The Dryden will screen Marty (Delbert Mann, U.S. 1955, 90 min., 35mm) as part of the Ernest Borgnine series.

The second of only two films ever to win both the Palm d'or and the Academy Award for Best Picture, Marty began as a teleplay by the great Paddy Chayefsky, who then adapted the script for the big screen. Taking over for Rod Steiger, extraordinarily great Ernest Borgnine slipped effortlessly into the role of a kindhearted but lonely Bronx butcher who comes to the aid of an equally plain schoolteacher (Betsy Blair) after she is abandoned at a dancehall by her date. Together, these two lonely hearts share a close encounter with love. Hailing from an era of extravagant Hollywood spectacles, this unusually smart and humane drama seems almost shocking in its rejection of clichés and its embrace of real life, and can be seen as America's answer to Italian neorealism.

[source: George Eastman Museum calendar, 2017-Jan-9]