Marty

Last night My Lovely Wife™ wanted to watch 'something old but good'. That's not a tall order in The Williams Household. Well, 'good' is a relative term. What she meant was: I want to watch something that displays characters and settings that allude to a bygone era but NOT something with monsters in rubber suits, silly acting, or guys who's dialog came out of a Raymond Chandler novel.

So once again, we watched MARTY.

I love this damn movie.

MARTY is just about the best movie ever made. Ernest Borgnine plays the title character: a 34 year-old butcher who's 5 brothers and sisters have all gotten married and moved away. He still lives in The Bronx with his mother in a big old house, where he is constantly harangued by his family and neighborhood 'hens' for being single. Marty's still a bachelor for obvious reasons(to him): he is a fat, ugly man. And even though he has a huge heart, it doesn't seem to matter.

One night he gives in to his own ego and decides to go to a big dance hall with his pal, Angie. They are wallflowers, and Marty is miserable. He's approached by a slick jerk who wants to dump his blind date because "she's a dog, a real dog," and he offers Marty $5 to pretend to be his army buddy and "take her off my hands." Marty is appalled at the guy's behavior, and he refuses. The slickster propositions another wallflower who goes for the idea, and Marty watches as the setup falls apart by an embarrassed Clara, who eventually stands up and walks out onto a balcony to escape the humiliation of not fitting in. Marty goes out there to ask her to dance, and she cries on his shoulder.

Perfect. Fucking. Movie.

I only described the first act. The rest of the movie is all about the rest of the evening and the next day, when Marty has top cope with the fact that, for the first time in his life, he's got himself a prospect. I'm telling you... this movie will blow you away. I'm such a damn fanboy.