Film Review - "Marty"

“Marty” (1955)
Ernest Borgnine

“You tell him to go to the Stardust Ballroom. It’s loaded with tomatoes.” You don’t hear lines like that any more. And so begins this quiet, powerful film, an understated smash that actually won four Oscars (actor, director, picture, screenplay).

There’s no pretense: It’s a true-to-life portrayal of a shy, burly 34-year-old Bronx butcher – in some ways, it was a peek back to the days when Your Host was looking for love himself.

In the course of just 48 hours, we see Marty meet a dowdy but sweet schoolteacher, Clara (Betsy Blair) – an equally unglamorous nobody who has resigned herself to a life alone, shun the hypocritical selfishness of his Italian family and friends and fall in love. Together – alone – they grind away against financial problems and unfulfilling home lives (he still lives with his mother) in one of the best products of the Golden Age of Film.

“Whatever it is women like, I don’t got it,” Borgnine’s character barks out through an thin façade of self-reliance and aloofness. The line – like much of the movie – reminds Your Host of my post-college days when an Italian bricklayer pal of mine named Joe would invite me to join him at the now-shuttered Punchinello’s in Bridgeport.

Your Host, obviously, was the Marty character. Joe had this way of getting the attention of just about any girl he wanted – simply by staring. Yeah: staring. Switch out a few letters, and, to me, you get stalking. But the guy had it. There we’d stand, skunky Heinekins in our fists and breath-freshening gum in our yaps, doing nothing but standing. We’d stand off to the side of the dance floor usually. Not too far from it and not to close. We had no intention of dancing, mind you.

So my pal Joe would pick out a girl and just look at her. No expression on his face. Just blank. But he’d fix his gaze on her and lock in until she caught his. Then the game was on. He’d wait, maybe a second or two, as she shot a glance back. Then, like a giddy little schoolgirl, he’d look away. And this worked.

It actually worked.

I hadn’t pulled something like that in 15 years, and even then I wasn’t successful. But this guy, it worked for him. She’d look away, he’d fix his gaze on her again, she’d catch him. And this corneal tug-of-war would continue for several minutes – sometimes half an hour – until, inevitably, she would make her way over to us.
I was always stuck with the throw-away friend, the girl who was just a little too fleshy, or too tall, or too taken with another guy to be interested in me. Just like ol’ Marty.

It’s a film of pure realism, brutal realism, something that was rare back in 1955, when other gritty works such as “East of Eden” and “The Blackboard Jungle” were released to the public. And that’s why Your Host finds the film so endearing.

A neo-realist film, Paddy Chayefsky’s poignant drama remains an influential case for the undying, universal need for love.

It’s a film of dialogue, not action, but that’s the best kind of film. Makes you listen. Closely.

“All my brothers, my brothers-in-law – they’re always telling me what a good-hearted guy I am. But you don’t get to be good-hearted by accident,” Marty tells Clara during a sweet moment midway through the film as they fumble effortlessly through their first dance together. “You get kicked around long enough, you get to be a real professor of pain.” Amazing.