Marty began life as a teleplay in 1953, starring Rod Steiger and broadcast on NBC as a Goodyear Television Playhouse production. The play apparently caught the attention of movie star Burt Lancaster, who at the time was also a partner in a film production company. Paddy Chayefsky was enlisted to adapt his own screenplay, while Delbert Mann returned as director. Ernest Borgnine, who had a memorable supporting role with Lancaster in From Here to Eternity, was cast for the lead.
It would prove to be the best role of Borgnine's career. Although he never had trouble finding work, he usually played a sadistic bully or a clumsy comic relief character. Marty offered him the rare opportunity to be the dramatic lead, as well as providing him with perhaps the best script of any of his films.
Marty (Borgnine) is a burly man in his mid-thirties. He is still a bachelor, and lives alone with his widowed mother. All his many brothers and sisters are married, but Marty has no prospects. He thinks of himself as being fat, ugly, and a 'dog', with his sensitive and gentle disposition seemingly only making his romantic encounters more painful and difficult.
Somehow, Marty meets a spinster schoolteacher (Betsy Blair) with whom he has much in common. They are both shy, depressive, and lonely, but can find in each other the esteem that they lack in their own selves. Marty is surprised when both friends and family reject his new girlfriend, based solely on self-interest and petty observations.
Marty is unusual in its unromanticized attitudes towards family, friends and religion, none of which can provide comfort for Marty. His only hope for happiness can come from romantic love, which can only be provided by a woman who is equally unhappy and 'unattractive'.
Marty is surrounded by shallow, loser friends like Angie (Joe Mantell), who in their own way are as clinging as Marty's defensive, widowed mother (Esther Minciotti). Marty's sister Virginia (Karen Steele) struggles in an unhappy marriage with Tommy (Jerry Paris), with both the troublemaking mother-in-law (Augusta Ciolli) and the infant depicted as burdens rather than blessings. Catholicism does not come off well, either. Just to consider suicide is a sin, while the obligation of attending Sunday Mass leads to much family discord.
Chayefsky delights in savaging Mickey Spillane. The script's repeated mention of him as a 'great writer' is reminiscent of the famous speech from Julius Caesar (1952), which had Marlon Brando as Antony referring to Brutus with increasing sarcasm as an 'honorable man'. Chayefsky manages to rip Spillane for his redundant potboiler plots and stereotyped female characters, without losing his sense of humor.
Marty dominated the 1955 Academy Awards, winning Best Picture, Best Actor (Borgnine), Best Director (Delbert Mann), and Best Writing (Chayefsky). It also received nominations for Best Supporting Actor (Joe Mantell) and Actress (Betsy Blair), Best Cinematography (Joseph La Shelle), and Best Art Direction.
Surprisingly, Marty received as much acclaim overseas as it did in America. At the British Academy Awards, it won Best Film, while Borgnine and Blair swept Best Foreign Actor and Actress. It even won the Golden Palm at the Cannes Film Festival, the first time ever for a Best Picture Oscar winner.
One has to wonder how well the film would have been received had Clara been played by a woman who was actually unattractive, or if it had ended with Marty forgetting Clara while going bar hopping with his friends. However, such a cynical and heartless ending would not have been in keeping with Marty's character. He is a man of integrity who is certain to fulfill his promise to Clara. (77/100)
Delbert Mann's big-screen remake of Paddy Chayefsky's 1953 teleplay one of the most successful works of film's Golden Age stars Ernest Borgnine as Bro...More at Family Video
Marty may be the biggest sleeper in Hollywood history. This modest 1955 film proved so fresh, joyful and heartbreakingly real it achieved overwhelming...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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