Watching Marty (1955) on TCMHD. We really love this movie. Before Mrs. L.A., I could relate to Ernest Borgnine’s character (‘Ma, sooner or later, there comes a point in a man’s life when he’s gotta face some facts. And one fact I gotta face is that, whatever it is that women like, I ain’t got it.’); and I felt for Betsy Blair’s ‘plain’ character. I thought she was attractive.
Also ‘Sergeant Carter’ is a schmuck.
I love Marty. I don’t know when I first saw it, but I never get tired of it. Romantic dramas can be hard to pull off, but Marty ticks all the checkboxes. I also felt for Betsy Blair’s character—she’s hardly who Marty’s mother would think of as “a real tomato,” as she feels can be found at the Stardust Ballroom. Rising tension through the film between Marty and his mother, his aunt, and his friends, until Marty finally says:
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!
Damn! That’s powerful, and puts everybody in their place. I’m going to use that for a monologue the next time I audition for community theatre.
And again, damn! Sad that I missed it tonight on TCM. I’ll look for the DVD; I need to see Marty again.
Wait a minute.
Marty. 1955.
Is there a DeLorean in this movie?
There is, but it is mistaken for a space ship.
Marty is Clara’s density.
Marty is an excellent film.
The 1953 TV version was great too. The cast included Rod Steiger (In the Heat of the Night, The Pawnbroker), Nancy Marchand (Lou Grant, The Sopranos), Betsy Palmer (Mr Roberts). Howard Caine (Hogan’s Heroes), Nehemiah Persoff (The Untouchables, Some Like It Hot), and George Maharis (Route 66).
What do you wanna do tonight?
I dunno Angie. What do you wanna do?
My wife and I use this exchange quite often.
It makes me happy to see this movie get some love.
mmm
Trivium
Marty is the only movie to win both the Academy Award for Best Picture and the Cannes Festival’s Palme d’Or.
Fun fact: Marty was the subject matter in one of the pivotal questions of the 1950s quiz show scandal. Ruling champion Herb Stempel was facing charismatic newcomer Charles Van Doren on a show called Twenty One. The producers wanted Van Doren to win, so they instructed Stempel to answer a question about the 1955 Best Picture Oscar winner incorrectly (correct answer was Marty). Stempel complied, answering On The Waterfront. Later, Stempel broke the story to journalists, and he has since added that it was particularly painful for him to lose on this question, since Marty was his favourite film.
I also remember someone claim that Marty was the most forgotten film ever to win thge Best Picture Oscar, in terms of being remembered in public awareness. I’m not sure I’d agree, and I don’t remember where exactly I heard it; it might have been in an exhibition on the history of the Oscars in a film museum I’ve visited.
Boy, that Paddy Chayefsky. Boy, could he write.
In Marty his characters moved and spoke naturally, but in The Hospital and Network the lines are more like grand pronouncements, and the punchlines heavily telegraphed. A lot of what we’d get again later from Aaron Sorkin.
So do I, but too many people either dont get it, or think itr is the Vultures from Jungle Book.
There are two others.
The Lost Weekend (1945) won Academy Awards Best Picture and also the top award at Cannes which was called the Grand Prix at the time.
Parasite (2019) properly won both accolades.
I’ve not seen the remake. Does the new protagonist do anywhere as well as Ernest Borgnine?
The sooner or later speech audio was making the rounds on tik/tok and instagram some months back. I hope it made some people curious enough to track down the movie.
of course Betsy Blair is attractive… They wouldn’t take a chance and risk the financial rewards by putting someone who wasn’t attractive.
Fine movie and it’s on TCM again.
I don’t see it on the schedule. I do see it in TCM On Demand though.
Hope you saw it. I notice a friend in another time zone having different scheduled stuff, but I think they always put it on-demand afterwards for a while.