Ernest Borgnine stars as Marty Piletti an Italian American living in the Bronx.\u00a0 He\u2019s 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.\u00a0 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\u2019t get a date.\u00a0 None of them are matinee idols and Marty is probably the homeliest of the bunch.<\/p>\n
(Spoiler Alert \u2013 Skip down to last paragraph to avoid spoilers and read recommendation)<\/strong><\/p>\n 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\u2019s been rejected countless times and is tired of it.\u00a0 But he agrees to go and initially things go as usual.\u00a0 Girls he asks to dance brush him off.\u00a0 But a man comes by and asks a favor.\u00a0 The other man is on a blind date and is unhappy about his date\u2019s looks.\u00a0 He wants to tell the girl that he has to leave but then have Marty take her home so she won\u2019t feel abandoned at the dance.\u00a0 Marty objects to the idea so the man finds someone else willing to escort the girl home for a five-dollar fee.<\/p>\n Marty follows the two men and witnesses the girl being callously rejected.\u00a0 She refuses the offer to be brought home and the two men leave.\u00a0 The girl is visibly devastated and leaves the dance floor and heads for an outdoor space to be alone.\u00a0 Marty follows her and sees that she is crying.\u00a0 Trying to cheer her up he approaches her and asks if she\u2019d like to dance.\u00a0 Overwhelmed by emotion she sinks her face in his shoulder and cries while Marty nervously pats her shoulder to comfort her.<\/p>\n In the next scene the couple are dancing and we meet Clara Snyder.\u00a0 She is a twenty-nine-year-old school teacher.\u00a0 Her relatively plain face has meant that like Marty she has never been in love.\u00a0 The two hit it off tremendously.\u00a0 Normally shy and tongue-tied Marty talks garrulously and exuberantly to this stranger.\u00a0 And Clara is charmed that a man is so genuinely enthusiastic to be in her company.\u00a0 They spend several hours talking while eating pie in a local diner.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 They both end the night deliriously happy to be in love.<\/p>\n But next morning his mother has had a change of heart and fears that if Marty gets married, she will be cast aside.\u00a0 She tells Marty that she dislikes Clara even though she barely met her.\u00a0 She tells Marty that Clara is old, unattractive and probably of loose morals because of her college education.\u00a0 Also, Marty\u2019s friends that saw Clara tell him that she\u2019s a dog and not worth his time.\u00a0 Now Marty allows himself to be persuaded by the people around him and fails to call Clara in the afternoon.\u00a0 We see Clara at home that evening watching television with her parents and quietly crying.<\/p>\n But spending the night with his loser friends snaps Marty out of their spell.\u00a0 He mocks their endless vacillation about what to do and their loveless lives.\u00a0 He declares that he had a good time with Clara and if he has enough good nights with her, he\u2019ll get down on his knee and beg her to marry him.\u00a0 He then leaves them and heads to a phone booth to call Clara and change his life.<\/p>\n 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Highly recommended as a date movie for couples.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Ernest Borgnine stars as Marty Piletti an Italian American living in the Bronx.\u00a0 He\u2019s a 34-year-old who works as a butcher in a small shop<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[239,237],"tags":[3597,43,38,1355],"class_list":["post-18202","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie-reviews","category-reviews","tag-ernest-borgnine","tag-movie-review","tag-review","tag-reviews"],"yoast_head":"\n