Marty

TCM is celebrating their 31 Days of Oscar right now, which means all the best movies are on TV, and I was finally able to watch a little black-and-white film that I love. I've only seen it once before, one weekend on campus when I was alone in the dorm, and have been trying to find it playing ever since. When I found out it was Oscar month I checked the list and sure enough, it was playing! I even set it as an event on my phone so I wouldn't forget to watch it.

The movie is Marty, a 1955 release staring Ernest Borgnine as a lonely butcher who still lives with his mother. All 5 of his siblings are married, and all the neighborhood ladies tell him he should be ashamed of himself for still being single. He goes out one night and meets a nice girl, and even though everyone wants him to get married no one approves of her--she's too college-educated for his mother and not pretty enough for his best friend. In the end he ignores both of them and calls her up to go out again because he knows what a great girl she is.

There are a lot of things I love about this movie. First of all, the characters are plain, everyday people. It's not like Ryan Reynolds is playing the down-and-out guy next door, because no one really believes that. I could believe Borgnine as a sensitive, 35-year-old bachelor.

Second, the match made sense. As much as I love a good romantic comedy, there are way too many films where the average guy gets the hot girl. Seth Rogen and Katherine Heigl in Knocked Up, Kevin James and Amber Valletta in Hitch, Adam Sandler and anyone who's ever played opposite him. It frustrates me that in today's media a man can be accepted just how he his, but a woman has to be perfect. How many movies do you know where an average woman lands an out-of-her-league partner--without having a major makeover first? (Note to self: write a novel with this premise, adopt it into a blockbuster movie, make millions.) In this film, the woman who plays Marty's love interest (Betsy Blair) isn't especially pretty, but he likes her anyway and doesn't ask her to change.

Betsy Blair as Clara in Marty

Which brings me to my third favorite thing: Marty's views on marriage. While they're out dancing he tells Clara (Betsy's character) how well his parents got along, and that even though his father was "ugly", his mother adored him. He says something along the lines of, "If you're going to be married to someone for 40 or 50 years, you've got to be more than good looking." That is such great advice.

If you're flipping through the channels and see Marty on, be sure to watch it. It's one of the most realistic and uplifting romances, even in its simplicity.