Don't Make a Scene: Marty

The Story: First off, Happy Mother's Day.

 

I've done several of these for Mom's Day...and they are always...a bit dark—scenes from Hitchcock (who always seemed to resent mothers and their frailties...yeah, like he didn't have any!) and the like. And it's not entirely fair, less of them than of me. I got along great with my Mother, although we had our differences. She grew up in a household that didn't employ the rod, but "the guilts" and she learned how to apply that very well, intimidatingly so. She wasn't one for therapy or self-examination ("pull yourself up by your boot-straps!"), so she probably never reflected that where she got it was from her parents. She only knew what she knew from her experience, what she grew up with (my Father, on the other hand, was a happy-go-lucky Irishman, and probably thought punishment was an interruption of "good times ahead." He could "guilt" you, too. But rarely).

 

And Mom was so much better at it.

 

Maybe next year, I'll celebrate with a "mothering instinct" kind of scene, although I'm not sure from where. John Ford, maybe, but he treated mothers like they were holy shrines (Oh! I know one. It's heart-breaking!).

 

But, this is Marty, more a product of Paddy Chayefsky than director Delbert Mann, so I think of Chayefsky as the "auteur" here (only enforced in that it was Mann's first feature film). Chayefsky could put mothers on pedestals, too, but they were frail things sometimes of their own design that could collapse if the slight was too much...or...they'd sabotage it themselves, if only to get you to pay attention to your transgressions against them ("the IDEA!").

 

I love this scene, and Borgnine—extraordinarily restrained—and Esther Minciotti (who's remarkable despite leaning into stereotype) make a meal of it.

 

The Set-up: Marty Piletti (Ernest Borgnine) has a girl! Can you believe it? 34 years and running a butcher shop in the Bronx and never married! He should be ashamed! He is, but it's because he's 34 and unattractive and the girls, they look right through him. But, he spent time with Clara Snyder (Betsy Blair) last night—that school-teacher?—and she's not exactly a spring chicken (if you know what I mean). I mean the mook even took her to his house that he shares with his mother (Esther Minciotti), saint that she is, and after the initial hope that something might come from this, she's heard talk that this is the first step to maybe Marty moving her out. His own mother. Tch! It's a good thing that there's church today. Maybe she can talk him out of something that she's been talking to him about for....well, since EVAH!

 

Action.

 

CHURCH. A HIGH, WIDE ANGLE SHOT of the church establishes that stage of Sunday morning between the nine and ten o'clock masses. People flock around the doors of the church. 

INSIDE THE CHURCH. 

The parishioners are making their ways to the door. A few silent penitents still kneel here and there in the long empty rows of pews. The large, almost empty church is filled now with organ MUSIC. 

Both Marty and his mother seem a little depressed as they stand at the doorway just inside the church, as the nine o'clock mass people flow out, and the first of the ten o'clock mass people file in. 

MRS. PILLETTI That was a nice girl last night, Marty. 

(Marty nods) 

MRS. PILLETTI She wasn't a very good-looking girl, but she looks like a nice girl. 

(she pauses, Marty makes no reply) 

MRS. PILLETTI I said, she wasn't a very good-looking girl... not very pretty... 

MARTY (still amiable) I heard you, Ma. 

MRS. PILLETTI She looks a little old for you. 

MRS. PILLETTI About thirty-five, forty years old? 

MARTY She's twenty-nine, Ma. 

A nearby kneeling penitent looks disapprovingly at Mrs. Pilletti and shushes her. 

The mother nods briefly. 

MRS. PILLETTI She's more than twenty-nine years old, Marty. That's what she tells you.

Bonjourno...

MARTY What, Ma? 

MRS. PILLETTI She looks thirty-five, forty. 

MRS. PILLETTI She didn't look Italian to me. 

Marty frowns but remains silent. 

MRS. PILLETTI I said, is she Italian girl? 

MARTY I don't know. I don't think so, Ma. 

It's Mrs. Pilletti's turn to frown. A silence. 

She turns back to Marty. 

MRS. PILLETTI She don't look Italian to me. 

MRS. PILLETTI What kinda family she come from? 

MRS. PILLETTI I-I-I-I don't know...There was something about her I didn't like. 

MRS. PILLETTI It seems funny, the first time you meet her, she comes to your empty house alone. 

MRS. PILLETTI These college girls, they all one step fromma streets. 

Marty turns, on the verge of anger with his mother. 

MARTY What are you talking about? She's a nice girl. 

MRS. PILLETTI She didn't look Italian to me. 

A silence hangs between them. 

MRS. PILLETTI I don't like her. 

MARTY You don't like her. You only met her for two minutes. 

MRS. PILLETTI Don't bring her to the house no more. 

MARTY What didn't you like about her? 

MRS. PILLETTI I don't know! She don't look like Italian to me. 

MRS. PILLETTI Plenny a nice Italian girls around. 

MARTY Well, let's not get inna fight about it, Ma. 

The kneeling woman shushes them again. 

By now the nine o'clock worshipers have filed out, and Marty joins the flow of ten o'clock people moving in. His mother turns back to him again. 

MARTY (stopping her before she gets started) What are you getting so worked up about? I just met the girl last night. 

MARTY I'm probably not gonna see her again anyhow.

MARTY C'mon.

They continue down the aisle of the church.

 

Marty

Words by Paddy Chayevsky

Pictures by Joseph LaShelle and Delbert Mann

Marty is available on DVD and Blu-Ray from M-G-M Home Video and Kino-Lorber.