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.

Don't Make a Scene: Marty

The Story: I like Paddy Chayevsky's writing a lot. I must like him, I've done enough of these scenes from his screenplays. A couple from The Americanization of Emily. A couple from Network. Another from The Hospital.

 

And one from Marty, the movie that this little scene comes from.

 

When I first watched the movie—it was only a couple years ago—this scene made my jaw drop a little. It's nothing. It's just a moment...a blip...a distraction in the screenplay, part of the stuff he wrote to expand his teleplay for The Philco-Goodyear Television Playhouse into a bona-fide screenplay for the movie theaters. 

But, it made me laugh. Two little Irish ladies in a bar gossiping, telling stories about other people and their stories to make their lives seem a little better. And with a little spite.

And it's perfect. You never see these two ladies again—they're extras (I can't even find the names of the actresses on IMDB)—but there's a whole story going on along with their never-mentioned back-story about why they might be there and why they're having this conversation, which has a wide range of emotions behind their words and why they would be talking about this. It's complete unto itself.

And it has nothing—absolutely nothing—to do with the rest of the movie. But, it gives you some of the atmosphere of a Bronx where leisure-time is spent looking for leisure, where gossip has more impact than what's in a newspaper, and where guys might belittle the girl you're seeing because she isn't something out of a Mickey Spillane novel.

Boy, that Paddy Chayevsky, he sure can write.

 

The Set-up: Another Saturday Night in The Big Apple. But, for such a big place packed together with so many people, loneliness is right at its core. Angie (Joe Mantell), best friend of Marty (Ernest Borgnine), is doing what he usually does on a Saturday night—looking for Marty, and so he goes to their usual hangout, the speakeasy—apparently the precursor to social media—but, Marty ain't there—he's on a date...with a girl (Betsy Blair)...unheard-of. He spends just enough time to get distracted, then leaves for another distraction. "Such a sad story."

 

Action.

 

THE BAR. NIGHT.

The SOUNDS of Saturday night revelry are loud, coming mostly from the Irish contingent of the neighborhood. They are grouped along practically the whole bar.

Three or four WOMEN and a number of shirt-sleeved MEN, mostly in their late forties, early fifties. We know they're Irish, because one of the younger men is chanting an auld country ballad. 

CAMERA ANGLES disclose the entrance to the bar in the background, showing Angie coming in, looking here and there. He starts toward the bar. 

NEAR BAR. 

TWO IRISH WOMEN, middle-aged, squat heavily on bar stools over their schooners of beer, gassing away at each other.

FIRST IRISH WOMAN ...so she told me at the risk of her life... 

Angie shuffles in, pausing near the bar and standing behind the two Irish women.

SECOND IRISH WOMAN She was always a bit thin in the hips...

FIRST IRISH WOMAN ...well, she told me that the doctor told her that if she had any more babies, she would do so at the risk of her life...  

FIRST IRISH WOMAN Well, at the time she told me this, she already had six. 

FIRST IRISH WOMAN Every time I saw the woman, she was either... 

ANGIE Hey, Lou! 

FIRST IRISH WOMAN ...going to the hospital or coming from it. She was hatching them out like eggs. 

SECOND IRISH WOMAN And that husband of hers is a skinny bit of a fellow, isn't he? 

FIRST IRISH WOMAN Well, I bumped into her on the street, and she was as big as a barrel. 

ANGIE (loudly) Hey, Lou! 

CAMERA ANGLES to include Lou, the Bartender. 

BARTENDER (looking up from opening a batch of beer bottles) What? 

FIRST IRISH WOMAN ...so I said to her, "Mary... 

ANGIE (calling to the Bartender) Ya seen Marty?

BARTENDER I ain't seen Marty all night... 

FIRST IRISH WOMAN "...Mary, for heaven's sakes,"

ANGIE (calling to the Bartender, but even more to himself) Where is everybody? I been walking around, I can't find anybody... 

FIRST IRISH WOMAN "...didn't you tell me that another one'll kill you?" 

SECOND IRISH WOMAN And her husband is a little bit of a man, isn't he? 

FIRST IRISH WOMAN Well, last week Tuesday, she gave birth to the baby in Saint Elizabeth's hospital... 

FIRST IRISH WOMAN ...a fine healthy boy of nine pounds... 

SECOND IRISH WOMAN Oh, that's fine. So the doctor was wrong, wasn't he? 

FIRST IRISH WOMAN Oh, no! She died right there in the hospital... 

SECOND IRISH WOMAN Oh, that's a sad story. 

SECOND IRISH WOMAN And her husband is that little fellow, works in Peter Reeves. 

FIRST IRISH WOMAN That's the one. 

SECOND IRISH WOMAN Oh, that's a sad story. 

Angie has nothing better to do than give his attention to the last lines of the story.

Perturbed, he turns and leaves.

 

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.