On the Waterfront is a 1954 American crime drama film about union violence and corruption amongst longshoremen. The film was directed by Elia Kazan and written by Budd Schulberg. It stars Marlon Brando and features Karl Malden, Lee J. Cobb, Rod Steiger, and, in her film debut, Eva Marie Saint. The soundtrack score was composed by Leonard Bernstein. It is based on Crime on the Waterfront, a series of articles published in the New York Sun by Malcolm Johnson that won the 1949 Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting. The stories detailed widespread corruption, extortion, and racketeering on the waterfronts of Hoboken, New Jersey.
On the Waterfront was a critical and commercial success and received 12 Academy Award nominations, winning eight, including Best Picture, Best Actor for Brando, Best Supporting Actress for Saint, and Best Director for Kazan. In 1997 it was ranked by the American Film Institute as the eighth-greatest American movie of all time. It is Bernstein's only original film score not adapted from a stage production with songs.
In 1989, On the Waterfront was deemed "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.
Plot
Mob-connected union boss Johnny Friendly (Lee J. Cobb) gloats about his iron-fisted control of the waterfront. The police and the Waterfront Crime Commission know that Friendly is behind a number of murders, but witnesses play "D and D" ("deaf and dumb"), accepting their subservient position rather than risking the danger and shame of informing.
Terry Malloy (Marlon Brando) is a dockworker whose brother Charley "The Gent" (Rod Steiger) is Friendly's right-hand man. Some years earlier, Terry had been a promising boxer, until Friendly had Charley instruct him to deliberately lose a fight that he could have won, so that Friendly could win money betting against him.
Terry meets and is smitten by Edie (Eva Marie Saint), the sister of Joey Doyle (Ben Wagner). She has shamed "waterfront priest" Father Barry (Karl Malden) into fomenting action against the mob-controlled union. Terry is used to coax Joey, a popular dockworker, into an ambush, preventing him from testifying against Friendly before the Crime Commission. Terry assumed that Friendly's enforcers were only going to "lean" on Joey in an effort to pressure him to avoid talking, and is surprised when Joey is killed. Although Terry resents being used as a tool in Joey's death, and despite Father Barry's impassioned "sermon on the docks" reminding the longshoremen that Christ walks among them and that every murder is a Calvary, Terry is nevertheless willing to remain "D and D".
Soon both Edie and Father Barry urge Terry to testify. Another dockworker, Timothy J. "Kayo" Dugan (Pat Henning), who agrees to testify after Father Barry's promise of unwavering support, ends up dead after Friendly arranges for him to be crushed by a load of whiskey in a staged accident.
As Terry, tormented by his awakening conscience, increasingly leans toward testifying, Friendly decides that Terry must be killed unless Charley can coerce him into keeping quiet. Charley tries bribing Terry with a good job and finally threatens Terry by holding a gun against him, but recognizes that he has failed to sway Terry, who places the blame for his own downward spiral on his well-off brother. In what has become an iconic scene, Terry reminds Charley that had it not been for the fixed fight, Terry's career would have bloomed. "I coulda' been a contender", laments Terry to his brother, "Instead of a bum, which is what I am â€" let's face it." Charley gives Terry the gun and advises him to run. Friendly, having had Charley watched, has Charley murdered, his body hanged in an alley as bait to get at Terry. Terry sets out to shoot Friendly, but Father Barry obstructs that course of action, telling Terry that violence is pointless because as long as Johnny is in charge, the law will always be on his side, and finally convinces Terry to fight Friendly by testifying.
After the testimony, Friendly announces that Terry will not find employment anywhere on the waterfront. Edie tries persuading him to leave the waterfront with her, but he nonetheless shows up during recruitment at the docks. When he is the only man not hired, Terry openly confronts Friendly, calling him out and proclaiming that he is proud of what he did.
Finally the confrontation develops into a vicious brawl, with Terry getting the upper hand until Friendly's thugs gang up on Terry and nearly beat him to death. The dockworkers, who witnessed the confrontation, declare their support for Terry and refuse to work unless Terry is working too and push Friendly into the lake. Finally, the badly wounded Terry forces himself to his feet and enters the dock, followed by the other longshoremen. A soaking wet and face-scarred Friendly, now left with nothing, swears revenge on all the workers, but his threats fall on deaf ears as they enter the garage and the door closes behind them.
Cast
- Marlon Brando as Terry Malloy
- Eva Marie Saint as Edie Doyle
- Lee J. Cobb as Michael J. Skelly aka "Johnny Friendly"
- Karl Malden as Father Barry
- Rod Steiger as Charley "The Gent" Malloy
- Pat Henning as Timothy J. "Kayo" Dugan
- Ben Wagner as Joey Doyle
- James Westerfield as Big Mac
- Katherine MacGregor as a Longshoreman's Mother (uncredited)
- Fred Gwynne as Slim (uncredited)
- Leif Erickson as Lead Investigator for Crime Commission (uncredited)
- Martin Balsam as Gillette, Secondary Investigator for Crime Commission (uncredited)
- Pat Hingle as Bartender (uncredited)
- Nehemiah Persoff as Cab Driver (uncredited)
Production
On the Waterfront was filmed over 36 days on location in various places in Hoboken, New Jersey, including the docks, workers' slum dwellings, bars, littered alleys, and rooftops. Furthermore, some of the labor boss's goons in the filmâ€"Abe Simon as Barney, Tony Galento as Truck, and Tami Mauriello as Tullioâ€"were actual former professional heavyweight boxers.
Terry Malloy's (Brando's) fight against corruption was in part modeled after whistle-blowing longshoreman Anthony DiVincenzo, who testified before a real-life Waterfront Commission on the facts of life on the Hoboken Docks and suffered a degree of ostracism for his deed. DeVincenzo sued and settled, many years after, with Columbia Pictures over the appropriation of what he considered his story. DeVincenzo claimed to have recounted his story to screenwriter Budd Schulberg during a month-long session of waterfront barroom meetings. Schulberg attended DeVincenzo's waterfront commission testimony every day during the hearing.
Karl Malden's character, Father Barry, was based on the real-life "waterfront priest" Father John M. Corridan, S.J., a Jesuit priest, graduate of Regis High School who operated a Roman Catholic labor school on the west side of Manhattan. Father Corridan was interviewed extensively by Budd Schulberg, who wrote the foreword to a biography of Father Corridan, Waterfront Priest, by Allen Raymond. The church used for the exterior scenes in the film was the historic Our Lady of Grace in Hoboken, built in 1874, while the interiors were shot at the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul, also in Hoboken, at 400 Hudson Street.
Political context
The film is widely considered to be Kazan's answer to those who criticized him for identifying eight (former) Communists in the film industry before the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) in 1952. Kazan's critics included his friend and collaborator, the noted playwright Arthur Miller, who had written the original screenplayâ€"titled The Hookâ€"for the film that would become On the Waterfront. Miller was replaced by Budd Schulberg, also a witness before HUAC.
Budd Schulberg later published a novel simply titled Waterfront that was much closer to his original screenplay than the version released on screen. Among several differences is that Terry Malloy is brutally murdered.
Reception
Upon its release, the film received positive reviews from critics and was a commercial success, earning an estimated $4.2 million in rentals at the North American box office in 1954. In his July 29, 1954, review, New York Times critic A. H. Weiler hailed the film as a masterpiece, calling it "an uncommonly powerful, exciting, and imaginative use of the screen by gifted professionals."
In 1989, the film was deemed "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry. Film critic Roger Ebert lauded the film, stating that Brando and Kazan changed acting in American movies forever, and then added it to his list of The Great Movies.
It is also on the Vatican's list of 45 greatest films, compiled in 1995.
Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes retrospectively collected 55 reviews and gave the film a score of 100%, with an average rating of 9.1 out of 10.
Awards
Academy Awards
On the Waterfront received twelve Academy Awards nominations in ten categories and won in eight of the categories.
After Marlon Brando won the Academy Award for Best Actor, it was stolen and did not turn up until much later, when a London auction house contacted him and informed him of its whereabouts. Before that he had been using it to help hold his front door open.
American Film Institute recognition
- AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies â€" #8
- AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains:
- Terry Malloy â€" #23 Hero
- Johnny Friendly â€" Nominated Villain
- AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movie Quotes:
- "You don't understand! I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody instead of a bum, which is what I am." â€" #3
- AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores â€" #22
- AFI's 100 Years... 100 Cheers â€" #36
- AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) â€" #19
- AFI's 10 Top 10 â€" Nominated Gangster film
Home media
The first home video release of the film was in 1984, on VHS and Beta. The first DVD version was released in 2001. Among the special features is the featurette "Contender: Mastering the Method," a video photo gallery, an interview with Elia Kazan, an audio commentary, filmographies, production notes, and theatrical trailers. The film has been added to the Criterion Collection.
References
Notes
Bibliography
- Raymond, Allen, Waterfront Priest (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1955); forward by On the Waterfront screenwriter Budd Schulberg
Further reading
- Rapf, Joanna E. (2003). On the Waterfront. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ISBNÂ 0-521-79400-5.Â
External links
- On the Waterfront at the Internet Movie Database
- On the Waterfront at the TCM Movie Database
- On the Waterfront at AllMovie
- On the Waterfront at Rotten Tomatoes
- Literature
- filmsite.org
- Bibliography of articles and books about On the Waterfront via UC Berkeley Media Resources Center