Marty (1955) on Netflix
Unmarried at 34, Bronx butcher Marty Piletti is badgered by his family and his customers to settle down. His mother sends him to the Stardust Ballroom, where he meets Clara, a schoolteacher.
- Netflix3.7/5
- IMDb7.6/1031,033 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes96%
Trailer
Plot summary
Marty Piletti is a 34-year-old Italian-American butcher in the Bronx who lives with his widowed mother, Teresa. His brothers and sisters are all married, and most have children, while customers, relatives and friends keep telling him that he should settle down. Disheartened by his lack of prospects, he has resigned himself to bachelorhood. Badgered by his mother, he goes one Saturday night to the Stardust Ballroom, where he meets Clara, a high school science teacher whose blind date has abandoned her and who sits weeping on the roof. They dance, walk the streets and talk in a diner, and Marty tells her about his life and his hopes. The two encourage each other.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Marty (1955)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Rod Steiger, who played Marty in the 1953 teleplay, turned down the film role after producers Harold Hecht and Burt Lancaster demanded he sign a multiple-picture commitment as a condition of keeping it; Ernest Borgnine took the part instead.
- Betsy Blair, blacklisted for her Marxist and Communist sympathies, lobbied for the role of Clara; her husband Gene Kelly used his Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer stardom to pressure United Artists into casting her, reportedly threatening to quit It's Always Fair Weather if she did not get it.
- Ernest Borgnine said the producers planned to leave Marty partly unfinished and write it off so they could take salaries without showing a corporate profit, but the tax man refused: they had to finish it, screen it once, then take the loss.
- Marty won the first Palme d'Or ever awarded, and is one of only four films, with The Lost Weekend, Parasite and Anora, to win both the Academy Award for Best Picture and Cannes' top prize.
- Marty and Annie Hall are the shortest films ever to win Best Picture, each running only 93 minutes.
- In 1994 the Library of Congress deemed Marty culturally, historically or aesthetically significant and chose it for preservation in the National Film Registry.
