- Marty (film)
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Marty 
Theatrical release posterDirected by Delbert Mann Produced by Harold Hecht Screenplay by Paddy Chayefsky Story by Paddy Chayefsky Starring - Ernest Borgnine
- Betsy Blair
- Joe Mantell
- Frank Sutton
- Karen Steele
- Esther Minciotti
- Augusta Ciolli
Music by Roy Webb Cinematography Joseph LaShelle Distributed by United Artists Release date(s) April 11, 1955 Running time 94 minutes Country United States Language English Budget $343,000 Box office $3,000,000 (US) Marty is a 1955 American film directed by Delbert Mann. The screenplay was written by Paddy Chayefsky, expanding upon his 1953 teleplay of the same name. The film stars Ernest Borgnine and Betsy Blair. The film enjoyed international success, winning the 1955 Academy Award for Best Picture and becoming the second American film to win the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. Marty and The Lost Weekend (1945) are the only two films to win both organizations' grand prizes.
Contents
Plot
The film stars Borgnine as Marty Piletti, a heavy-set Italian-American butcher who lives in The Bronx, New York City with his mother. Unmarried at 34, the good-natured but socially awkward man faces constant badgering from family and friends to get married, pointing out that all his brothers and sisters are already married with children. Not averse to marriage but disheartened by his lack of prospects, Marty has reluctantly resigned himself to bachelorhood. In spite of his failed love life, Marty maintains an optimistic outlook on life characterized by his frequent ejaculatory outbursts such as "Perfect!" or "Fantastic!"
After being harassed by his mother into going to the Stardust Ballroom one Saturday night, Marty connects with Clara, a plain schoolteacher, who is quietly weeping on the roof after being callously abandoned at the ballroom by her blind date. Spending the evening together dancing, walking the busy streets, and talking in a diner, Clara and Marty discover many affinities. He eagerly spills out his life story and ambitions, and they encourage each other. He brings Clara to his house, and they awkwardly express their mutual attraction, shortly before his mother returns. Marty, delighted with his new-found love, takes her home by bus, promising to call her at two o'clock the next afternoon, after Mass. In an exuberant scene, he punches the bus stop sign and weaves between the cars, looking for a cab, a rare luxury matching his mood.
Meanwhile, his cranky, busybody widowed aunt moves in to live with Marty and his mother. She warns his mother that living alone, when children marry, is a widow's fate. Fearing that Marty's romance could spell her abandonment, his mother belittles Clara. Marty's friends, with an undercurrent of envy, deride Clara for her plainness and try to convince Marty to forget her. Harangued into submission, Marty doesn't call Clara.
That night, back in the same lonely rut, Marty realizes that he is giving up a chance of love with a woman who makes him happy. Over the objections of his friends, he dashes to a phone booth to call Clara, who is disconsolately watching television with her parents. When his friend Angie asks what he's doing, Marty bursts out saying:
“ 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! Hey Ang, when are you going to get married? You're 33 years old, and all your kid brothers and sisters are married. You oughta be ashamed of yourself. ” Production
For the film, Esther Minciotti, Augusta Ciolli and Joe Mantell reprised their roles from the live television production. The screenplay changed the name of the Waverly Ballroom to the Stardust Ballroom. The film expanded the role of Clara, and subplots about Marty's career and his mother and her sister were added.[1]
Shooting for the film began on September 7, 1954 in the Bronx, and included many aspects of the borough into the film, such as Grand Concourse, Arthur Avenue, Gun Hill Road, White Plains Road, and the Bronx subway elevated lines, including the D, B, 2, 4 and 5 lines. On-set filming took place at Samuel Goldwyn Studios on November 1, 1954. Jerry Orbach made his film debut in an uncredited role as a ballroom guest. Chayefsky had an uncredited cameo as Leo.
Reception
With an April 11, 1955 premiere (followed by a wide release July 15), the film received overwhelmingly positive reviews from critics. Ronald Holloway of Variety wrote, "If Marty is an example of the type of material that can be gleaned, then studio story editors better spend more time at home looking at television."[2] Time described the film as "wonderful".[3] Louella Parsons enjoyed the film, although she felt that it would not likely be nominated for Oscars.[4] At a budget of $343,000, the film generated revenues of $3,000,000 in the US alone, making it a box office success.[5]
Film review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that all 28 sampled critics gave the film positive reviews and that it got an average score of 8 out of 10.[6]
Accolades
Academy Awards
Award[7] Result Winner Best Motion Picture Won United Artists (Harold Hecht, producer) Best Director Won Delbert Mann Best Actor Won Ernest Borgnine Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay Won Paddy Chayefsky Best Supporting Actor Nominated Joe Mantell
Winner was Jack Lemmon – Mister RobertsBest Supporting Actress Nominated Betsy Blair
Winner was Jo Van Fleet – East of EdenBest Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White Nominated Ted Haworth
Robert Priestley
Walter M. Simonds
Winner was Hal Pereira, Tambi Larsen, Samuel M. Comer, Arthur Krams – The Rose TattooBest Cinematography, Black-and-White Nominated Joseph LaShelle
Winner was James Wong Howe – The Rose TattooCannes Film Festival
Winner Palme d'Or[8]
Legacy
In 1994, Marty was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.
The film's plot was remade in the 1991 comedy film Only the Lonely. The television film Queen of the Stardust Ballroom (1975) has been reviewed as a "gender reversal" of Marty.[9]
One line of dialogue, "I don't know. What do you want to do tonight, Marty?", was often satirized and became a catchphrase during the 1950s.[10]
On the TV quiz show Twenty One, the question "Which movie won the Academy Award for Best Picture for 1955?" was given to Herb Stempel. He was pressured to answer it incorrectly even though Marty was one of his favorite films. This milestone moment from the 1950s quiz show scandals was dramatized in the film Quiz Show (1994).
The animated series Rocko's Modern Life featured a parody of the character Marty, and modeled partially on his physical likeness, in the Season 1 episode "Rocko's Happy Sack".
Comedian and Curb Your Enthusiasm star Jeff Garlin is a fan of Marty, and his 2006 film, I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With, contains numerous references, including a subplot involving a studio remake starring singer Aaron Carter as the title character and actress Gina Gershon as Marty's mother.
References
- ^ Chayefsky, Paddy. "Two Choices of Material". Television Plays, Simon & Schuster, 1955.
- ^ Review by Ronald Holloway, Variety, March 23, 1955.
- ^ "The New Pictures", Time, April 18, 1955.
- ^ Mann, Delbert. Looking Back, at Live Television and Other Matters. Directors Guild of America, 1998.
- ^ "Marty (1955) - Box office / business". Internet Movie Database. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0048356/business. Retrieved July 11, 2011.
- ^ "Marty (1955)". Rotten Tomatoes. Flixster. http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1013427-marty/. Retrieved July 11, 2011.
- ^ "NY Times: Marty". NY Times. http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/31612/Marty/awards. Retrieved 2008-12-21.
- ^ "Festival de Cannes: Marty". festival-cannes.com. http://www.festival-cannes.com/en/archives/ficheFilm/id/3716/year/1955.html. Retrieved 2009-02-01.
- ^ Dennis Schwartz review
- ^ Turner Classic Movies
External links
- Marty at the Internet Movie Database
- Marty at AllRovi
- Marty at the TCM Movie Database
- Marty at Rotten Tomatoes
- Internet Movie Script DataBase
Films directed by Delbert Mann 1950s 1960s The Dark at the Top of the Stairs • Lover Come Back • The Outsider • That Touch of Mink • A Gathering of Eagles • Quick, Before It Melts • Dear Heart • Mister Buddwing • Fitzwilly • The Pink Jungle1970s 1980s BrontëTelevision "Lights Out" (1949) • "The Philco Television Playhouse" (1949 - 1955) • "Goodyear Television Playhouse" (1951 - 1955) • "Producers' Showcase" (1955) • "Playwrights '56" (1955 - 1956) • "Ford Star Jubilee" (1956) • "Omnibus" (1956 - 1957) • "The DuPont Show of the Month" (1958) • "Playhouse 90" (1958 - 1959) • "NBC Sunday Showcase" (1959) • "Startime" (1960) • Heidi (1968) • "CBS Playhouse" (1968) • David Copperfield (1969) • Jane Eyre (1970) • She Waits (1972) • No Place to Run (1972) • The Man Without a Country (1973) • The First Woman President (1974) • The Legendary Curse of the Hope Diamond (1975) • A Girl Named Sooner (1975) • Francis Gary Powers: The True Story of the U-2 Spy Incident (1976) • Tell Me My Name (1977) • Breaking Up (1978) • Home to Stay (1978) • Tom and Joann (1978) • Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery (1978) • Torn Between Two Lovers (1979) • All Quiet on the Western Front (1979) • To Find My Son (1980) • "Insight" (1981) • All the Way Home (1981) • The Member of the Wedding (1982) • The Gift of Love: A Christmas Story (1983) • Love Leads the Way: A True Story (1984) • A Death in California (1985) • The Last Days of Patton (1986) • The Ted Kennedy Jr. Story (1976) • Tell Me My Name (1977) • Breaking Up (1986) • April Morning (1988) • Ironclads (1991) • Against Her Will: An Incident in Baltimore (1992) • Incident in a Small Town (1994) • Lily in Winter (1994)Academy Award for Best Picture (1941–1960) How Green Was My Valley (1941) · Mrs. Miniver (1942) · Casablanca (1943) · Going My Way (1944) · The Lost Weekend (1945) · The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) · Gentleman's Agreement (1947) · Hamlet (1948) · All the King's Men (1949) · All About Eve (1950) · An American in Paris (1951) · The Greatest Show on Earth (1952) · From Here to Eternity (1953) · On the Waterfront (1954) · Marty (1955) · Around the World in 80 Days (1956) · The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) · Gigi (1958) · Ben-Hur (1959) · The Apartment (1960)
Complete list · (1927–1940) · (1941–1960) · (1961–1980) · (1981–2000) · (2001–2020) Palme d'Or winning films – 1939–1959 Union Pacific (1939) · Iris and the Lieutenant (1946) · The Lost Weekend (1946) · The Red Meadows (1946) · Brief Encounter (1946) · Maria Candelaria (1946) · Neecha Nagar (1946) · The Turning Point (1946) · La Symphonie Pastorale (1946) · The Last Chance (1946) · Men Without Wings (1946) · Rome, Open City (1946) · The Third Man (1949) · Miss Julie (1951) · Miracle in Milan (1951) · The Tragedy of Othello: The Moor of Venice (1952) · Two Cents Worth of Hope (1952) · The Wages of Fear (1953) · Gate of Hell (1954) · Marty (1955) · The Silent World (1956) · Friendly Persuasion (1957) · The Cranes Are Flying (1958) · Black Orpheus (1959)
Categories:- 1955 films
- American films
- English-language films
- 1950s drama films
- American romantic drama films
- Best Picture Academy Award winners
- Black-and-white films
- Films whose director won the Best Director Academy Award
- Films featuring a Best Actor Academy Award winning performance
- Films set in New York City
- Films whose writer won the Best Adapted Screenplay Academy Award
- Films directed by Delbert Mann
- Palme d'Or winners
- United States National Film Registry films
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