On the Waterfront ***** (1954, Marlon Brando, Rod Steiger, Eva Marie Saint, Lee J Cobb, Karl Malden) – Classic Movie Review 351

‘You don’t understand. I could’ve had class. I could’ve been a contender. I could’ve been somebody instead of a bum, which I am.’ – Terry Malloy (Marlon Brando).

In a truly great performance, the 30-year-old Marlon Brando won the 1955 Best Actor Oscar as the wannabee prize-fighter and rebel longshoreman Terry Malloy who tends his pigeons and runs errands at the docks for the ironically named Johnny Friendly (Lee J Cobb), the corrupt New York waterfront dockers’ union organiser. When Terry’s older brother Charley (Rod Steiger) is killed by Johnny’s thugs, Father Barry (Karl Malden) tries to force him to provide information for the courts to smash the dock racketeers.

Newcomer Eva Marie Saint won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar as Edie Doyle, Brando’s tragic intimate, and Malden was Oscar nominated as the hard-nosed dockland priest. Producer Sam Spiegel took home the Best Picture Oscar.

Thanks to the penetrating treatment of the controversial subject of labour racketeers, this is one heck of an impressive movie. With Brando’s iconic star turn, the showy Actors’ Studio acting star performances, the tough-edged writing, the raw black and white location cinematography, the stirring Elmer Bernstein Oscar nominated score and Elia Kazan’s sterling direction, this is still one of the greatest, most admired of Hollywood milestone movies.

The film won a total of eight Oscars, for Best Picture, Best Actor (Brando) and Best Supporting Actress (Saint), Best Director (Kazan), Best Writing, Original Story and Screenplay (Budd Schulberg), Best Cinematography, Black-and-White (Boris Kaufman), Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White (Richard Day) and Best Film Editing (Gene Milford). There were four other nominations.

Cobb, Steiger and Malden were all Oscar nominated as Best Actor in a Supporting Role, but none of them won, probably because it split the vote. It did the inestimable service of introducing Saint, Martin Balsam, Fred Gwynne and Pat Hingle to the movies. Pat Henning, Leif Erickson, James Westerfield, John Hamilton, Tony Galento and Nehemiah Persoff are also notable among the fine cast.

Budd Schulberg based the screenplay on his own story, later in 1955 published as a distinguished, now classic novel Waterfront (the working title of the film). Most of the characters are based on real people and the situations are factually based.

Kazan made this to try to make amends for naming names to the House Un-American Activities Committee during the Joseph McCarthy witch-hunts of the 1950s. Brando initially refused to work with him for this.

Under his contract, Brando, in mental torment after mother had recently died, only worked till 4 pm every day to leave to go see his analyst.

For the classic’ I could’ve been a contender’ scene in the back of the cab, all of Steiger’s close-ups were filmed after Brando had left for the day, so his lines were read by a crew member, infuriating Steiger, who nursed a grudge for years. When Brando tried to improvise his lines (‘how’s mom?’), Kazan ordered ‘knock it off!’ The cab blinds are drawn because the necessary back projection footage was not ordered up in time.

‘I’ve got a one-way ticket to Palookaville’ – Terry Malloy (Marlon Brando). It inspired the title of the 1995 lowlife crime comedy, Palookaville.

Eva Marie Saint celebrated her 93rd birthday on 4 July 2017. Her work also includes North by Northwest (1959), Raintree County (1957), Exodus (1960), The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming! (1966), Grand Prix (1966), Nothing in Common (1986), Because of Winn-Dixie (2005), Superman Returns (2006) and A New York Winter’s Tale (2014).

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© Derek Winnert 2013 Classic Movie Review 351

Link to Derek Winnert’s home page for more film reviews: http://derekwinnert.com/