MovieChat Forums > Marty (1955) Discussion > Strangely paced/structured (spoilers)

Strangely paced/structured (spoilers)

posted 10 years ago by GuyOnTheLeft
7 replies | jump to latest

I'm trying to think if I've ever seen a movie with this kind of time structure. We spend the first fifteen minutes briskly moving through several locations during Saturday daytime (including the mother/cousin/aunt subplot).

Then a dissolve to the ballroom, and roughly the next hour is spent on the two principals' "meet cute" and subsequent "date". (The only other character study or romance movies I've seen that spent that much time on one evening finished the entire film that night, or at least before anyone went to sleep.)

We get another fifteen minutes working like a bookend to the beginning, quickly moving through the whole day on Sunday (except for slowing down briefly to introduce an eccentric ancillary character with a fondness for Mickey Spillane) and resolving the aforementioned family subplot.

Then the complication/impediment to the couple's happy ending, a standard romance trope, is introduced with five minutes remaining in the film, and resolved literally within the last minute! Meanwhile, Clara has no lines on Sunday, and only is seen very briefly just before the end, crying as she watches TV with her parents.

It's not a bad thing, necessarily, to be unique structurally. But the thing is, I sympathize with their spending a lot of time on that middle section of Marty and Clara meeting and spending time together. They have a lot of chemistry (even if Clara's looks don't fit all the insults in the script), and this is the most enjoyable portion of the film. So why not include a little more Marty and Clara together in the concluding portion of the film? It's only a ninety minute movie, so it's not like they had no room for another few minutes of running time. It comes across like "whoops, we're out of time, let's scramble to wrap this up". (The movie has a 100% at Rotten Tomatoes, but the NY Times review does include this caveat: "Except for a rather sudden ending that leaves a couple of threads untied and the emotional climax not quite played out, it is a trim and rewarding show.")

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[–] thebigmouth 9 years ago

I noticed exactly the same thing. Very strangely paced and structured film. I would say it works, but in spite of those flaws.

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[–] GuyOnTheLeft 9 years ago

I agree, but I think it only works in places, and it's very overrated.

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[–] rnmackenzie 9 years ago

It comes across like "whoops, we're out of time, let's scramble to wrap this up".

Exactly! I finally got to watch it last night, and the last act went by so fast I wondered if my DVD was defective . . .

A couple of great scenes, though, redeem everything. That long dancehall sequence especially stands out, but other little moments do too, like the character Virginia explaining the milk bottle incident to Marty's mother . . . A very imperfect movie with a number of perfect moments.

[–] GuyOnTheLeft 9 years ago

I still remember (fondly) the long dancehall sequence. But the "milk bottle incident" is not ringing a bell. Can you explain?

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[–] rnmackenzie 9 years ago

The mother-in-law accused her of throwing a milk bottle at her, and this was apparently the cause of a huge blowup that resulted in the young wife pleading with Marty's mom to take the mother-in-law in with her. There was something about the way she narrated all this, the way the actress was so totally IN the moment, sitting there at the dining room table, her husband standing there trying to be supportive but clearly not sure what to think of it all, that I thought it was a real highlight.

[–] GuyOnTheLeft 9 years ago

Ahh, thanks.

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[–] BeaSouth (3563) a year ago

This was such a good and accurate post, I’m sorry I wasn’t around to tell OP at the time when he might have seen the compliment. All the stuff about Clara being a dog was ridiculous. She was no magazine model but, c’mon she was pretty. I was watching the timer while streaming the movie and wondering how in the heck they were going to have some conclusion with 5, 4, 3 minutes left and then I realized they weren’t going to conclude anything. So much wasted time on the slimy guy suddenly appearing and prattling on about Micky Spillane. In the meantime, we don’t see the leading lady do anything in Act 3. The movie tugged your heart strings for her to find happiness and the only thing you see of her in the final act was crying and lonely. It was a brutal way to end the movie for her character.