Marty: The Television Adaptation

MARTY (1953)

This review is part of the Summer Under the Stars Blogathon sponsored by Journeys in Classic Film and Musings of a Classic Film Addict. Today's star is Rod Steiger.

Perhaps I am spoiled by the fact that I saw the film version of Marty before the original teleplay. That may be why I found the original version weaker, almost boring. The story is still good, and some slack should be given considering it runs less than an hour. However, I think the main reason the teleplay of Marty is weak is due to Marty himself.

36-year-old butcher Marty Piletti (Rod Steiger) is the only one of his brothers and sisters to still be single. His status is distressing to his Italian mama Theresa (Esther Minciotti) who also has to deal with her cantankerous sister Caterina (Augusta Ciolli). Caterina is hounding her new daughter-in-law and Theresa's nephew and wife ask Theresa to let Caterina live with her and Marty.

Theresa pushes Marty to go to the Waverly Ballroom which is loaded with 'tomatoes', and despite himself he goes. He's rejected by a pretty girl and then is approached by another man who offers Marty five bucks to walk a date whom he found unattractive home. Marty balks at the offer but after seeing 'the girl' (Nancy Marchand) humiliated, he approaches her and they end up dancing together, enjoying their company.

It looks like Marty might have finally found someone, but Theresa soon starts worrying that this girl will push her out of the house the same way Caterina was pushed out, and she's not Italian to boot. Marty's best friend Angie (Joe Mantell) too thinks 'the girl' is a dog and pushes Marty not to go out with her again. Faced with these pressures, Marty starts to buckle but ultimate bucks the trend, telling Angie that he doesn't care what he, his mother or anyone else thinks: he, Marty, likes her, that they had a good time together and this may be the girl for him.

Again, it is difficult to look at this original production of Marty and not think on the film, but I think that Marty has as its major weakness Rod Steiger, who declined to recreate his role for the film version. Steiger was ACTING with a Capital A in Marty, and I found his performance as this lonely Bronx butcher very, almost irrationally controlled.

For example, when he calls up a girl out for a date rather than seem desperate and/or lonely he seems curiously distant. The same goes when he tells his Mama about how he's this 'fat, ugly man', reciting the lines but not convincing me that he does think of himself as this 'fat, ugly man'. Steiger acts as if getting the words right is more important than getting the feeling behind the words right. I got the sense he didn't believe he could be a 'fat, ugly man', that he really thought he was trying to be a schlub and not fooling anyone.

Interestingly, Paddy Chayefsky's script gives Marty a curious turn of phrase when he tells Angie that he's "36 years of age". Far be it to suggest lonely Bronx butchers cannot sound eloquent, but I would have thought Marty would say he was "36 years old" versus "36 years of age". Yet I digress.

I found Steiger was surprisingly weak, more involved in giving a performance than in being Marty. His 'rage and hurt' about the 'blue suit, grey suit' seemed like a performance meant to be seen and heard in the rafters.

Marchand was better as "the girl" (though in the end Marty uses the name 'Clara'). She was appropriately awkward and insecure as this lonely girl who like Marty just wanted love. Martell and Mincotti (who would, unlike Steiger and Marchand recreate their roles for the film) were on the whole good. I would argue Martell had a smaller role as the equally lonely friend who echoed Marty's misery, while Mincotti seemed maybe a bit too much as the Italian mama.

Delbert Mann, who would go on to direct the film adaptation, does quite well in moving things along and drawing good performances out of his cast. I don't hold him responsible for Steiger though, as Steiger seemed determined to do things his own way.

There are some things that should be remembered when it comes to Marty. It has a short running time and as such cannot go into great detail about characters. The subplot about Caterina does not feel like a hindrance but it is there to place Theresa's fears about the future when the boy she wants married finally does. It's a bit rushed but one can see the elements to a much richer story about lonely, plain people who find that they aren't the dogs they think they are.


6/10

Days of Wine and Roses: The Television Adaptation

DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES (1958)

Television dramas could be counted on for at least one thing: being searing, uncompromising portraits to the human condition, with a little sex in it.  Days of Wine and Roses is one such portrait, a tale of the destruction alcoholism can take on even the most respectable people.  Most know Days of Wine and Roses because of the film adaptation, and it seems a shame that the teleplay is pretty much forgotten.  The original teleplay performed as part of Playhouse 90 is a gripping production, moving steadily down to its more hopeful ending.

I should note at least here, I won't compare the original with the remake.

After an introduction by Sterling Hayden, we get our story.  We go to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting where in a series of flashbacks, Joe Clay (Cliff Richardson) tells us how ten years prior, he first met Kirsten Armesen (Piper Laurie) at a party his public relations firm was throwing for an Arab sheik. Kirsten, like Joe, liked to nip a little, and soon a romance blossoms.

However, in this romance and eventual marriage, there were three: Joe, Kirsten and booze.  The bottle soon starts taking over their lives, and we see this in little ways, such as when their home goes from posh to slum, and in tragic ways, such as in an effort to get money to ostensibly buy food but which ends up used to get more alcohol, Kirsten sells her beloved collection of books that were a source of pride.

Not even the birth of their daughter Debbie or help from Kirsten's father Ellis ('guest star' Charles Bickford) can get these two from their self-destructive ways.  It looks like their time drying out at Ellis' upstate New York nursery has helped them get back on their feet, but Joe, convinced that a 'little nip' won't hurt, smuggles alcohol into their bedroom.  They manage to get sloshed, and in a harrowing sequence, Joe tears apart his father-in-law's greenhouse to find the third bottle he had hidden in 'fifth row, third table, fourth pot'.

Eventually, Joe is rescued by AA, but Kirsten continues down her slide, going off with one guy after another to get her booze, and even manages to lure Joe to fall off the wagon.  Joe does recover, but Kirsten does not.  Just as she is still not able to give up the bottle, he is not willing to take her back, not until she sees she has a problem.

Director John Frankenheimer has some really harrowing and tragic moments, filmed so beautifully that it is almost cinematic.  The opening title credits have a man drinking in the shadows, with an off-kilter jazz score, giving Days of Wine and Roses an eerie, foreboding tone. Frankenheimer again and again gives us moments that speak for themselves, where we can fill in the blanks without things being spelled out for us.

There is the aforementioned book selling scene, or when Joe is taken to a psychiatric ward after going on his greenhouse tear.  He achieves this primarily with the use of shadows and the music, where the suggestion is more frightening than if it had been overtly shown.

He also does this with how he guides the performances.  Apart from Spider-Man, I cannot call myself a Cliff Robertson fan (his Best Actor win for Charly over Peter O'Toole in The Lion in Winter is still to my mind one of the worst choices the Academy has made).  However, Robertson's performance was smart and moving.  His collapse in the greenhouse is of particular note, his descent into darkness more one of drunken anger than hysteria, and his 'reward' a sad and frightening moment.

He is matched by Laurie, who is heartbreaking as Kirsten, the good girl who is brought to shame by her addiction with the bottle. Disheveled, chaotic and in denial, Laurie is a figure of pity as she fails to see herself as she truly is. 

Both Laurie and Robertson make Kirsten and Joe sad but not totally pathetic, where they inspire pity and sorrow and not contempt and disgust. Bickford, though with a much smaller role, brings more sadness as Ellis, who sees his daughter fall shockingly low but is powerless to stop her.

There were a few things that were a bit odd.  The AA meeting got interrupted from time to time by a drunk, and it is unclear if this was writer J.P. Miller's attempts at comic relief, but if it was it failed badly. 

However, those moments were brief, Days of Wine and Roses was beautifully made, where the tragedy of 'good people' falling into their sorry state together moves the viewer.  With a wonderful score, strong performances out of the cast, and excellent directing, Days of Wine and Roses is an excellent production.

9/10

Requiem for a Heavyweight: The Television Adaptation

REQUIEM FOR A HEAVYWEIGHT

Requiem for a Heavyweight is a deeply moving television play, showing Rod Serling to be not just a master of the craft of television writing, but also curiously enough someone who could give audiences a sense of hope among the sad and lonely.  When one thinks of Serling, one thinks of The Twilight Show, with its twist endings and sometimes macabre, almost always downbeat endings.  Requiem for a Heavyweight astounds the viewer, not just with Serling's writing, but with performances by the cast, three of whom may surprise you with their range.

Harlan 'Mountain' McClintock (Jack Palance) is a boxer at the end of his fighting days.  The doctor refuses to certify him for more bouts, telling Mountain's manager Maish (Keenan Wynn) and his cut-man Army (Ed Wynn, Keenan's real-life father) that Mountain is finished.  Another bout and he'll go blind.

Mountain is a good, sweet palooka, devoted to Maish and Army, and a clean fighter.  "I wasn't no good," Mountain says, "but I never took a dive".  The fact he never fought crooked or did anything he was ashamed of is a point of pride for Mountain, who knows he's at the end of his career but uncertain what to do next. 

Maish, however, has a secret: he bet against Mountain to fall in the third round, but Mountain held on to the seventh.  That bet is now being collected by the Mob, but Maish ain't got that kind of dough.  Army hasn't got it either, and he's more concerned with helping Mountain find a new line of work.  For that, they go to the employment agency, and there Mountain meets social worker Grace Carney (Kim Hunter).  She sees the good man behind the odd-looking man, and soon tracks him down to suggest he work with children, training them in sports.

The two become smitten with each other.

Maish, for his part, now has hit upon a great idea: transferring Mountain from boxing to wrestling, where he'll have Mountain become a caricature of a 'Mountaineer', drawing on McClintock's Tennessee roots and be a side show.  Army is appalled and horrified, begging Maish to leave Mountain with the one thing he has left: his dignity.

It's a sign of how much Mountain loves Maish that he is actually willing to do it, but when on the night he sees his hillbilly costume and fully realizes the humiliation he'll be put through and the predetermined winner of these wrestling matches, he simply can't do it.  Maish angrily reveals he bet against Mountain, breaking the big and sweet boxer's heart.  Mountain punches Army when Army tries to calm him down, horrifying Mountain.  Rather than collect their money, the Mob brings another young, eager, hungry fighter to Maish and Army to train.

Army, through Grace, gives Mountain a ticket back to Tennessee, and on the train Mountain bonds with a little boy who recognizes he's a boxer.  Mountain soon starts showing this little boy the ropes, and with that, we end.

Requiem for a Heavyweight is a well-crafted piece for Playhouse 90.  Right from the opening, when we see Mountain's poster advertising the fight, we know he lost, and those losses keep building.  Serling's script lets things build slowly and drops information that will become relevant later.

For example, when Grace goes to the bar where old boxers come to reminisce, Mountain tells us that Maish refers to it as 'the graveyard', essentially where old, washed-up boxers go to die.  Later on, Mountain finds himself slowly starting to join in the conversation, in essence going to the grave himself.

Mountain mentions that at least twice he never took a dive, so when he is basically asked to do so, we know what it will do to him.

We know the conflict before some of the other characters do: Maish needs the money and is willing to sell out the one person who genuinely loves him to get it, Army being caught in the middle and Mountain, sweet-but-dim fellow, unawares of what might befall him.

As a side note, at one point Mountain is telling Grace the story of another bout he had, against a fighter named Smiley Collins, who played the violin.  Was Serling taking a slight jab at Golden Boy?

Serling's script is enhanced by three surprisingly great performances.  Jack Palance is primarily remembered as a heavy, one who was menacing either in a highly threatening way (Shane, Sudden Fear) or for laughs (City Slickers).   In Requiem for a Heavyweight, Palance was extremely touching and moving as our sweet palooka who knows it's over for him, but who also knows as he tells Grace, he was 'almost the champion of the world'.  Palance adopted a higher, softer voice, and his body movements were more gentle and soft.

To 1950's audiences, it must have been Ed Wynn who was the most shocking revelation of all.  Best known as a comic with a distinctive look and high-pitched voice that made him more hilarious than heartwarming, Requiem for a Heavyweight was his first straight dramatic role.  Stories abound about how bad he was in rehearsals, to where he would resort to shtick if he forgot a line.

The final product shows Ed Wynn to be perfectly capable of playing things straight, with no hints that he wasn't anything other than a serious, dramatic actor.  Yes, you can still hear Wynn's distinct voice come across from time to time, but that's just his voice and there wasn't anything he could do to change it.  Ed Wynn's version of Army is that of a good man, who genuinely cares about Mountain.

About the only real negative thing one could say is that the punch Mountain throws to Army isn't convincing, but let's be realistic in that it was never going to be a real punch on live television.  Still, Ed Wynn showed himself to be highly capable, competent, and moving in this dramatic turn.

The final surprise is Ed Wynn's son Keenan.  Keenan had already established himself as an actor, and apparently a dramatic one (though the only Keenan Wynn performances I can remember are in lighter fare: as the drunk in The Clock and in a comedy routine in Ziegfeld Follies, where he was quite adept at a slow burn).  Keenan's aggressive, slightly conflicted Maish is a strong performance.

All three work so well together, and a credit to director Ralph Nelson in drawing great acting out of them.  Near the end, when Mountain learns about Maish betting against them when Maish blurts it out, it genuinely hurts.

Finally, not forgetting Kim Hunter, a staple of early television.  She makes Grace into a woman who makes her concern for Mountain sincere without being simplistic.  She has a hard task as the only woman in Requiem for a Heavyweight, but she commands the screen with yes, a grace and sincerity.  She starts out as almost bored with another man with few prospects, but in their first meeting we see that she recognizes the good man behind the cauliflower ears.

We can see little bits of early live television: the obviously fake fight, the wobbly sets (in the beginning as Mountain is carried off, the 'walls' move), and the odd bits with dialogue (near the end, the mother tells Mountain, "I hope he's not boring-bothering you", as if she quickly corrected herself).  Little bits, but none of that takes away from the beauty, grace, and sadness of Requiem for a Heavyweight.

Sadness up to a point, as at least we have a slight glimmer of hope that Mountain will indeed work with children.  Sadness comes for Maish, who now will take another fighter under his wing, and who knows if he will get his own requiem.

9/10

No Time For Sergeants: The Television Adaptation

NO TIME FOR SERGEANTS (1955)

The story of No Time for Sergeants is a most fascinating one.  It began as a novel, then adapted as a one-hour live television play for the United States Steel Hour anthology program, then shifted to a Broadway play, and after that it shifted to a feature film based on that play, and ends up as a weekly television series.  In that long route, our first of two stops will be the United States Steel Hour adaptation of Mac Hyman's novel.

Will Stockdale (Andy Griffith), our narrator and protagonist, is a sweet, simple country boy who finds himself drafted.  He finds the military endlessly fascinating, taking on whatever is given him with a cheerful disposition.

He carries on, oblivious to how what he says or does drives his commanding officer, Sergeant King (Harry Clark) to distraction and horror.  King, convinced Stockdale is an idiot who can easily be pushed out of things, gives him the position of Permanent Latrine Duty, which Stockdale takes as a high compliment.  He's always willing to help, which makes sense since to Stockdale.  As he tells his commanding officer in the Air Force, "Air Force ain't nothing but helpers," having earlier been told by his only real friend, the slightly less dim but still bit crabby Ben (Eddie LeRoy) that the infantry is where the real fighters are.

King continuously tries to thwart Stockdale, especially since he thinks our simple country bumpkin will put his unit to ridicule.  However, every time King comes up with a scheme to make life hard if not impossible for Stockdale, our county boy always manages, inadvertently, to come out on top.  When, for example, he has Stockdale clean the latrine and paint the barracks, including the bunk beds, to keep Stockdale from being certified, it blows up in his face when the Captain (Alexander Clark), inspects the barracks.

Not only has Stockdale scrubbed the faucets so well he's rubbed off the "H" and "C" off, he proudly tells the Captain that Sergeant King had him do it.

King comes up with other schemes to berid himself of this meddlesome private.  He sends him to a psychiatrist, who is promptly driven crazy by Stockdale's oddball but logical answers: when asked about girls, Stockdale begins telling the psychiatrist a randy story told to him, then advises the psychiatrist to try going out with one and he wouldn't be so scared of them.

An idea to have Stockdale pass the eye exam and thus have him move on almost blows up in King's face when he asks Stockdale if he could see the female Captain.  Having been lectured by Ben earlier to not 'see' them as 'women' but by their rank, Stockdale roundly states he sees no women.  King is beyond despondent.

The final scheme involves getting Stockdale hopelessly drunk so that he won't make the eye exam and can be booted out.  However, like Rasputin, King along with two others are astonished to see Stockdale easily drink copious amounts of alcohol with no effect.  Making things more bizarre, he says that back home, the only time he came close to liquor was when he tried a relative's own concoction that included kerosene.  Asking for lighter fluid, he dabs some on his drink and says it 'tastes a bit familiar'.

End result: a bar fight and King and the two other troopers ending up drunk.  The three of them get so drunk they arrive late to an inspection, one where Stockdale, in his eagerness to please the Colonel, rigs a step to shower him with confetti while a phonograph plays Wild Blue Yonder and an Air Force Flag drops behind them!  The Colonel is shocked and scandalized by all this, but it isn't Stockdale who is held responsible, it's poor, flustered, frustrated King.

In the end, King tells Ben and Stockdale that he's been demoted to Private for this latest fiasco, but Will Stockdale gives him words of comfort.

They will all soon be together in the infantry.

In perhaps other people's hands, Will Stockdale would have come across as either a complete moron or a bumbling buffoon.  However, Griffith makes Stockdale more a simpleton than an outright idiot, more naive and well-meaning than completely moronic.

Stockdale's total innocence is best summoned up by his willingness to tolerate the bullying behavior of Irving (Arthur Storch), one of the troopers who eventually was part of the scheme to get him hopelessly drunk.  He tolerates Irving because he believes him to have been ill.

"He had ROTC," he tells Ben, and he had it for a whole year.  That ROTC, Will reasons, is why they let him be in charge: out of sympathy.

Stockdale's guileless nature drives everyone crazy without meaning to, but it's Griffith's performance that makes Will endearing rather than insufferable. sweet without being an idiot.  What is extraordinary is that Griffith had little to no actual acting experience before No Time for Sergeants.  Prior to this, Griffith had been perfecting his corn-pone comedy routines for years in nightclubs, his most famous bit being What it Was, Was Football, a monologue where a country church deacon attempted to make sense out of a football game he'd seen and clearly didn't understand.

Griffith seemed to be expanding on his country comedy styling in No Time for Sergeants, but Griffith, helped by director Alex Segal, kept Stockdale from being a caricature.

Harry Clark was about the closest to a big-name in the teleplay, and he was strong, though not brilliant, as the perpetually perturbed sergeant.  It seemed a bit too exaggerated, but nothing horrible.  LeRoy's Ben played brilliantly with Griffith, forming a bit of a double-act.

In technical terms, No Time for Sergeants showed just how well live television worked.  The transitions between scenes flowed easily, most often by having Griffith address the camera directly as Stockdale while sets were changed and characters placed into position.  It was an extraordinary technical fit to have it all flow so smoothly, especially given that No Time for Sergeants had a rare live audience to perform to, as most teleplays did not do so at the time.

In a curious turn of events, it's almost unfortunate that the country bumpkin character Will Stockdale shared a surname with a genuine American hero who was portrayed as more stupid than the main character in No Time for Sergeants.  Admiral James Stockdale ran for Vice President on the Reform Party ticket in 1992 with Ross Perot, the only time in my lifetime when a third party candidate came close to challenging the two-party system.

Admiral Stockdale opened his statements at the only Vice Presidential debate with a witty comment about his sudden notoriety.  "Who am I? Why am I here?", he quipped.  This was the only bright spot for him, as he had a poor performance.  At one point, if memory serves correct, he had to have a question repeated because he had his hearing aid off.

Stockdale, unlike his No Time for Sergeants counterpart, was turned into a laughingstock, mercilessly mocked on Saturday Night Live.  As portrayed by the late Phil Hartman, Stockdale was made to look like a thoroughly senile old man.  Hartman turned his quip into not an acknowledgment of Stockdale's near-total obscurity, but as the statements of someone who literally didn't know who he was or why he was here.

Hartman's Stockdale would bark out "WHO AM I? WHY AM I HERE?" and look perpetually befuddled, almost as if he were slipping into dementia right before our eyes.  With a look of puzzlement accompanied by a dimwitted grin, Hartman was almost vicious in his Stockdale impersonation.

Admiral James Stockdale was not a mentally unbalanced person, but it's a curious thing that this Stockdale was made more idiotic than his real-life counterpart, while the character Will Stockdale in No Time for Sergeants appeared to be dim, but instead had his own logic that he followed.

No Time for Sergeants was funny.  You can't help laugh at the observations of a man unaware of the world but not stupid.  You can't help laugh when, upon being told that there was a women's Air Force, he replies in shock, "Women got an Air Force against OURS!?"  With a brilliant turn by Andy Griffith, strong performances by the rest of the cast, and Segal's smooth directing, it's a wonder more country boys don't join the Air Force, to be helpers.

9/10