This tidy little character study of a lonesome guy and a lonesome gal who discover one another in the marauding rabble of a Bronx ballroom and hook up notwithstanding their families and friends makes a warmhearted and charming story, alive with the kind of frank observation of ordinary, monotonous folks that even now rarely makes the screen. Save quite an abrupt conclusion, it's a spruce and gratifying movie. Basically, this hour-and-a-half vignette is simply a pleasant, melancholy castigation of some of the socially self-conscious mores of the inner-city working class. The hero, a gruff, thickset butcher, is 34, single, taking no risks and adrift in tedium and seclusion. He lives with his old-fashioned Italian ma and squanders dreary hours with his likewise feeble pals whose paradigm of femininity is shared only by Mickey Spillane.
Into the life of this chum comes a dull, desperate schoolteacher who's as hopelessly jaded and alone as he. She, also, has accepted the humiliation and sorrow of being rejected. She, as well, has nearly tired any expectation of finding someone. And albeit our hero nobly assures her, she needs much more than assurance. Borgnine, who "would've done it for free," and Betsy Blair are such an endearing pair of underdogs. Dogs, indeed, according to the values of the Bronx backdrop. And that's what makes them lovable.
Blair's first moments are so crushingly tender. We see how naïve she is on account of her desperation to lighten the weight of desperation and inferiority. She'll take whatever she can get. It makes this early Chayefsky nugget that much more life-affirming that it pulls no punches in life's cruelty to her, because when Marty comes along, we feel that relief, that warmth that she does. It's because of Borgnine's unassuming earnestness that we immediately see that Marty is not just the one of any shoulders Blair needs to lean on, and hang on to for dear life in her quiet, beaten-down way, because his performance is not in the least self-involved. He treats his co-star with the attentive care and respect that's needed for them to ignite the screen as small-fry lovers in the quicksand of their insular neighborhood, which is its own rich character.
As Marty's anxious mother, Esther Minciotti is excellent, and Augusta Ciolli is brilliant as a dourly needy aunt. Jerry Paris is gripping in his few scenes as the aunt's conscience-suffering son, and Joe Mantell is amusing and penetrating as Marty's chum. Chayefsky's script is rich with truthful and vibrant dialogue, so brusque and tactless at times that it breaks your heart while smacking of humor with its frankness and liveliness. And Mann's superb dramatization has got the texture and savor of the Bronx.
There is this down-to-earth state of affairs. That's it. Yet inside the histrionic interlude of not much more than a day or so, our hero infiltrates the reserves of his apprehensive and self-doubting mindset. He movingly acknowledges someone equally as forlorn as he. And he humorously and daringly grasps for her despite the pathetic sneering of everyone else.
Into the life of this chum comes a dull, desperate schoolteacher who's as hopelessly jaded and alone as he. She, also, has accepted the humiliation and sorrow of being rejected. She, as well, has nearly tired any expectation of finding someone. And albeit our hero nobly assures her, she needs much more than assurance. Borgnine, who "would've done it for free," and Betsy Blair are such an endearing pair of underdogs. Dogs, indeed, according to the values of the Bronx backdrop. And that's what makes them lovable.
Blair's first moments are so crushingly tender. We see how naïve she is on account of her desperation to lighten the weight of desperation and inferiority. She'll take whatever she can get. It makes this early Chayefsky nugget that much more life-affirming that it pulls no punches in life's cruelty to her, because when Marty comes along, we feel that relief, that warmth that she does. It's because of Borgnine's unassuming earnestness that we immediately see that Marty is not just the one of any shoulders Blair needs to lean on, and hang on to for dear life in her quiet, beaten-down way, because his performance is not in the least self-involved. He treats his co-star with the attentive care and respect that's needed for them to ignite the screen as small-fry lovers in the quicksand of their insular neighborhood, which is its own rich character.
As Marty's anxious mother, Esther Minciotti is excellent, and Augusta Ciolli is brilliant as a dourly needy aunt. Jerry Paris is gripping in his few scenes as the aunt's conscience-suffering son, and Joe Mantell is amusing and penetrating as Marty's chum. Chayefsky's script is rich with truthful and vibrant dialogue, so brusque and tactless at times that it breaks your heart while smacking of humor with its frankness and liveliness. And Mann's superb dramatization has got the texture and savor of the Bronx.
There is this down-to-earth state of affairs. That's it. Yet inside the histrionic interlude of not much more than a day or so, our hero infiltrates the reserves of his apprehensive and self-doubting mindset. He movingly acknowledges someone equally as forlorn as he. And he humorously and daringly grasps for her despite the pathetic sneering of everyone else.