Marty (United Artists) (1955)

PUBLICITY “Marty,” Award-Winning Television Play, Reaches The Movie Screen As A Widely-Acclaimed Hit (Feature) Hollywood’s first full-length picture to be expanded from a triumphant television play, turns out to be a welcome and artistic surprise that brings a new technique to films. It is the picture, “Marty,” produced by the Hecht-Lancaster organization for United Artists, openWigtccaeuc. RESENE: vdaceess. ba Theatre. Originally presented on television it won both the coveted Donaldson award and the Sylvania award as the best drama on TY last year. Its sheer simplicity in presenting an intense love story was guided by the same director and author who created it for television. Delbert Mann, the director, undertook it as his first effort in films and Paddy Chayefsky, the original writer, also expanded his story for this picture. It is totally unpretentious. The cast has no fabulous Hollywood names and the picture cost less than a million dollars. Harold Hecht, who personally produced it, admitted that the undertaking was launched “as a calculated risk, in the conviction that people yearn for simple, human emotions in their pictures.” Filming was done largely in the congested North Bronx region in New York. Ernest Borgnine, who played the brutal sergeant role in “From Here To Eternity,” appears now as a kindly and bashful neighborhood butcher who has never known love. It is his first screen role other than as a brawny heavy. The feminine lead is played by Betsy Blair, wife of Gene Kelly, an experienced actress, who dared to accept a Hollywood part sans glamour. Others in the cast demonstrate their merits as character actors of ability, but none of them ever touched the heights of stardom. Hecht said he believes now that the role will place Borgnine’s name in lights, along with that of Betsy Blair and perhaps some others in the cast. The story that Chayefsky wrote encountered only superficial changes in adaptation for the picture. He flew from New York to write and remained with Mann through the filming there and in the Bronx. He is a native of New York, 32 years old, and was wounded in World War II. Obviously a realist, he demanded that quality in the film version and got it. Harold Hecht and Still M-205-31 Comedy is joyously interlaced in the tender love story of “Marty,” widely-acclaimed movie hit which opens ........ Still M-352-28 Mat (3A) The Saturday Night Blues is the theme song of the love-hungry bachelors who frequent dance halls in search of romance. This universal scene is depicted poignantly but with comic overtones in “Marty,” the celebrated movie which opens ....... St the .aies.. erated by icy stares and cold shoulders. . Theatre. Ernest Borgnine and Joe Mantell are seen here deeply refrig Burt Lancaster, the producers, wanted it, too. Mann was definitely in agreement and the entire cast fell in with the unique proposal to make a picture that mirrored life without equivocation or hokum. Hecht, an outspoken man who is strong in his. singular convictions, added another characteristic comment. “We departed from the old pattern,” he said. “We believe that producers are about ready now to quit playing it safe. Some of them have by gambling with unknown names. They’ve been doing it in Europe and it pays off. The producers who are willing to experiment with new techniques, the offbeat stories and new talent, are advancing the business and the art of picture making.” Mat (2D) at the Theatre. This scene features Walter Kelley, Robin Morse and star Ernest Borgnine who plays “Marty.” Harold Hecht produced the Hecht-Lancaster presentation for United Artists release. ‘Marty’ Producer Sees New Trend In Hollywood Films (Feature) Harold Hecht, producer of “Marty” at the Theatre, has plenty of ammunition to support his belief that Hollywood is _ increasingly preaking away from the conventional ‘pattern and showing its willingness to take daring chances in selection of stories and casting—with profit to all concerned. He points to Bing Crosby’s offbeat performance as a has-been actor in “The Country Girl,” as well as to Jan Sterling’s deglamorized tramp in “The High and _ the Mighty,” as brilliant recent examples of unconventional casting. “Then there’s Marlon Brando, a first-rate dramatic actor, doing a song-and-dance man in ‘Guys and Dolls,’ and Frank Sinatra, a firstrate song-and-dance man, playing the heavily dramatic role of a psychopathic killer in ‘Suddenly.’ Jose Ferrer, like Brando a brilliant dramatic actor, also turns to song and dance in ‘Deep in My Heart.’ And June Allyson, the epitome of wholesomeness in all her previous pictures, plays the nagging, neurotic, unsympathetic wife in “The Shrike.’ “Finally, and with all due modesty, I point to the casting of Ernie Borgnine, possibly the most reprehensible villain of recent years as Fatso in ‘From Here to Eternity,’ playing the role of a sweet, soft, achingly sympathetic butcher’s helper in ‘Marty’.” Betsy Blair co-stars with Borgnine in this widely-praised adaptation of the prize-winning Chayefsky play. “Marty,” according to Hecht, is an experiment in presenting life as it is, without glamorization, with Still M-R21-44 Mat (1A) Ernest Borgnine, as “Marty” in the title role of the prize-winning play-into-movie due ... at the ........ Theatre. An unhandsome butcher, “Marty” meets failure again in trying for a Saturday night date. It’s an intense love story, tender and realistic. Harold Hecht produced the film for United Artists release. out sugar-coating. He feels that movie audiences are ready—maybe even eager—for a picture about people who are no different from themselves. The validity of Hecht’s point of view was dramatically proven by the sensational box-office success scored by “Marty” immediately after its release. Realism, Tenderness Mark “Marty” Appeal (Prepared Review) The thing you'll like most about United Artists release, “Marty” selves. It is this very quality of understanding, of human “Marty” is your feeling of oneness with him. As conceived by Paddy Chayefsky in his prize-winning television play and robust with flesh and blood vitality on the ........ Theatre screen where it opened yesterday through is someone we all know intimately—perhaps even as we know our ness, of gentle thoughts and plain talk—brought to The story is beautiful and touching. It shows us Marty, played magnificently by Ernest Borgnine, as a thirtyish butcker in New York’s teeming Bronx. striking realization on the screen by an impeccable cast and sensitive director—that accounts for the tremendous success “Marty” has met up with virtually everywhere. We haven’t a doubt that “Marty” will do as well in our town, for we urge you to rush tO: 46 seco eres Theatre to see it. Producer Harold Hecht of the Hecht-Lancaster Organization, deserves our gratitude for risking the first movie based unabashedly on a television play, for assigning the direction to Delbert Mann who did the original and for seeing in Ernest Borgnine, the sadistic sergeant of “From Here to Eternity,” the perfect man for mellow Marty. Equally outstanding is Betsy Blair in the co-starring role. ACADEMY AWARD CCPY Be sure to add a paragraph to all publicity releases about the 4 Academy Awards won by "MARTY"? BRONX REAL SET FOR ‘MARTY’ So far as Hollywood has been concerned—and the rest of the world for the matter—the Bronx, one of the five boroughs of New York City, has been chiefly celebrated as the vaguely comic home of a cheer, a cocktail and the baseball team on which Marilyn Monroe’s husband once played. It has been regarded, in short, as something of a state of mind rather than as a large populous area inhabited by several million Americans, all of whose lives are very real and very earnest. The Bronx becomes a real, threedimensional place for the first time on the screen in “Marty,” United Artists release opening on ...... WR eb sts Theatre. The old borough serves as the background against which the tender and sympathetic love story of two simple people is played out, and it was in the North Bronx, on location, that “Marty” was shot in its entirety. A Hecht-Lancaster production directed by Delbert Mann, “Marty” is a screen adaptation of Paddy Chayefsky’s famous award-winning television drama. Ernest Borgnine (the sadistic Fatso of “From Here to Eternity”) and Betsy Blair are costarred as a sort of modern neighborhood Romeo and Juliet, two plain people in a desperate search for love. The supporting cast is composed of talented actors recruited from the Broadway stage. Not only did the cameras of the “Marty” crew probe into the lives of two fictional but very real Bronx inhabitants, but they also made a thorough exploration of the physical side of the borough. All exterior shots were photographed on actual Bronx sidestreets and thoroughfares. Still M-R18-A15 Mat (1B) Betsy Blair appearing in “Marty” opposite Ernest Borgnine at the .....theatre.