgnine) meets Clara (Betsy Blair) in the dance-hall. The two of them smooch to the sound of the music; as they do so, they move through 180 degrees, so that we can see their faces as they hang on one another's shoulders. Their sense of self-doubt is palpable; although they force themselves to smile at one another, their happy expressions are only skin-deep; the frown soon returns, as if they are not quite sure about what they are doing.In Marty's case, such doubt is justified. Living with an over- protective mother (Esther Minciotti), he frequently submits to her authority, even when it is to his personal disadvantage. Director Mann emphasizes his isolation in one sequence taking place at night, where he walks morosely across the frame, his face turned to the left of the camera as he smokes a cigarette. He completely ignores his mother, as if unwilling to say anything to her.Likewise Marty is inhibited by the need to sustain a front of aggressive masculinity in front of his drinking buddies, all of whom describe women in derogatory terms as "tomatoes" or "dogs," depending on their moods, and spend much of their time at dance- halls as professional wallflowers, gazing at but not committing themselves to any women in particular. In the film's closing sequences Mann shows how Marty is hemmed in, both verbally as well as physically, as he sits in a small room, yearning to escape from his friends but lacking the gumption to do so. The ending comes as a surprise, at Marty at last detaches himself from his leech-like "friend" Angie (Joe Mantell), and phones up Clara, closing the door of the public telephone behind. Symbolically speaking this is an important moment, showing how Marty has at last managed to put an emotional as well as a physical barrier between himself and his buddies.The production admirably captures the claustrophobic nature of Marty's life, as he moves between his cramped family home, to an overcrowded bar. Likewise Clara has to share a small apartment with her father and brother, and endure the torment of watching nighttime television where the audience laugh hysterically while her face remains mask-like and emotionless.Mann's film might have a sentimental ending, but it vividly captures the everyday sexism and the apparently inflexible codes of masculinity and femininity that inhibited rather than promoted interaction between the sexes during the mid-Fifties. As a sociological document, as well as a piece of heartwarming entertainment, it cannot be bettered.

filmpudding Marty is a great movie and the main reason for that is the great performances given by the two stars, Betsy something (I can't remember sorry) and Ernest Borgnine who I've always been a fan of, who apparently won an Oscar for this which I never knew about. It's good to know he won an Academy Award for this because like I said I've always been a fan of that actor because he always played good characters and just seemed like a really nice guy, but also because in this movie, which I have never even heard of before, he gives just a really fantastic performance as Marty.Marty (Borgnine) is a butcher and one of several children (the only one still living at home) of his Italian mother who worries a lot about him and wants him to find love/a wife. He has all but given up on that and thinks he is too over the hill to hope to find a woman (he's in his 30s) but he relents to her pressure and goes to a dance where he meets a woman who might have similar reservations and also fears.Great story, very honest, and really great performances. Can't recommend this one highly enough.

Benjamen Carter Mart is an alright movie, it certainly wasn't great. Occasionally, it seemed that a character would be blurred out a opposed to other characters in the shot who ere relatively clearer to the audience. The movie also didn't really hold onto my attention. I found my mind wondering from time to time. It as just another romantic movie to me. To me, the story and characters were boring and kind of repetitive. Other than these things, the movie was relatively decent. I liked the character of Marty if nothing else. He brought some humor into an otherwise bland situation. Also, I kind of like the ironic ending of the film.