Marty

Rating: 3.75/5

Marty was an incredibly welcome and unexpected film in a list of Oscar Best Picture winners that have a large number of movies with runtimes over 3 hours.

Marty is very simple, very sweet, and very short. It tells the story of a man named Marty, played by Ernest Borgnine, who feels as if he'll never find love and be able to move out of his mother's house. He meets a girl named Clara, played by Betsy Blair. Clara isn't what the men in the film would describe as striking, and in fact call her all sorts of horrid names that belittle her appearance. Marty, being ever the gentleman, sees the beauty in Clara that the other men who are too ignorant and superficial cannot. The two begin a romance.

Marty takes place over a very short span of time, yet you never for a moment doubt that Clara and Marty's romance is too expedited or unrealistic. Their characters are ones who have been longing for love and companionship, but have never found anyone who wasn't so focused on outward appearances. To be clear, Clara is not unattractive, but it's obvious that the movie intended her to look very plain in comparison to the other more dolled up women in the film.

There are definitely some aspects to Marty that may not fly in some movies by today's standards, but even so, there are still countless titles being released where characters are supposed to be the "ugly" one of the group, and I've always found that to be really unfortunate and honestly quite cruel. Marty, however, takes a different approach to it. Even though there are scenes where the words being thrown at Clara make me cringe with anger towards the behavior of the characters, the end result is an incredibly charming little love story, that proves that a Best Picture doesn't have to be a four hour long epic in order to be taken seriously.

1956 Best Picture Winner - Marty

1956 Best Actor in a Leading Role Winner - Ernest Borgnine

1956 Best Director Winner - Delbert Mann

1956 Best Writing, Screenplay Winner - Paddy Chayefsky