(Yes, I missed yesterday’s post, but I have the poem and will catch up when I have a little extra time for the review. Meanwhile, for Day 16 of NaPoWriMo, the prompt was for a poem pairing a place with a particular song, so I went with “Unchained Melody,” a favorite of my parents, which came out the same year as this film.)

Out on the sidewalk outside a dance hall,
A man and a woman were side by side,
Lonely surrounded by strangers.
Romance was on the minds of all,
But these two were done, undanced, untried,
Fated to stay as mere strangers.

A slow dance was drifting outside to the street,
“Unchained Melody,” and the mood was set,
The cars and dogwalkers be damned.
And somehow shared bitterness came to be sweet,
Though little had changed in their lives as yet.
The morning could still leave them damned.

But streetlamps were candlelight under that tune;
The concrete gave way to a dance floor below,
And they didn’t mind being passed over.
Their loneliness withering under the moon,
They would have been happy to bask in its glow
And play that song over and over and over.
_________________________

MPA rating: Approved (G)

Modern dating is rough, as many will acknowledge who have been burnt out by dating apps, ghosting, and a general feeling of being unwanted. I know people who feel hopeless when it comes to finding love and scoff at encouragement, and I’ve had moments of despair myself. Yet it’s important to keep in mind that such feelings are not a new phenomenon and were represented quite poignantly in the Best Picture winner of 1955 Marty. Ernest Borgnine plays the title character, a homely butcher who has resigned himself to the single life. At the urging of his very Italian mother (Esther Minciotti), Marty reluctantly agrees to go to a local ballroom and connects with a woman named Clara (Betsy Blair), shy and similarly despondent as she is consistently regarded as a “dog” by her dates. Against all expectations, these two “dogs” wonder if they have found the person for whom they’ve been waiting.

Known to me previously as the answer Herb Stempel was forced to get wrong in Quiz Show, Marty is such a short and simple romance. It has no clever twists or enemies-to-lovers tension, just a sweet and meaningful date between two people close to giving up. Borgnine is a perfect lead here, his workaday looks and expressive face serving the character well and deservedly winning him a Best Actor Oscar, while Blair shares a cutely understated chemistry with him, reflective of the fact these two just met yet are hoping that their hopes have been answered. From the unexpected finding of love to the need to defend it when others scorn it, Marty is that welcome reminder that even old films can be utterly relatable.

Best line (though I really love the final scene): (Marty, to Clara) “See, dogs like us, we ain’t such dogs as we think we are.”

Rank: List Runner-Up

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