Wednesday Night at the Movies: Marty (1955)

The 1955 Academy Award for Best Picture and Best Actor went to
Marty and Ernest Borgnine, respectively. This story, the tale of a 34 year old bachelor whose family and friends are constantly badgering him about why he hasn't married is touching. The character of Marty Piletti, as played by Borgnine, is well worth of the accolades.

One Saturday night, Marty goes to a dance club where he meets Clara, a rather homely looking girl, with whom Marty finds an attraction. As his relationship becomes serious, the same people who were nagging at him about not being married are disparaging his choice in a woman. Heroic characters like Marty only come along once in a lifetime, and he stands by his decisions despite what those around him are telling him.

The screenplay won an Academy Award, too, but I'm at odds with that decision, despite not knowing at this point what it was up against. My main problem was the thick Italian accented English used by the characters playing his mother and aunt. There was an interminably long sequence early in the movie where they are the only two onscreen characters and it just seemed contrived. Sure, at this point in time, caricatures were run-of-the-mill in movies, but I found it a struggle not to turn the movie off whenever they were onscreen.

All-in-all, it was still a good spending of an hour and a half, and I rate it 7 stars.