Marty

Rating:
Summary: Very moving story, excellent performances
Review: Marty is described as the most successful sleeper film of all time. Indeed, having seen this film, I agree with the accolades the movie received by the Academy Awards, especially Ernest Borgnine, who gives a stellar performance as the films main character. This deeply touching film deserves all fives stars. If you're a "dog" can relate to Marty's situation, then this should be a memorable film for you.

Rating:
Summary: Love Is Sometimes Elusive.
Review: MARTY was based on a television play written by Paddy Chayefsky. He also did the screenplay.

The story is about two people who manage to meet and fall in love after each has sufferred through years of feeling rejected by the opposite sex. The movie is set mostly in an Italian neighborhood in the Bronx. It is a relatively short film but it packs a powerful message.

Ernest Borgnine is superb as the clumsy bachelor who appears stuck in a hopeless situation with no prospects of finding a suitable wife. Betsy Blair gives an unforgettable performance as the almost thirtyish school teacher who seems totally defeated by her failures to attract a boy friend. Joe Martell is very credible in the role of Marty's buddy Angie.

The movie walked off with several Academy Awards in 1955 receiving Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director (Delbert Mann), Best Actor (Ernest Borgnine) and Best Screenplay. Nominations were received for Best Supporting Actor (Joe Mantell), Best Supporting Actress (Betsy Blair), Black and White Cinematography and Black and White Art Direction. Anna Magnanni won the Oscar for Best Actress in that same year for her appearance in THE ROSE TATOO.

Rating:
Summary: So real I felt I knew these characters personally
Review: Starring Ernest Borgnine, this 1955 film adaptation of Paddy Chayefsky's original television drama won four academy awards. Filmed it black and white, it is a character study of an awkward Italian-American Bronx butcher in his thirties who would like get married but has trouble meeting women. It's a simple story but it is so real that I felt I knew Marty personally. I felt his struggle to make a phone call to ask for a date only to get a brush off. I saw his annoyance and embarrassment when his customers all scolded him for not being married. I sensed his boredom and frustration of another Saturday night hanging out with his buddies in a futile quest for something interesting to do.

There's real drama here and it's not just Marty who has problems. There are his young married cousins who are feeling the frustrations of living in a cramped apartment with their baby and widowed mother. There is Marty's mother who is afraid of living her own old age alone. There are his buddies who are as equally bored as Marty. But most of all, there is the wallflower schoolteacher, played by Betsy Blair, who is just a mite to pretty for the role. When Marty meets her at a dance where she has just been dumped by a blind date, he finds they have a lot in common and they both enjoy the evening immensely.

In spite of the film being made more than 46 years ago, it was still fresh and real. Paddy Chayefsky was a master with dialog. For example there is the exchange between Marty and his friend Angie. "Hey Marty, what do you feel like doing tonight?" "I don't know Angie. What do you feel like doing?" These lines get repeated a few times. And the audience just "gets it". Another famous line is when Marty says to the young woman who has just been crying on his shoulder. "Hey, you're not as much of a dog as you think you are."

This film is about people. It's about family and love and simple things in life. The acting was so real that I forgot they were actors. I loved it and give it one of my highest recommendations. See it if you can.

Rating:
Summary: "So, you're not such a dog as you think you are"
Review: That's the kind of remark that Bronx butcher Marty (Ernest Borgnine) thinks will be a consolation to jilted chemistry teacher Clara (Betsy Blair) when he takes pity on her and asks her to dance at a singles ballroom. And strange to say, it is!

"Marty" was a modest movie that made a big splash at the theatres back in the 1950s, and even garnered top honors at the Academy Awards, including Best Actor for Ernest Borgnine. It's about how a thirtysomething butcher is embarrassed at being the last of his brothers and sisters not to be married yet, and his consequent heartbreak over that. We see him get asked over and over by neighborhood ladies, "Hey, Marty, when are YOU going to get married?" as if it were something he was doing on purpose. The truth is, Marty is shy and awkward with women, as we witness when he calls a woman he met a few weekends back to get a last-minute date. Although we never see the woman or hear what she has to say, we observe Marty's facial reactions as he undergoes the humiliation of being brushed off. Still smarting under that, he sits down to Saturday dinner with his Italian mamma, only to have her urge him to go out dancing that evening, because otherwise he'll die without a son. This causes a passionate outburst from him, about his own physical deficiencies among other things, winding up, "So I'll put on the blue suit and I'll go to the dance. And you know what I'm going to get, Ma? Heartache!"

It's a very honestly depicted scene, and one that will resonate all too deeply for anyone who has ever felt unlucky not just in love, but in getting any attention they crave from the opposite sex. Marty goes to the dance, and first it looks like he's going to have the same empty night he always has, when he overhears a plain young woman get dumped by her blind date so he can head out with a flashier doll he knew from before. Marty's compassionate nature prompts him to approach the plain woman, Clara, and thus he embarks on a night-long soul search where he and Clara share their private hopes and dreams (as well as past disappointments) together over coffee and just walking around the neighborhood. It's very well done and the audience can't help but feel for the two people tentatively putting their emotions on the line, hoping for acceptance at last.

An important point the film also raises is that neither Marty nor Clara are in complete isolation. We don't see her world tonight, but we do see Marty's community. He has his well-meaning mother who now begins to fear losing her last stay-at-home child; his loser friends who are always looking for action but not a real relationship; and his cousin and his wife, who are having to deal with a real mother-in-law problem. That bitter old aunt influences Marty's mother, and puts ideas in her head about how she too will one day find herself lonely and left out if Marty should ever find a girl to marry. All these people impact upon Marty and the decisions he makes about what to do the day after his date with Clara, and we see how tragic it can be if sometimes people let themselves be pressured by other folks' expectations and opinions.

I hadn't seen "Marty" in many years before viewing it again, and I can say it really hits home today. If you have never seen this little picture that has so much heart, I can't recommend it highly enough. Every dog sure has his day!

Rating:
Summary: an awesome sleeper
Review: this film was a giant of "sleeper" films. a quiet little film with a simple little message but crashed through and was given the oscar in the top 4 categories.

when i first saw Marty years ago, i didn't expect much. i videotaped it at the same time, only because i was trying to collect as many "BEST PICTURE" winners as possible. i figured a love story couldn't be that great. i was consummately wrong. it is definitely one of the greats of all motion picture history.

as for the DVD. the picture was sharp and clear, but some artifacts were present. the sound was good too. but one reservation about this DVD is it was released in the "vintage classics" series. i have noticed in that series, all the DVDs are packaged very similarly. the same bland label on the discs, the same basic type of box layout, and almost nothing in special features offered. but inspite of that, i still give it 5 stars.

Rating:
Summary: A story with heart and soul
Review: This has been one of my favorite films for years, and my admiration for it only increases on repeat viewings. It's a plain film about plain people. The story goes beyond the surface of gloss and superficial beauty to the heart beating underneath. Ernest Borgnine gives the finest performance of his career as the lonely butcher, Marty Pilletti. It is one of the most multi-layered performances in the history of film. We see Marty as he appears on the surface, then Mr. Borgnine peels away layer after layer, like an onion, revealing the real Marty deep inside. He calls himself "a fat, ugly man" but he has the most beautiful heart in the world. The supporting cast is first rate, especially Betsy Blair as the plain-jane Clara Snyder. The film explores so many issues, how people can ruin another person's happiness, how ideas and perceptions can change everything in a person's life. I cannot imagine this film being made today. Whenever they try to make films about "plain people" they end up trying to make Michelle Pfeiffer and Al Pacino look plain. It just doesn't work. This is a film of beauty, heart and soul, and I've never seen it equaled, and certainly never exceeded.

Rating:
Summary: An acting tour de force by Ernest Borgnine.
Review: This is a simple, unadorned but effective mellowdrama. Marty is a plain, chubby, good guy. He is a "mama's boy" & is approaching middle age, alone. He has met nothing but rejections fom women. He meets a plain jane, also rejected & as lonely as he. They bond through simple conversation & find they have a lot in common. His mother, afraid of losing her boy to another women trys to break them up. He best friend afraid of losing his "buddy in misery", as a another reviewer put it, tries to break them up. They almost succeed.
Marty realizes that this is his last best chance for love & happiness. He's found a woman who sees beyond the physical & really likes him. He makes the right choice with a heartwarming finish. They are not "the dogs that people call us". 41/2 stars

Rating:
Summary: Among the biggest "sleepers" of all time-an excellent film!
Review: This low-budget film based on a television drama presented by the Goodyear Playhouse a couple of years earlier took on some stiff competition at the Academy Awards from bigger budget films, and surprisingly prevailed. Ernest Borgnine renders a sterling performance in this film which has to rank among the greatest of all time. If anyone can relate to the type of character Borgnine portrays, then this movie would prove to be delightful and very entertaining. I wouldn't be surprised if someone in the very near future produced a modern-day remake of this classic.

Rating:
Summary: There is someone for everyone
Review: This romance yarn played out in the Bronx may be dated but has meaning for men and women everywhere who question their self-esteem and doubt their ability to attract members of the opposite sex for a worthwhile relationship. When two lonely people meet and seem to find a balance and sense of belonging with each other, well-meaning relatives and friends find fault with the man's date, dismissing her as a plain Jane and unworthy of his attention. Marty Piletti is torn between his loyalty to his buddy and his feelings for spinster Clara Snyder who he meets at a dance. The irony is that Marty's mother nags at him to get married, and then decides she doesn't like Clara because she isn't a nice Italian girl with whom Marty can settle down. Pal Angie resents Clara for coming between him and Marty and is jealous of Marty because he has a date for Saturday night while he has to prowl the neighborhood looking for girls by himself. Family squabbles also play a part in this drama but Marty knows he has found someone special in the unassuming but sensitive schoolteacher.

Rating:
Summary: Artistically poor - but quite irresistible!
Review: What "captures" me most about this film is that the situations, dialogue, and dialect so totally capture the New York City Italian-American community of the era. The sensitive, humorous, and stable Marty seems quite a "catch", unattractive though he is, but he has filled the occasional Italian role of the one who ends up supporting Mama. Unforgettable scenes that left me howling at the combination of the dialect and innocence include when Marty reassures his date that his mother adored his father (who was a very ugly man) - Marty's telling Clara about his brother's wedding reception(adding, in true butcher fashion, how much the meat was a pound) - and such sentences as "oh, he's a nice guy, this guy." Dialogue between Marty's mother and his miserable Aunt Catherine are also classics of the "genre." This video is a perfect gift for anyone of Marty's era ... or who had a father who sounded exactly like Marty and friends. I watch it yearly and laugh in affectionate recognition.