On the Waterfront
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| On the Waterfront | |
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| Directed by | Elia Kazan |
| Produced by | Sam Spiegel |
| Written by | Budd Schulberg |
| Starring | Marlon Brando Karl Malden Lee J. Cobb Eva Marie Saint Rod Steiger |
| Music by | Leonard Bernstein |
| Cinematography | Boris Kaufman, ASC |
| Editing by | Gene Milford |
| Distributed by | Columbia Pictures |
| Release date(s) | July 28, 1954 (USA) |
| Running time | 108 min |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $910,000 USD (estimated) |
| Allmovie profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
On the Waterfront is a 1954 American film about mob violence and corruption among longshoremen, and it has become a standard of its kind. The film was directed by Elia Kazan and written by Budd Schulberg; it stars Marlon Brando, Eva Marie Saint, Rod Steiger, Karl Malden and Lee J. Cobb. The soundtrack score was composed by Leonard Bernstein. The film deals with social issues, such as poverty and homelessness, which paralleled the emerging organization of labor. It was based on a series of articles written in the New York Sun by Malcolm Johnson.
The film won eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actor, and Best Director.
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[edit] Plot
This classic story of Mob informers was based on a number of true stories and filmed on location in and around the docks of New York and New Jersey. Mob-connected union boss Johnny Friendly (Lee J. Cobb) rules the waterfront with an iron fist. The police know that he's been responsible for a number of murders, but witnesses play deaf and dumb ("plead D & D"). Washed-up boxer Terry Malloy (Marlon Brando) has had an errand-boy job because of the influence of his brother Charley, a crooked union lawyer (Rod Steiger). Witnessing one of Friendly's rub-outs, Terry is willing to keep his mouth shut until he meets the dead dockworker's sister, Edie (Eva Marie Saint). "Waterfront priest" Father Barry (Karl Malden) tells Terry that Edie's brother was killed because he was going to testify against boss Friendly before the crime commission. Because he could have intervened, but didn't, Terry feels somewhat responsible for the death. When Father Barry receives a beating from Friendly's goons, Terry is persuaded to cooperate with the commission. Featuring Brando's famous "I coulda been a contendah" speech, On the Waterfront has often been seen as an allegory of "naming names" against suspected Communists during the anti-Communist investigations of the 1950s.
[edit] Factual background
On the Waterfront was based on a 24-part series of articles in the New York Sun by Malcolm Johnson, "Crime on the Waterfront." The series won the 1949 Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting. The stories detailed widespread corruption, extortion and racketeering on the waterfront of Manhattan and Brooklyn.
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To add realism, On the Waterfront was filmed over 36 days on-location in Hoboken, New Jersey (in the cargo holds of ships, workers' slum dwellings, the bars, the littered alleys, and on the rooftops). And some of the labor boss' chief bodyguards/goons in the film (Abe Simon as Barney, Tony Galento as Truck, and Tami Mauriello as Tullio) were real-life, professional ex-heavyweight boxers.
In On the Waterfront, protagonist 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 had suffered a degree of ostracism for his deed. DiVincenzo sued and settled, many years after, with Columbia Pictures over the appropriation of what he considered his story. DiVincenzo recounted his story to Schulberg during a month-long session of waterfront barroom meetings—which some claim never occurred—even though Shulberg attended Di Vincenzo's waterfront commission testimony every day during the hearing. Johnny Friendly was based in part on mobster Albert Anastasia, chief executioner of Murder, Inc. as well as Michael Clemente, the International Longshoremen's Association boss
Karl Malden's character of Father Barry was based on the real-life "waterfront priest" Father John M. Corridan, a graduate of Regis High School who operated a Roman Catholic labor school on the west side of Manhattan. Father Corridan was extensively interviewed by screenwriter Budd Schulberg, who wrote the foreword to a biography of Father Corridan, Waterfront Priest by Allen Raymond. The story was filmed in Hoboken, New Jersey, although it is a fictionalized version of events on the New York waterfront.
[edit] Political context
In 1952, director Elia Kazan was a "friendly" witness before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), in which he identified many alleged Communists in the film industry. That brought him severe criticism.[1] Being "friendly" before the HUAC could be a possible clue towards the name of the mob boss in the movie. Johnny Friendly.
The original screenplay (called "The Hook") was written by renowned playwright Arthur Miller, who was blacklisted as an alleged Communist. He was replaced by Budd Schulberg, also a "friendly" witness before HUAC.[2]
On the Waterfront, being about a heroic mob informer, is widely considered to be Kazan's answer to his critics (including his former friend and collaborator Miller), showing that there could be nobility in a man who "named names". In the movie, variations of that phrase are repeatedly used by Terry Malloy. The film also repeatedly emphasizes the waterfront's code of "D and D" or "Deaf and Dumb," remaining silent at all costs and not "ratting out" one's friends. In the end, Malloy does just that and his doing so is depicted sympathetically. Miller's response to the movie's message is contained in his own play, A View from the Bridge, which presents a contrasting view of those who inform on others.
[edit] Awards and recognition
In 1989, this film was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry. It is ranked 8th Greatest American film of all time by the American Film Institute. It is also on the Vatican's list of 45 greatest films of all time, compiled in 1995: see [1]. Terry Malloy's line in the film,
| “ | Charlie: Look, kid, I… How much you weigh, son? When you weighed 168 pounds,you were beautiful. You could have been another Billy Conn. And that skunk we got you for a manager. He brought you along too fast. |
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was voted in a 2005 poll, AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movie Quotes, by the American Film Institute as the third most memorable line in cinema history [2].
It was the winner of eight Oscars:
- Best Actor - Marlon Brando
- Best Picture - Sam Spiegel, producer
- Best Supporting Actress - Eva Marie Saint
- Best Art Direction - Set Decoration, Black-and-White - Richard Day
- Best Cinematography, Black-and-White - Boris Kaufman
- Directing - Elia Kazan
- Film Editing - Gene Milford
- Writing, Story and Screenplay - Budd Schulberg
[edit] Nominations
The film also received an additional four Oscar nominations:
- Best Supporting Actor - Lee J. Cobb
- Best Supporting Actor - Karl Malden
- Best Supporting Actor - Rod Steiger
- Music Score of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture - Leonard Bernstein
[edit] External links and rurther reading
- On the Waterfront at Internet Movie Database
- Bibliography of articles and books about On the Waterfrontvia UC Berkeley Media Resources Center
- Raymond, Allen, Waterfront Priest (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1955); forward by On the Waterfront screenwriter Budd Schulberg
- The Priest Who Made Budd Schulberg Run: On the Waterfront and Jesuit Social Action, Inside Fordham Online, May 2003
- skyjude - movie legends
- Literature
- [3] filmsite.org
- [4] Time Magazine
| Awards | ||
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| Preceded by From Here to Eternity |
Academy Award for Best Picture 1954 |
Succeeded by Marty |
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[edit] References
- ^ Tracinski, Robert. "Elia Kazan Should Be Honored Because of His Testimony", Cap Magazine, September 29, 2003. Retrieved on 2007-01-06.
- ^ Haas, Geneveive. "Dartmouth acquires Budd Schulberg '36 papers", Dartmouth News, November 21, 2006. Retrieved on 2007-01-06.
