Marty (1955)

 Landed on Marty after Amazon Prime suggested I watch Marty next after watching Dead End. It was past midnight and Marty was only 90 minutes long and boasted 4 Oscars from 1955 including the best picture, best director and best actor. Why not? Marty it was, to top off the night.

Marty is the story of Marty Piletti, a mid thirties bachelor butcher, living with his Italian American mother in the Bronx of the fifties. Like mid-thirties bachelors the world-over Marty too is harangued by his mother to marry and bring a girl home as soon as he can. But it is not easy for Marty, played by Ernest Borgnine, he is no Humphrey Bogart at forty five charming the socks of a nineteen year old Lauren Bacall. Marty is a stocky 35-year old butcher who ends up standing on the sidelines at the local dance hall the entire night on any given Saturday.

As luck would have it on one of those Saturdays he meets the female Marty. Betsy Blair (Gene Kelley's first wife) plays Clara who is a high school chemistry teacher, which I believe must have been a quite nerdy occupation for women of that era, who at 29 is also having a hard timing finding a life partner. Blair was one of the actors blacklisted during the McCarthy era. Gene Kelley, her husband had to strong arm the producers and threaten them he would quit the movie he was acting in if they didn't give the role to Blair.

Ernest Borgnine as Marty and Betsy Blair as Clara in Delbert Mann's Marty

This Delbert Mann movie feels like an international movie set in Bronx, where the inter-generational chaos of an Italian American joint family is on full display. Its relatability and down-to-earth script and cast might be why it became the first film ever to win the prestigious Palme d'Or when the award was introduced in 1955.

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Ozhivukaalam: A review of Bharathan's 1985 film

This was a movie I watched in the theater when it was released, one ozhivukaalam (transl ~ vacation or summer vacation), a rarity in our family.  We usually never went to watch new movies as we had the film club membership which showcased older, classic or indie movies which were deemed worthy of our time and money (= zero money spent, as these were free.) I remember my mother took us to watch Ozhivukaalam, being the reader that she is, my guess is the irresistible combo of Padmarajan's script and Bharathan's direction might have been the draw for her.

Prem Nazir, Sreevidya and Rohini in Ozhivukaalam (1985)

While I did like the idea of Rohini as a modern college girl I saw in the posters of Ozhivukaalam, I was not thrilled at the noticeable absence of Rahman. They were the teen heartthrob pairing those days, like Freddie Prinze Jr. and Sarah Michelle Geller. Not only was Rahman anywhere to be seen, it had Prem Nazir and Sreevidya - an older pair whose chemistry I had no interest in cringe-watching. I don't think I was really impressed after watching it, except that Rohini's role as an independent thinking teen who got a video camera as a gift, I thought, might start a trend of all girls receiving cameras as gifts.

Indian Railways featuring Rohini and Sreevidya

Re-watching it again after almost forty years I realize it is a very modern treatment of a slightly controversial subject - remarriage of a widow. This would definitely be a boring movie for grade school kids. Padmarajan's script holds the movie tight and contemporary. The casting is perfect and the location - Vadakara Sand banks is even more so. In addition to the main cast of Prem Nazir and Sreevidya who play the older couple  planning to get married and Rohini as Sreevidya's fiesty college going teen, Karamana Janardhanan Nair, Jalaja bring up the supporting cast. 

Rohini, Prem Nazir & Sreevidya in Ozhivukalam (1985)

Ozhivukalam is a well written and directed movie except for the twist at the end which anyone can see coming from a mile away, if they have watched a few Indian (any language) movies, which puts the movie squarely back in its era and palatable for the eighties audience.

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