On the Waterfront
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| On the Waterfront | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| 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 |
| Running time | 108 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $910,000 [(est.)] |
| Gross revenue | $9,600,000 |
The film received eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actor and Best Director. It is Leonard Bernstein's only original film score not adapted from a stage production with songs.
Contents |
Plot
This story of Mob informers was based on a number of true stories and filmed on location in and around the docks of Hoboken, New Jersey. 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 deaf and dumb ("D&D"), submitting to their oppressed position rather than risk the danger and shame of informing. Terry Malloy (Marlon Brando) is a dockworker whose brother Charley (Rod Steiger) is Friendly‘s lawyer. 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 on the weaker opponent.
As Terry, tormented by his awakening conscience, increasingly leans toward testifying, Friendly decides that Terry must be killed unless Charley can coerce him to keep quiet. Charley tries bribing Terry with a plum job, and finally threatens him by holding a gun up against him, but recognizes he has failed to sway Terry, who places the blame for his own downward spiral on his well-off brother. In one of the most famous scenes in film history, Terry reminds Charley that if it had not been for the fixing of the fight, "I coulda been a contender." Charley gives Terry a gun and advises him to run. Friendly has been spying on the situation, so he 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 and finally convinces Terry to fight Friendly by testifying. In a final face-to-face confrontation with Friendly, Terry is finally getting the upper hand in a vicious brawl until the wounded Friendly calls his goons who gang up on Terry and nearly beat him to death. The dockworkers declare support of Terry, and only commence work when Terry forces himself to enter the dock. Friendly is defeated as the controller of the longshoremen.
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.To add realism, On the Waterfront was filmed over 36 days on-location in Hoboken, New Jersey (the docks, workers' slum dwellings, bars, littered alleys, rooftops). And some of the labor boss's chief bodyguards/goons in the film (Abe Simon as Barney, Tony Galento as Truck and Tami Mauriello as Tullio) were real-life, former professional 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 screenwriter Budd Schulberg during a month-long session of waterfront barroom meetings — which some[who?] claim never occurred — even though Shulberg attended Di Vincenzo's waterfront commission testimony every day during the hearing.
Karl Malden's character of 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 extensively interviewed by Budd Schulberg (who wrote the foreword to a biography of Father Corridan, Waterfront Priest by Allen Raymond).
"On the Waterfront" is also the only movie in which we can see the Andrea Doria, the Italian liner that sunk in 1956 after a collision in the Atlantic Ocean: in a scene, Marlon Brando watches the ship as she descends the Hudson river.
Schulberg's later novel
Budd Schulberg later published a novel just called Waterfront that was much closer to his original screenplay than the version that was released on-screen. Among several differences is that, in both the screenplay and the novel, Terry Malloy is brutally murdered.Political context
The original screenplay (called "The Hook") was written by renowned playwright Arthur Miller, who was questioned by the HUAC. He was replaced by Budd Schulberg, also a witness before HUAC.[1]
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 film's message is contained in his own play, A View from the Bridge, which presents a contrasting view of those who inform on others.
Reception, awards, and honors
Upon its release, the film received rave reviews from critics. On the critics' website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a 100% "Certified Fresh" rating, based on 48 reviews. 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. Film critic Roger Ebert lauded the film, stating that Brando and Kazan changed acting in American movies for ever and then adding it to his "Great Movies" list. New York Times critic A.H. Weiler also hailed the film as a masterpiece, calling it "an uncommon powerful, exciting, and imaginative use of the screen by gifted professionals."It is also on the Vatican's list of 45 greatest films of all time, compiled in 1995.[2]
Academy Awards
Wins: It was the winner of eight Oscars:[3]| Award | Result | Winner |
|---|---|---|
| Best Motion Picture | Won | Columbia Pictures (Sam Spiegel, Producer) |
| Best Director | Won | Elia Kazan |
| Best Actor | Won | Marlon Brando |
| Best Story and Screenplay | Won | Budd Schulberg |
| Best Supporting Actor | Nominated | Lee J. Cobb Winner was Edmond O'Brien - The Barefoot Contessa |
| Best Supporting Actor | Nominated | Karl Malden Winner was Edmond O'Brien - The Barefoot Contessa |
| Best Supporting Actor | Nominated | Rod Steiger Winner was Edmond O'Brien - The Barefoot Contessa |
| Best Supporting Actress | Won | Eva Marie Saint |
| Best Art Direction-Set Decoration Black-and-White | Won | Richard Day |
| Best Cinematography (Black-and-White) | Won | Boris Kaufman |
| Best Film Editing | Won | Gene Milford |
| Best Score of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture | Nominated | Leonard Bernstein Winner was Dimitri Tiomkin - The High and the Mighty |
Others
- 1998 AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies #8
- 2003 AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains:
- Terry Malloy, hero #23
- 2005 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." #3
- 2005 AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores #22
- 2006 AFI's 100 Years... 100 Cheers #36
- 2007 AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) #19
DVD release
The latest 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.References
Notes
- ^ Haas, Geneveive (November 21, 2006). "Dartmouth acquires Budd Schulberg '36 papers". Dartmouth News . http://www.dartmouth.edu/~news/releases/2006/11/21a.html. Retrieved 2007-01-06.
- ^ "(Film and Broadcasting) - Vatican Best Films List". USCCB. http://www.usccb.org/movies/vaticanfilms.shtml. Retrieved 2010-03-07.
- ^ "NY Times: On the Waterfront". NY Times. http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/36311/On-the-Waterfront/awards. Retrieved 2008-12-21.
Bibliography
- Raymond, Allen, Waterfront Priest (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1955); forward by On the Waterfront screenwriter Budd Schulberg
External links
 | Wikimedia Commons has media related to: On the Waterfront (1954 film) |
 | Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: On the Waterfront |
- 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
- The Priest Who Made Budd Schulberg Run: On the Waterfront and Jesuit Social Action, Inside Fordham Online, May 2003
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