I like this film. I like it a lot. The directing was fine, and the writing was good. And Ernest Borgnine's portrayal was very touching. But should "Marty" have won Oscars? It didn't seem like Paddy Chayefsky's best work, and the acting, especially Betsy Blair's, was either stiff or stagey. I honestly think "Mr. Roberts" should have won for best picture.
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I think Betsy Blair played the role the way it was meant to be played. Clara was supposed to be a woman who didn't make friends easily... remember when she said sometimes she'd wait for someone to ask her to dance, and guys would walk up, then walk away? If she had a friendly, outgoing personality, then it just wouldn't make sense.
"Marty" is sort of like "Rocky", a feel-good movie that beat out some better movies for the Best Picture award. Yes, "Mister Roberts" is a great movie and should have won. It's better than "Rebel Without a Cause" too.
Either "Network" or "Taxi Driver" should have beaten out "Rocky" in 1977. But the Academy does some crazy things sometimes.
I don't know, I like Mister Roberts, but I LOVE Marty. And please don't compare it to Rocky. Borgnine is about a hundred times better actor than "mumbles" Stallone.
shareThere's a reason it was compared to "Rocky." If you watch his relationship with Adrienne in the first "Rocky" you'll note Stallone totally stole it from "Marty."
The reason "Marty" appears to be such a surprise win is perhaps because it's such a small, independent-type character driven film that usually gets nominated and even wins, say, screenplay awards but doesn't usually beat out the big dogs. "Breaking Away," "Sideways" and "Little Miss Sunshine" are three other examples that come to mind.
I liked "Marty" and felt it was a classic case of everyone rooting for the underdog to make good, that's probably what brought it the Oscars. Looking back in hindsight, I would probably have voted Best Picture to "Rebel Without A Cause", "East of Eden" or "Bad Day at Black Rock", but if you check they weren't even nominated! Of the nominated films, I think "Marty" was as deserving as any.
shareI liked "Marty" and felt it was a classic case of everyone rooting for the underdog to make good, that's probably what brought it the Oscars.I was thinking the same thing. share
There's a reason it was compared to "Rocky." If you watch his relationship with Adrienne in the first "Rocky" you'll note Stallone totally stole it from "Marty."
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Yep. A critic in 1976 gave Rocky this title: "Somebody Up There Likes Marty."
"Marty" was the 1955 Best Picture winner. "Somebody Up There Likes Me" was a 1956 movie starring Paul Newman as boxer Rocky Marciano. Both movies were in black and white and set in gritty parts of New York, and "Rocky" was, after all, made only about 20 years later.
Still there were differences: Philadelphia instead of New York. A more compelling storyline that presaged "the return of the crowd pleasing happy ending" in the late 70's(Star Wars) after the grim unhappy endings of the early 70's(Chinatown, The Conversation.)
I love MISTER ROBERTS and MARTY equally, and for the same reason: they both tell stories about realistic characters with real feelings and real problems. On top of that, they're well-made and well-acted.
They both deserved Best Picture.
Put it on the Underhills' tab...
I love MISTER ROBERTS and MARTY equally, and for the same reason: they both tell stories about realistic characters with real feelings and real problems. On top of that, they're well-made and well-acted.
They both deserved Best Picture.
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They had interesting source material. Mister Roberts was a Broadway stage play pretty much brought intact to the screen --with its Broadway star, Henry Fonda.
Marty had been a "TV play" seen live by most of America , but it was not taped(only kinescopes -- filmed off a TV screen -- remain) and one of a few TV plays deemed worth remaking as a movie. Whereas Henry Fonda got to play Mister Roberts again(and had to fight for it -- the studio wanted bigger stars William Holden or Marlon Brando for the role) -- Ernest Borgnine took over "Marty" from Rod Steiger. And the female lead in the TV version was Nancy Marchand -- yep, Livia Soprano.
So that's their "roots." Did a Broadway play re-enactment deserve the Oscar over a TV play re-enactment? Anybody's guess.
I personally like the "heart" of Marty better. And isn't it interesting how DIFFERENT this Paddy Chayefsky script is from the more "intellectual speechifying scripts" he later wrote for The Americanization of Emily, The Hospital, and Network?
The best English language pictures of 1955 were Rebel Without a Cause, The Night of the Hunter, and East of Eden, none of which were nominated for Best Picture.
The overall best picture of 1955 was Satyajit Ray's Pather Panchali, which didn't even win an Oscar for best foreign film.
Between Marty and Mr. Roberts, I prefer Marty. Delbert Mann's restrained direction of Marty is far superior to John Ford's frenetic direction of Mr. Roberts, and in fact Ford wan't even nominated for best director.
Between Marty and Mr. Roberts, I prefer Marty. Delbert Mann's restrained direction of Marty is far superior to John Ford's frenetic direction of Mr. Roberts, and in fact Ford wan't even nominated for best director.
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As I recall, John Ford was fired off of "Mister Roberts" after punching out(but not knocking out) Henry Fonda in an argument/ Didn't Meryn Leroy take over? It would be hard to pick who to nominate.
It really was a weak year for motion pictures....and as was mentioned the best pictures of the year were not even nominated.
Marty was ok. Certainly not Best Picture quality imho. But I seem to be in the minority on this board. I was disappointed by this film. Nothing happened.
The only thing that happened is that two lonely people's lives and outlook on life changed over a weekend.
share"Marty" touched a lot of people more than the other nominees IMO. It was also one of those films where screenplay and acting came together brilliantly to tell a touching, heartfelt story about a lovable, ordinary guy who so many could relate to on many levels. Borgnine's portrayal of Marty was very deserving of him winning the Oscar, and I think that his performance brought the character so far into our hearts that it made the movie that much more deserving of the Best Picture Oscar. Sometimes it's not the big productions, the fancy camerawork and special effects that make a movie precious to us. Sometimes it's just the characters that we take into our hearts and remember decades later. They don't have to be extraordinary characters to have that effect. Marty was a character that you might know in real life, or might partly be. I think that's what made this film so special to so many. I think it's refreshing to see that such a film could be deemed Best Picture by the Oscars.
Please do not attack me for my opinions...we're all entitled to them.
I didn't hate the film, but it struck me as a paint-by-numbers social propaganda championing the virtues of ugly people getting married because society expects them to. Worth "Best Picture"? No. Then again, my favorite film of '55 is THE BIG COMBO, so consider your source here...
"Speculation is a dish best served wild." - Jasper Fforde
not much competition that year
so many movies, so little time
Alfred Hitchcock made TWO movies in 1955. One was a personal film that was rather like an indie: The Trouble With Harry. The other was a big hit: Cary Grant and Grace Kelly in To Catch a Thief.
To Catch a Thief is my favorite movie of 1955. A crystallization of glamour and sophistication that is from a lost era now. Witty script by John Michael Hayes, too. And it won a well-deserved Oscar for Technicolor cinematography (by Hitchcock's favorite DP, Robert Burks) that made great use of the French Riviera by day and an eerie green night sky that was a daring stylistic conceit on Hitchocck's and Burks' part. Plus a colorful flower market. Plus colorful fireworks(representing unseen sex between the handsome Grant and the gorgeous Kelly.)
There's not a meaningful social issue in To Catch a Thief. It is simply a great entertainment.
And The Trouble With Harry was good too --MORE beautiful Technicolor cinematography from Robert Burks, ANOTHER witty script by John Michael Hayes and a rather revolutionary idea about death: a man's corpse is hauled around, buried, dug up and reburied and nobody is repulsed at all. Its FUNNY.
Hitch hit a one-two punch in '55.
The reason "Marty" appears to be such a surprise win is perhaps because it's such a small, independent-type character driven film that usually gets nominated and even wins, say, screenplay awards but doesn't usually beat out the big dogs. "Breaking Away," "Sideways" and "Little Miss Sunshine" are three other examples that come to mind.
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In the 50s and 60s especially -- when movies were competing with the new invention of TV that was stealing much of their audience -- the Oscars often went to big, expensive, colorful productions that required lots of craftspeople and artists.
Basically the winners were musicals -- An American in Paris, Gigi, West Side Story, The Sound of Music, My Fair Lady, Oliver -- or epics -- The Greatest Show on Earth, Around the World in Eighty Days, The Bridge on the River Kwai, Ben-Hur, Lawrence of Arabia.
But smaller dramas snuck in some years -- On the Waterfront, Marty, The Apartment(some comedy in that one.)
The irony with Marty is that it BEGAN on that demon competitor to movies -- as a network television play -- but by converting it into a movie, it became something that could last forever. A small number of teleplays were made into movies. 12 Angry Men, while not a Best Picture winner, is the other "big one," I think. But also Patterns and The Bachelor Party and some others.
It was also one of those films where screenplay and acting came together brilliantly to tell a touching, heartfelt story about a lovable, ordinary guy who so many could relate to on many levels. Borgnine's portrayal of Marty was very deserving of him winning the Oscar, and I think that his performance brought the character so far into our hearts that it made the movie that much more deserving of the Best Picture Oscar.
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Agreed. We live in a cynical era now, but that story hit a lot of people where they lived.
The pain of his speech to his mother about not wanting to go out to the dance hall: "Another night of heartbreak...being turned down...I'm just a fat, ugly man."
The boredom of unmarried, plain men not having to do anything on a Saturday night("Whaddya want to do? I dunno, whaddya YOU want to do?"
The VERY true element of his male friend "dissing" the woman as too ugly for Marty -- when really, he didn't want to LOSE Marty. Marty had to go against "what other people think" to realize that sometimes in love, you have to lower your expectations... and THEY lower THEIR expectations to love you.
The truly heartbreaking scene where Marty stands up the woman and she watches TV with her parents and the camera moves in on her. You feel EVERYBODY's pain - the woman, her parents, even Marty's for doing this to her.
The issue of dependence of aging mothers upon their adult children. Hitchcock took up this theme a lot, and even HIRED "Marty's mother" to play the mother of "Italian-American" Henry Fonda in The Wrong Man, the next year.
There were a lot of realistic, painful human elements in the story of Marty. Its one of those Best Pictures driven by a great screenplay and great acting to carry it off.