Marty (1955)

Director: Delbert Mann.
Writers: Paddy Chayefsky.
Stars: Ernest Borgnine, Betsy Blair, Esther Minciotti.    
Runtime: 90 minutes    

Plot: A middle-aged butcher and a school teacher who has given up on the idea of love, meet at a dance and fall in love.

Review: This neat little character study of a lonely fellow and a lonely girl who find each other in the prowling mob at a Bronx dance hall and get together despite their families and their friends was originally done as a TV drama, and its present transposition to the screen has been accomplished by its TV director, Delbert Mann, as his first film achievement.

The transfer is well worth a tribute, for "Marty" makes a warm and winning film, full of the sort of candid comment on plain, drab people that seldom reaches the screen. Ernest Borgnine as the fellow and Betsy Blair as the girl—not to mention three or four others — give performances that burn into the mind. Except for a rather sudden ending that leaves a couple of threads untied and the emotional climax not quite played out, it is a trim and rewarding show. With all the others they present a dandy study in this Harold Hecht-Burt Lancaster film.

Reviewed by Mohaiminul Islam