I’m not sure I’ve ever seen as pure a cinematic expression of joy as the look on Marty’s face after he drops Clara off at her apartment and realizes he’s just had the best time of his life talking with this girl. Maybe Gene Kelly in Singin’ in the Rain after he drops Debbie Reynolds off at her apartment…you get the idea. But let’s back up.
Marty is a 35-year-old bachelor whose friends and family are after him to get married, but he’s got Ernest Borgnine’s face, so he can’t seem to drum up much interest no matter how nice he is (and he is genuinely nice, not the “nice guy” type who isn’t really nice at all)…until he meets Clara, who’s also rather homely. It would be easy to write this off as “two ugly people finally find other ugly people and settle,” but it’s so much more than that. Granted, it is a bit on the simplistic side in terms of message, but it’s so charming and Borgnine and Betsy Blair are so charismatic that I didn’t care about that.
