On the Waterfront

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For other uses, see On the Waterfront (disambiguation).
On the Waterfront
Image:On the waterfront423.jpg
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
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)
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

On the Waterfront is an Academy Award-winning American 1954 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.

Contents

[edit] Plot

Terry Malloy (Marlon Brando) is a washed-up ex-prizefighter in his late twenties working on the docks for the local gang boss, Johnny Friendly (Lee J. Cobb). He feels depressed over his rags-to-riches rise and eventual fall within the boxing ring. The death of an old childhood friend, ordered by Johnny Friendly, fills Terry with terrible guilt, because he was unwittingly involved in the murder.

Terry meets the murdered man's sister, Edie Doyle (Eva Marie Saint), and they begin a relationship. She and a local priest (Karl Malden) try to convince him to work against the mob. But Terry only turns against the mob after Johnny Friendly orders the death of his own brother (Rod Steiger), a mobster himself, who had refused to kill Terry after his treachery is discovered.

Terry testifies publicly and initially becomes a pariah on the docks. However, after he takes a terrible beating from Friendly's goons, but then drags himself back to his feet to go to work, Terry's courage rallies the workers to his side and makes Johnny Friendly look like a fool in front of them.

[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.

Image:AnnexBrando On the Waterfront) 02.jpg
Brando as Terry Malloy

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.

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. [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 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] Trivia

Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines.
The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.
  • The finale of Raging Bull by Martin Scorsese is a homage to On the Waterfront.
  • The film has been adapted into Hindi as Ghulam.
  • In the early draft of the script, Terry Malloy was written as a man in his early to mid forties. Upon casting Brando, Kazan changed him into a younger man in his twenties, so as to emphasize his rise and fall and how fast one man can become famous and lose it all soon afterwards.
  • Billy Joel makes a reference to the film in his song "Great Wall of China".
  • Lloyd Cole & The Commotions also reference this film in the song "Rattlesnakes".
  • The cab scene between Terry and Charlie is one of the most famous in American cinema in which Brando speaks these famous lines, "I could have had class. I could have been a contender. I could have been somebody (instead of a bum)." The scene was not shot in a real cab and, because rear screen projection was not available, the producers placed a Venetian blind in the rear window of the cab set to hide this.
  • While shooting the movie, Brando had it written in his contract that he would be allowed to leave the set early every day to see his therapist.
  • When it came to shooting Rod Steiger's lines in the famous cab scene, Marlon Brando was not present because of a therapy appointment. So Steiger had to act opposite a stagehand.
  • In Michael Jackson's music video 'You Rock My World', one of the last shots, in which we see Michael kissing his female lead, there is a large billboard in the background with the 'On The Waterfront' movie poster on it.
  • Upon the screening of the completed version of 'On The Waterfront', Marlon Brando and its director Elia Kazan sat watching. But before the film could end, Brando walked out. He later confirmed in his book 'Songs My Mother Taught Me' that 'on the day Kazan showed me the completed picture, I was so depressed by my performance that I got up and left the screening room'.

[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 [[2]]. Terry Malloy's line in the film,

“ You don't understand! I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I could've been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am. ”

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 [3].

It was the winner of eight Oscars:

[edit] Nominations

The film also received an additional four Oscar nominations:

[edit] External links and further reading

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Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:
On the Waterfront


Awards
Preceded by
From Here to Eternity 		Academy Award for Best Picture
1954 		Succeeded by
Marty
v • d • e
Academy Award for Best Picture: Winners (1941–1960)


v • d • e
Films directed by Elia Kazan

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945) • The Sea of Grass (1947) • Boomerang! (1947) • Gentleman's Agreement (1947) • Pinky (1949) • Panic in the Streets (1950) • A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) • Viva Zapata! (1952) • Man on a Tightrope (1953) • On the Waterfront (1954) • East of Eden (1955) • Baby Doll (1956) • A Face in the Crowd (1957) • Wild River (1960) • Splendor in the Grass (1961) • America, America (1963) • The Arrangement (1969) • The Visitors (1972) • The Last Tycoon (1976)

de:Die Faust im Nacken

es:On the Waterfront eo:On the Waterfront fr:Sur les quais hr:Na dokovima New Yorka it:Fronte del porto he:חופי הכרך hu:A rakparton nl:On the Waterfront ja:波止場 (映画) pt:On the Waterfront simple:On the Waterfront fi:Alaston satama sv:Storstadshamn tr:Rıhtımlar Üzerinde (film) zh:码头风云

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