Last year I reviewed From Here to Eternity to honour Ernest Borgnine's 90th birthday, since it was his big screen debut, but I now admit that the film was my second choice due to DVD access. You will now be chuffed to learn that, since then, I have purchased my first choice, watched it and am now ready to fulfil my original plan of reviewing Marty, the sleeper hit of 1955 that gave Ernest Borgnine his first and only Academy Award.

It is hard to believe that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has never honoured Borgnine with an Honorary Award despite five decades of service to the screen, but let's not get bogged down with mud throwing. Here at Ovi we love Ernest Borgnine - this is the fourth film of his reviewed for Ovi (BASEketball, From Here to Eternity and The Dirty Dozen) - and I know my Dad loved him as Dominic Santini in "Airwolf", plus you may be surprised to learn he's already been in three movies this year.

Marty was released two years after Borgnine's debut in From Here to Eternity, yet in that time he had managed to be typecast for playing heavies and was not director Delbert Mann's first choice for the role of a romance leading man. However, Mann had no idea who to cast in the lead role, so he asked his friend Robert Aldrich, who would later go on to direct The Dirty Dozen, and he immediately suggested Borgnine.

Made for a mere $343,000 (Rebel Without a Cause was made in the same year for $1,500,000) and based on Paddy Chayefsky's teleplay, for which Chayefsky also won an Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay, Marty is about a 34-year-old Bronx butcher named, you guessed it, Marty Piletti played by Borgnine. Marty's Italian-American family constantly pesters him to get married, but he reluctantly resigns himself to bachelorhood disheartened by a lack of prospects. However, one night he meets plain-looking schoolteacher Clara (Betsy Blair) and they find a connection.

They find a connection, the film builds on it, I won't reveal too much else, but then it just ends. Yes, it just ends, like that. I'd been sucked into the film, identifying a little too much with some characters, and then, without so much as a bye or leave, it was time to return the DVD to the shelf. At 91-minutes, Marty has the shortest running time of any film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture, eight minutes shorter than Driving Miss Daisy, yet I could have sat there and watched another hour. Damn!

On one of the IMDb forums somebody suggested a sequel starring the same two actors because both Ernest Borgnine and Betsy Blair are still alive. The sequel could have them reminiscing on the Diamond Wedding anniversary, with all their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren in attendance - I'd watch it. In fact, if I had been able to review Marty last year as planned, then I could also have said that the director Delbert Mann was also still alive, but he sadly passed away in November.

Delbert Mann must have stunned when his name was announced as the winner of the Best Director award ahead of both David Lean for Summertime and Elia Kazan for East of Eden, but anybody that can make you believe Borgnine is handsome deserved that gold statuette. In fact, Mann became the first director to win the Best Director Oscar with his debut, which was a record that stood for 28 years until James L. Brooks repeated the feat with his 1983 film Terms of Endearment.

If Mann was stunned at winning then I have no idea how Borgnine must have reacted at beating Spencer Tracy in Bad Day at Black Rock, James Cagney in Love Me or Leave Me, Frank Sinatra in The Man with the Golden Arm and a posthumous nomination for James Dean in East of Eden. It was just a shame that Jo Van Fleet won the Best Actress award for East of Eden leaving Betsy Blair just with a single nomination in her career.

Marty is a brilliant and touching film that really is summarised by five of IMDb's Plot Keywords - Ugliness / Low Self Esteem / Wallflower / Midlife Crisis / Insecurity - and leaves you asking two questions. The first is 'Why didn't I watch this a long time ago?' and the second is 'Why don't more people know about it?' Join the club, watch the film and then ask those questions because it will be the best 91-minutes of film-making you will watch this year.