❝Marty❞

MOVIE REVIEW OF ❝ Marty ❞ (1955) NR

Cast
Director:	delbert mann	Runtime: 1 hrs 30 min (90 min)
mrs. pilette	.....	esther minciotti
aunt catherine	.....	augusta ciolli
angie	.....	joe mantell
virginia	.....	karen steele
tommy	.....	jerry paris
clara	.....	betsy blair
marty pilette	.....	ernest borgnine

Uncredited
mr. snyder	.....	james bell
the kid	.....	walter kelley
bachelor	.....	kick brkich
lou (Bartender)	.....	charles cane
leo	.....	paddy chayefsky
andy	.....	john dennis
6-Year-Old boy	.....	steven hecht
man in bar #1	.....	john beradino
man in bar #2	.....	paul hoffman
irish lady in bar	.....	kathleen mulqueen
butcher	.....	silvio minciotti
joe	.....	robin morse
ballroom extra	.....	jerry orbach
ralph	.....	frank sutton
churchgoer extra	.....	hal taggart
mrs. rosari	.....	minerva urecal
jerry	.....	alan wells
unknown	˜	joe bell
unknown	˜	marvin bryan
unknown	˜	doris kimper
unknown	˜	glenn strange
unknown	˜	john milford

WARNING: THE NEXT SECTIONS MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS…

WHAT I KNOW

Marty Pilletti (Ernest Borgnine) really is a really nice person. That may appear redundant, but I mean ‘really’ in two ways. ‘Really’ meaning he is extraordinarily nice; and ‘really’ as in "I'm not kidding around."

So why is he 34 years old and still alone? He hangs around with his friends on the weekends when they go out to the clubs and dance halls and other "pick-up joints." Yet at parties, as Marty himself says, he's the only one they always have to find a date for.

Marty is not only focused on girls, though. He lives at home wth his Italian mother Theresa (Esther Minciotti), and he holds down a steady job as a butcher. He likes what he does, and he does it well, but his friends and family give him guff for not getting married. He isn't much for the ‘one-night-stand,’ but he's connsidering how nice it would be to have a family. At least that's what he's told. His cousin Tommy (Jerry Paris) and Tommy's wife Virginia (Karen Steele), however, aren't exactly encouraging in that respect. Athough they love each other, they are fighting with each other all the time.

Marty sees all this going on around him, and attempts to find a girl. First he listens to his best friend Angie (Joe Mantell), who suggests calling a girl they had met a few months prior, and asking her out. Marty calls the girl, but she refuses him. Marty begins to believe that it's just too late for him and that he'll just end up a bachelor.

Then he meets Clara (Betsy Blair), a ‘nice Catholic girl’ who appears to be in a similar situation. They are both shy and reserved, but they are attracted to each other and end up spending the evening together, walking and talking into the early morning.

In the meanwhile, Marty is considering buying the butcher shop where he works. The owner is retiring, and Marty has plans to unite the other competing supermarkets and delis in the area. He questions this when he is considering his relationship with Clara and the possiblility of marriage.

The story is focused around Marty's inner contemplation of trying to separate and recognize what he wants for himself from what others are telling him he should be doing.

WHAT I THINK

This is a movie every teen should watch, and watch again every ten years.

It is sad to say that you will probably never see a movie like this one ever made again. This is actually ironic, because my reason is that it is one of the most realistic storylines I have seen. In these days of ‘reality shows,’ you'd think they'd be everywhere. Truth is, people such as Marty Pilletti are reality, whereas those on The Bachelor are pretty boys living in a shell of insecurity and often ill-conceived (yet still false) ego. Although it may seem that Marty might never find a suitable companion with which he may share his life, I'd say he is more likely to be the one to find the perfect one for himself. Instead of istening to those who are tellng him he needs to find someone, and that they are ahsamed of him for not having a wife at his age, he realizes that he has found that person in Clara, a girl none of Marty's friends have ever met.

This is a unique role for Ernest Borgnine. He usually plays the ‘heavy.’ His role in this film completely foils that image. He plays both types of roles convincingly to the hilt.

This movie shows us that people can believe that what they may be hiding of themselves could possibly be more legitimate then they are led to believe.

I have never seen such a truthful, heart-felt, thought out script. Also, along those lines it seems out of place to mention dialogue, but that plays a significant role in the authenticity of this movie. Think of the dialogue as presented in the movie Guys & Dolls. On screen, the lines are presented with specific diction and precise accuracy, reminding you of the way it would be presented on the stage. Similarly, the lines in Marty are presented in a flowing pattern that actually adds some unexpected interjections and ‘little’ words often avoided on screen. The specific one I noticed was the word ‘because.’ When this word is included, the actor actually says ‘because’ as opposed to the more commonly used ’❜cause.‘ It seems a small matter, but it also seems to to make a dramatic impact on the feel of the entire movie.

I can truthfully say that Marty has become one of my favorite movies of all-time. (BTW…I still hate that expression, albeit being the most appropriate in this case.) Not to mention one of the most surprising to have shown up on that list.

MEMORABLE DIALOGUE & NOTEABLE ENCOUNTERS

Finally, a short list of quotes and verbal exchanges I think are worth repeating.
You may recognize some if you've seen the movie, but these are my own picks, not ones that are particularly famous:

• mrs. canduso : I hear your kid brother got married last Sunday.
  marty : That's right. It was a very nice affair.
  mrs. canduso : Marty, you oughta be ashamed of yourself. All your kid brothers and sisters've got married and have children. When're you gonna get married?
• angie : Boy, you're gettin' to be a reeal drag, ya' know dat?
  marty : I been lookin' for a girl every Saturday nght of my life. I'm 34 years old. I'm just tired of lookin', that's all. I'd like to find a girl. Everybody's always tellin' me ‘get married, get married, get married.’ Doncha think I want to get married? I wanna get married. Everybody drives me crazy.
• marty : Whatever it is that women like, I ain't got it.
• aunt catherine : I got a letter from my husband's cousin i Abruzzi. His mother died.
  mrs. piletti : Oh?
  aunt catherine : Do you remember Emilio DiGiiorgio who owned the tavern in Abruzzi? He died.
  mrs. piletti : Oh?
  aunt catherine : You know who else die?
  mrs. piletti : Who?
  aunt catherine : You know the old man who live upstairs in this house. Old Irishman…always drunk. He gets pleurisy. He stay two weeks in a hospital. Yesterday, he died.
  mrs. piletti : I like to visit you, Catherine, because you've always gotta such'a cheerful news.
• clara : Well, I don't know them, but as a rule, I don't think a mother-in-law should live with a young couple.
  mrs. piletti : Where you think a mother-in-law should go?
  clara : Well, I don't think a mother shoould depend so much upon her children for her rewards in life.
  mrs. piletti : That's-a what'a they teach you in'a New York University. In real life, it no work out like this. You wait'a till you are a mother.
• marty : Tommy, give me a couple of minutes, because I promised Mr. Terri I'd let him know by tomorrow. You and Virginia can fight anytime.
• joe : You know, the way I figure, a guy oughta marry a girl twenty years younger than he is, so that when he's forty, she'll still be a real pretty doll a' twenty-one.
  leo : That means he have to marry the girl when she was one-year old!

TRIVIA

Here is some useless (to most of us) trivia from this movie⇒

• Jerry Orbach of TV's Law & Order, made his film debut as an extra on the ballroom floor…look for him!
• Marty's friends often talk about there being a lot of ‘tomatoes’ somewhere. ‘Tomato’ refers to a girl.
• Ernest Borgnine was the very first ‘center square’ on the premier of the television game show The Hollywood Squares in October of 1966.
• In 1955, Ernest Borgnine won his 1^st and only Oscar Award (beating out Frank Sinatra, James Dean, Spencer Tracy, and James Cagney), Golden Globe, BAFTA, National Board of Review, and New York Film Critic Circle Award for his role in Marty.
• Ernest Borgnine co-starred with actor Frank Sutton in this movie. About ten years later, the two would star in their own rival television series…Sutton played Sergeant Vince Carter in Gomer Pyle U.S.M.C. across from Borgnine as Commander Quinton McHale in McHale's Navy.

RATING

Here is my personal rating of this movie. This rating is out of ten meows.

¹⁰/₁₀

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