Although he is good-natured, Marty is still unmarried at the age of 34 due to his socially awkward personality. After being goaded by his mother to marry, he goes to the Stardust Ballroom one Saturday night, and lucky enough meets the lonely teacher Clara. Suddenly, he now has a chance to get out of the bachelorhood.
Ernest Borgnine as Marty lives up to all the promise he showed as the sadist in From Here to Eternity, and at the same time brilliantly shatters the type-cast he molded for himself in that picture.
Audiences used to seeing Borgnine in more menacing roles in films such as From Here to Eternity and Bad Day at Black Rock warmed to his sympathetic portrayal of the Bronx butcher with low self-esteem.
It is a sentimental, heart-warming, simple story of a couple of ugly ducklings who find compensation for their lack of good looks in each other's love.
