Ernest Borgnine stars as Marty Piletti an Italian American living in the Bronx. He’s a 34-year-old who works as a butcher in a small shop and supports his widowed mother in the house where he grew up with his brothers and sisters. But all of them, even the younger ones have gotten married and only Marty is left hanging out with his friends who talk about women all night long but mostly can’t get a date. None of them are matinee idols and Marty is probably the homeliest of the bunch.
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When his mother, who worries that Marty will never marry, harangues him to go out to the Stardust Ballroom to find a girl, he laments that he’s been rejected countless times and is tired of it. But he agrees to go and initially things go as usual. Girls he asks to dance brush him off. But a man comes by and asks a favor. The other man is on a blind date and is unhappy about his date’s looks. He wants to tell the girl that he has to leave but then have Marty take her home so she won’t feel abandoned at the dance. Marty objects to the idea so the man finds someone else willing to escort the girl home for a five-dollar fee.
Marty follows the two men and witnesses the girl being callously rejected. She refuses the offer to be brought home and the two men leave. The girl is visibly devastated and leaves the dance floor and heads for an outdoor space to be alone. Marty follows her and sees that she is crying. Trying to cheer her up he approaches her and asks if she’d like to dance. Overwhelmed by emotion she sinks her face in his shoulder and cries while Marty nervously pats her shoulder to comfort her.
In the next scene the couple are dancing and we meet Clara Snyder. She is a twenty-nine-year-old school teacher. Her relatively plain face has meant that like Marty she has never been in love. The two hit it off tremendously. Normally shy and tongue-tied Marty talks garrulously and exuberantly to this stranger. And Clara is charmed that a man is so genuinely enthusiastic to be in her company. They spend several hours talking while eating pie in a local diner. At the end of the night Marty asks Clara to go to the movies the next night and they agree that he will call her next afternoon to decide on the details. They both end the night deliriously happy to be in love.
But next morning his mother has had a change of heart and fears that if Marty gets married, she will be cast aside. She tells Marty that she dislikes Clara even though she barely met her. She tells Marty that Clara is old, unattractive and probably of loose morals because of her college education. Also, Marty’s friends that saw Clara tell him that she’s a dog and not worth his time. Now Marty allows himself to be persuaded by the people around him and fails to call Clara in the afternoon. We see Clara at home that evening watching television with her parents and quietly crying.
But spending the night with his loser friends snaps Marty out of their spell. He mocks their endless vacillation about what to do and their loveless lives. He declares that he had a good time with Clara and if he has enough good nights with her, he’ll get down on his knee and beg her to marry him. He then leaves them and heads to a phone booth to call Clara and change his life.
Marty is a straight forward story of two lonely people and the marvelous accident that brings them together and changes their lives for the better. The movie has heart and even with the changes in social behavior between 1955 and today the humanity of the two main characters shines through and provides a timeless message, that there is beauty within. Highly recommended as a date movie for couples.