Marty (1955)

This recalling of my decision to watch the film and a brief review of it were quickly written after completing the film during my senior year of college. My overall rating for the film was 4 stars out of a possible 4. It was the 256th feature-length film to receive my highest rating distinction.

Since it is the morning of the 91st Oscars, I thought it would be fitting to watch one of the Best Picture winners I had yet to see before heading into work today. A random number generator decided I should watch Ordinary People (1980), but I was unable to fulfill this particular filmwatching commitment due to its runtime length. I did not have two hours and four minutes to spare before leaving, so I quickly sorted the Best Pictures by runtime and discovered that Marty was the shortest of the 27 winners I've never seen. Not only was it the shortest I'd never seen, but I also learned that Marty, at an hour and a half in length, is the shortest ever winner of the award. Much to my surprise, I did not need to go searching for it like I did for The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), as it was in its entirety on Facebook of all places (on the page “The Fabulous Fifties").

I knew that Marty has always been considered one of the best films to win the award, but also one of the most forgotten winners by the film community as a whole. I also knew this tragic distinction of high acclaim and being mostly forgotten is something Marty shared with The Lost Weekend (1945), in addition to the fact that they are the only Best Picture winners to also claim the Palme d'Or, the top prize at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival. (For the record, I also have yet to see The Lost Weekend, but it is very high on my watchlist.)

So, how was Marty? Well... it was remarkable, splendid, magnificent, charming, fascinating, brilliant!!!!!! I loved it! I cannot believe that I went this far through life without seeing Marty. It is easily one of the ten or fifteen best films to win Best Picture and perhaps one of the three or four most watchable Best Picture winners. It is also easily one of the ten best films to win the Palme d'Or. But as strong as the film is when compared to its award-winning peers, Ernest Borgnine deserves even bigger praise for his subtly commanding performance as the titular butcher. He gives one of the performances most-deserving of the Best Actor Oscar. Off the top of my head, only Gregory Peck (for To Kill a Mockingbird), Gene Hackman (for The French Connection), George C. Scott (for Patton), Paul Scofield (for A Man for All Seasons), and Marlon Brando (for On the Waterfront) deserved their Best Actor Oscars more than Borgnine. I wish I could write more, but I need to get to work.