The Praise

Marty is one of only two films (the other is The Lost Weekend) to win both the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival and the Academy Award for best picture. Besides best picture, it won Oscars for best director, actor, and adapted screenplay, with nominations for supporting actor (Joe Mantell), supporting actress (Betsy Blair), art direction, and cinematography. At 90 minutes, it’s the shortest Best Picture in Oscar history. (Don’t expect that record to be broken anytime soon, either. Oscar winners are gettin’ longer, not shorter.)

The Context

In a world where it’s common to make movies based on nothing more than a board game or a catchphrase, it’s hard to believe there was ever a time when Hollywood was opposed to using television as a resource. But indeed, the movie industry’s reaction to the advent of television, in the early 1950s, was the same as its reaction to most new things: the studios panicked, went on the offensive, and dreamed up gimmicks to recapture audiences. But they eventually realized that cinema attendance might increase if they put out more movies that were … you know … good. That meant swallowing their pride and embracing anything that might be profitable, even if it came from TV.

Television was offering Hollywood some meaty options, too. Thanks to the proliferation of anthology series, which basically presented a different 60- or 90-minute movie each week, there were dozens of scripts floating around that could potentially be adapted into theatrical films. The first of these TV-to-cinema adaptations was Marty, a simple, light drama that had originated as an episode of the Philco Television Playhouse (also known as the Goodyear Television Playhouse, depending on who the sponsor was) in May 1953, written by Bronx native Paddy Chayefsky and directed by Delbert Mann. The hour-long TV version starred Rod Steiger and Nancy Marchand (whom you may know as Tony Soprano’s mother), and even by the standards of the TV drama anthology, which were high, it was considered excellent.

Chayefsky, who’d dabbled in movie writing before turning to television a few years earlier, had been savvy enough to stipulate in his contract that he alone would have the right to adapt Marty into a movie, should it come to that; he evidently realized that TV and film were going to transition from an adversarial relationship to a symbiotic one sooner or later. The film version of Marty began shooting in September 1954, with Delbert Mann returning as director (his debut as a filmmaker) and a few of the supporting actors reprising their roles. The lead, however, had to be replaced. Rod Steiger didn’t want to sign the multi-picture contract that the film producers were requiring, so he was out; Ernest Borgnine, an up-and-comer who’d had a memorable role in From Here to Eternity (1953), was in. (Nancy Marchand, primarily a stage actress at that time, had never been on TV before she did Marty, and was probably never considered for the movie version.)

The Movie

The title character is a 34-year-old Bronx man who’s friendly and kind but, how shall we say it, rather homely in the face. Who better to play him than Ernest Borgnine? (OK, maybe Rod Steiger.) Marty’s Italian mama and everyone else he knows is always badgering him to get married, but he has little luck with the ladies, on account of the homeliness. Then he meets the plain-looking Clara (Betsy Blair).

What it Influenced

Released in April 1955, Marty was a hit, grossing more than $3 million — a 1,000% return on its $300,000 production budget. Critics adored it as well, and some recognized that it represented a coming shift. Bosley Crowther began his review bluntly: “No matter what the movie people may say or think about television, they have it to thank for Marty.”

“The movie people” were hard-pressed to disagree. If teleplays could be expanded into feature films for very little money and released in cinemas, where they could make a lot of money … well, that’s powerful enough incentive for even the most stubborn movie execs to get over their grudge against TV. Television didn’t have to be a competitor — it could be a cash cow.

Over the next several years, many scripts from these TV anthologies were turned into films: Patterns (1956), Edge of the City (1957), 12 Angry Men (1957), The Bachelor Party (1957, by Mann and Chayefsky again), No Time for Sergeants (1958), Middle of the Night (1959), Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), Requiem for a Heavyweight (1962), Days of Wine and Roses (1962) — the list goes on. Most of these followed Marty‘s lead by staying pretty close to their TV roots, shooting in black and white and not in widescreen. That sounds contradictory — how can you lure people away from their TVs and into theaters when your movies look like TV shows? — but the idea was to keep the productions simple and inexpensive. Audiences didn’t mind paying to see an expanded version of something that had previously aired on television. Most of these anthologies were performed live and weren’t repeated. To be able to see one of them again at all was a rare treat.

Marty was also significant because it was an independent film, and a very successful one. It was produced by the Hecht-Lancaster company (founded by producer Harold Hecht and actor Burt Lancaster) at a time when most non-studio productions, when they happened at all, tended to be cheap B-movies, not Oscar winners. Throughout the 1950s, certain important indie films began to pop up, setting the stage for what would eventually be an integral part of the movie business.

What to Look For

Like the protagonist, Marty isn’t much to look at. There’s nothing particularly “cinematic” about it, except for being shot on location rather than in a studio. But the script provides an intriguing snapshot of urban single life in the 1950s. I don’t need to tell you to notice the sexism — it would be hard to miss. Marty is acknowledged as being dumpy and portly, yet everyone assumes he ought to be able to get married anyway. Clara, on the other hand, is repeatedly called a “dog,” and Marty’s friends mock him for considering dating her. Ugly men can find pretty girlfriends, but ugly women are expected to be alone forever. Some of this imbalance remains today, of course, but movies don’t usually lay it out so blatantly or unapologetically.

What’s the Big Deal?

Little about the movie itself is noteworthy. It’s a warm, honest, well-produced melodrama — likable enough, but not the kind of thing that screams “Oscar for best picture.” But even if it didn’t deserve that honor, its victory at the Oscars might have been a good thing because it gave the movie studios courage to embrace TV as a fertile well of source material. The two mediums had to learn to live with each other eventually, and Marty was just the sort of pleasant, unassuming ambassador to get the ball rolling. Without Marty, there wouldn’t have been, for example, 12 Angry Men, which gave director Sidney Lumet his start. Nor would there be Ernest Borgnine, a Hollywood legend whose one and only Oscar nomination came from this film. Admit it, the world would be a less interesting place without Ernest Borgnine.

Further reading: Here are the original reviews from Variety, The New York Times, and Time magazine.

Related columns: What’s the Big Deal?: 12 Angry Men (1957); What’s the Big Deal?: Network (1976).

Tags: delbert mann, eric d. snider, ernest borgnine, Judgment at Nuremberg, marty, Middle of the Night, No Time for Sergeants, paddy chayefsky, Requiem for a Heavyweight, what's the big deal?