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MARTY
March 8, 2014  | By David Bianculli

TCM, 8:00 p.m. ET

 

In 1953, NBC’s Goodyear Television Playhouse presented Paddy Chayefsky’s stunningly intimate and moving portrait of a lonely Bronx butcher (Rod Steiger) who ends up dancing with a homely young woman (Nancy Marchand) at a local dance hall, and seeking to see her again despite ridicule from his barroom friends. Marty didn’t win any Emmys that year, because there were none in the live TV drama category yet. But two years later, when Hollywood hired Chayefsky to rewrite his screenplay for the screen, while director Delbert Mann adapted his TV vision as well, the movie won four Oscars, including Best Picture – the only Best Picture Oscar ever awarded to a movie that began as a TV production. Rod Steiger, who starred on TV, declined to reprise his role for the big screen, so Ernest Borgnine did, and he won an Oscar too, as did Chayefsky. This is the movie version, which is good. But for my money, the live TV version, which is available on DVD, is even better.

 
 
 
 
 
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