Like many of us, I have had to completely revise my approach to watching television. 

For one thing, I live in a home with two teenage sons and a wife who are fascinated by reality shows. While I once reveled in an almost non-stop cavalcade of brilliant PBS children’s programming and weekends filled with ball games, I am now overwhelmed with a senseless barrage of YouTube reels and the mundane exploits of wealthy women and luxury yacht deck hands. 

For another, whether I like it or not, the world keeps changing. I tried to find a pre-season Falcons game a couple of weeks ago, and by the time I figured out our home’s streaming options, the first quarter was over. The days of scrolling through a few network stalwarts and a few cable standouts are long gone. 

Still, I have tried to adapt. This means that I have discovered the remarkable phenomenon of “binge-watching,” finding a complete collection of episodes from a former television show, and viewing them one after the other without commercial interruption. 

Recently my wife and I discovered the show Lost, which was a network hit when my boys were small, so I had missed it completely in those days of bathtime and bedtime rituals. A couple of episodes in, and I was hooked. A few more episodes in, and I started thinking about writing a column on Lost, as the show alludes to all sorts of philosophical and theological ideas. After about 10 episodes, I started to get restless. I wanted answers. I wanted to see a definitive resolution to one of the many mysterious plotlines. I researched how many episodes of the program we had left to sit through. There are 121 episodes of Lost, and I am afraid that I don’t have it in me to finish. 

Like poetry and prose fiction, television is at its best when it delivers a sense of immediacy from brevity, what Edgar Alan Poe called a “unity of effect.” A one-hour program can pack more meaning and feeling than 121 episodes ever could, and it does so all in one sitting. 

I love television. I always have. At its best, television is one of the marvels of 20th century popular art and culture, and it experienced a thrilling revival in the early part of the 21st century. Yet television might have been at its best in the 1950s, and there are important reasons for the medium’s excellence in the mid-20th century. 

TV was smart, hip, edgy and in touch with its audience. 1950s and early 1960s television was an intelligent medium, and it treated its audience as being “in the know.” This is especially true of “Anthology Programs” such as the GE Playhouse, Kraft Playhouse, Schlitz Playhouse, or Playhouse 90 that featured teleplay adaptations of literary and original works that were sophisticated and intriguing and featured a diversity of genres.  

Television had seasoned talent, and it nurtured young talent, from directors to actors. Robert Altman, Sidney Lumet, Arthur Penn, Sydney Pollack, John Frankenheimer, Mel Brooks and even Steven Spielberg all learned the art and craft of directing in TV. The anthology shows bred an entirely new sort of actor, female as well as male, and previous unknowns such as Paul Newman, Julie Harris and James Dean got their start on television. Further, younger talent cost less. 

That television needed less money, fewer sets, and simple effects were also important reasons for its success. Corporate sponsorship paid the bill, from Kimberly Clark to Goodyear, from Kraft to U.S. Steel. Madison Avenue quickly leaped in to exploit the advertising potential of the television medium, and “commercials” were born.  

Paddy Chayefsky was inspired to write the story of “Marty” after visiting a New York City ballroom. The teleplay of Philco/Goodyear Playhouse in 1953 featured Rod Steiger in the title role. Photo by New York World-Telegram and Sun

Finally, television in the 50s was exciting, with almost a daredevil approach. Remarkably, the anthology programs were almost entirely shot live. There were no retakes. The cast and crew had to move quickly from one set to the next, and the few insert shots had to be deftly handled.  Prior to videotape, crude kinescopes ensured that shows could be preserved then broadcast at later dates on the opposite coast. 

The pinnacle of anthology programming 

A great example of the pinnacle of the anthology approach is “Marty,” which played on the Philco/Goodyear Playhouse in 1953. Written by Paddy Chayefsky and directed by Delbert Mann, the teleplay stars Rod Steiger in a role later reprised by Ernest Borgnine for the 1955 Academy Award-winning feature film. Sevent years later, the program remains strikingly poignant, and its portrayal of Catholic life and imagery is realistic and revelatory. 

Paddy Chayefsky was inspired to write the story of “Marty” after visiting a New York City ballroom that encouraged women to ask men to dance. A sign in the hall implored that “men have feelings too.”  Using that frame of reference, Chayefsky wrote a treatment about a Bronx butcher, a bachelor who at the age of 36 still lives with his mother. Marty has searched for love his entire life, but he sees himself as a “fat little ugly man who girls don’t go for.”  Despite the constant cajoling he faces about getting married, Marty spends every Saturday night in a state of “heartache.”   

The show might not have ever aired, but for an urgent need to replace a poorly written episode. Under a strict deadline, Chayefsky fleshed out his treatment to become one of the most striking teleplays ever aired in the 1950s, or beyond. 

Marty eventually meets a woman, a fellow lonely heart named Clara, a homely woman who is referenced in the credits only as “The Girl.” Clara has attended a ballroom dance with another man who cruelly offers Marty five dollars to take “the dog” home. Marty doesn’t take the money, but he does meet Clara, and the two have immediate chemistry. I won’t spoil the ending, but in addition to the relationship with Clara, there are other conflicts in the story. 

In less than an hour, Marty addresses the universal themes of loneliness and the fear of abandonment while also incorporating wit and empathy. The teleplay features the complexity of male friendships, the advantages and challenges of multi-generational households, gender stereotypes, and working-class communities.   

All these motifs are presented in a thoroughly Catholic context, which is remarkable for a television decade so linked to WASP characters and families. Marty’s butcher shop advertises a local Catholic parish’s upcoming bazaar as a focal point of the community. His bedroom features a large crucifix. He and his mother prepare for and attend Mass. The implication throughout the show is that marriage is a sacramental vocation and familial obligation. 

Watching the show again recently, I was struck by the relevance of Marty’s problems to our own time. We often speak now about the vanishing “Third Spaces” beyond home and work and bemoan the decline in church attendance and involvement in community and social activities.  Male friendships, particularly among Generation X, are less visible than ever before. Social media has in many ways alienated us from meaningful personal relationships. We are as isolated and anxious as the television audience of the 1950s, which was often described as an age of anxiety. 

At the core of Marty’s brilliance is an understanding that human beings are not meant to be alone. Romantic relationships are important. Friendship is crucial. Family is fundamental to the domestic church, despite generational differences and other complexities. 

Marty also encourages us to take responsibility for our lives, accept the consequences of our decisions, and defend the dignity of all people. The Catholic viewer who revisits this old program, or who watches it for the first time, will immediately recognize the story as a parable of fundamental Catholic values. 

Like many of the great 1950s anthology teleplays, Marty became a popular and critically successful feature film. The movie is fine, but at nearly 40 minutes longer, it loses the impact of the original program. It’s also more sentimental and a bit more predictable. Without Rod Steiger’s primal wail of a live performance, it’s not the same. 

As you might expect, Marty is available to stream for free on either Prime or YouTube, and like other great teleplays from the era, it is in the public domain. As an example of a new and developing medium, Marty is brilliant; as a testament to the universality of loneliness and the eternal possibility of love, its legacy endures, even in our contemporary digital ether.