Marty - Movie Review

Marty stars Ernest Borgnine as a butcher in New York City. He’s thirty-fiver years old and lies with his mother. He sees himself as someone that was never meant for love and as chosen to live his life that way. He goes out with his friends, has drinks, but at the end of the night or early in the morning his friends have either wives to get home to or a wound up with a lady friend, leaving Marty alone and bound for home.


His mother loves him and treats him like the grownup child he seems to be at times; being a Polish immigrant and bearing six children, she doesn’t know what it is like not to be a mother. But still, she encourages Marty to live the night and find a nice girl, but Marty just feels worse because he thinks he knows that he’s never going to walk someone home at night or have that special call to make.

And then he meets Clara (Betsy Blair); things start to change, and so do a few people and their attitudes.

Marty is a simple story about a simple man with a great heart. He’s not the best looking guy around but what he lacks in looks he rebounds in virtue and class. He even makes sure to walk a lady down the sidewalk with his body on the street’s side, allowing the woman to have protection next to the buildings in case a car veered off the road. That was something my grandparents taught me when I was young, and it stuck, because they’d bash me over the head if I ever forgot.

Borgnine was born to play a role like this and he makes the most of it. He has a natural boyish charm that was perfect for Marty, and when it’s time to for seriousness or a case calls for an intellectual analysis – it’s greatly displayed. Marty might be a feel-good movie for some people, and really we all know someone exactly like Marty, so it’s nice to see these folks find some kind of happiness, whether it be in love, business, life in general; it’s good to see that kindness is indeed rewarded.