On the Waterfront

In 1999, during the 71st Annual Academy Awards, something polarizing happened that I will never forget. Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro took the stage and introduced us to that year’s recipient for the Lifetime Achievement Oscar. After a short clip highlighting his many films, including On the Waterfront, Elia Kazan came out on stage. The response was mixed at best. Some stood and applauded, some politely clapped while remaining seated. Others sat still, their arms folded and looks of anger and disgust on display for the whole world to see. Elia was a controversial figure in the entertainment industry, and there were plenty of people there to let you know he had not been forgiven for acts that occurred decades in the past. 

Kazan testified before HUAC (the House Un-American Activities Committee) in 1952 during the heart of the Red Scare. Kazan named names to that committee and was instrumental in giving up eight people that he said had been communists. Kazan admitted that he was once a member of the party himself but had quit some time in the past, and his testimony led to some prominent Hollywood people being blacklisted. This cost him many friends in the industry, and those ripples were still being felt forty years later. While you can fault the man, that should be directed at him and him alone. His work should stand on its own and be judged on that merit, just as the works of other controversial figures such as Kevin Spacey or Roman Polanski. 

In this case, that work is On the Waterfront, the 1954 Academy Award Best Picture winner. This was Kazan’s second Best Picture winner following 1947’s Gentleman’s Agreement, and it tackles subjects that are just as serious: murder and corruption. In this case, that corruption exists within the Waterfront Unions in the form of Union Leader Michael J. Skelly, aka “Johnny Friendly” (Lee J. Cobb). Friendly is a Hoffa-kind of leader, leading with intimidation tactics, living it up on Union dues, and deciding who does or does not get work. 

The film opens with our protagonist, Terry Malloy (Marlon Brando), a washed-up prizefighter who took bribes to lose fights and now finds himself working on the docks for Friendly, lamenting his lost chance to be a contender. Terry, who was more of a fighter than a thinker, gets by as a longshoreman while his more educated brother, Charley (Rod Steiger), is Friendly’s right-hand man. Terry is coerced into luring a fellow worker, Joey Doyle, out onto a rooftop where Friendly’s men push him off to his death. Terry, who had convinced himself they were just going to rough him up to keep him from testifying to the Waterfront Crime Commission, is upset over the killing but not enough to come forward to the police. 

Joey’s sister Edie (Eva Marie Saint), along with the local priest, Father Barry (Karl Malden), try to inspire the dockworkers to testify against Friendly, but their pleas fall on deaf ears. No one wants to risk the same fate as Joey. But Terry is having a crisis of conscience, spurred on by his growing attraction to Edie. This only gets worse when another worker is convinced to testify only to get killed in a sudden accident on the docks. Knowing that Terry may be considering testifying himself, Friendly sends Charlie to try and change his mind. But Terry admits to his brother that he blames him for arranging the fixed boxing matches and has no intention of falling back in line. 

Watching Marlon Brando’s Terry Malloy on screen, you can almost see Jiminy Cricket on his shoulder, pressuring him to confess what he knows. He is not a hardened criminal, nor is he smart enough to make that leap the way his brother did. Whether he truly believed Friendly’s men would only rough up Joey or not, he is shocked when he sees the body fall to the pavement. Terry isn’t so jaded that he can ignore his conscience forever, though, and we see it slowly eating at him throughout the picture.  But, like all of his coworkers at the docks, he fears the repercussions of doing the right thing. What we are witnessing is the gradual shift as his sense of right and wrong overweighs his sense of self-preservation. All it takes for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing. That is what has been happening here.

A lot has been said about Marlon Brando’s acting style. He notoriously disliked stage acting because it required him to do the same thing over and over again, not allowing him any variety. He was a film actor that was far more comfortable doing something, then moving on to something new. He was a force to be reckoned with, especially in the early days before he started getting a reputation for being difficult to work with. Here he is at the top of his game, right up there with his amazingly sinister performance in A Streetcar Named Desire. He’s basically a stand-in for Kazan himself. When Friendly yells: “You ratted on us, Terry,” you get the sense that Kazan got similar responses from left-wing individuals who felt the same thing from the HUAC testimonies. “I was rattin’ on myself all those years. I didn’t even know it.” He yells back.

Kazan was making a point, not only to his detractors but to himself, too. He wanted to justify his decision to testify and to make a statement to the world that he viewed Communists as something evil that he was, for a time, seduced by. In that way, On the Waterfront is his allegory of this time in his life. While it was enormously popular, both to audiences and critics alike, it made him some enemies who didn’t see his actions as heroic and took offense at this film for spinning it that way. 

Kazan has painted this stand-in for himself in a way that we rarely see in the male leads from this era. He is tough, capable of defending himself, yet he is also sensitive and full of doubt. We get this great scene late into the proceedings between him and Charley where he finally lays it down, both for his own benefit and to confront his brother. This is the famous “I coulda been a contender” moment that is seemingly showcased at every Oscar ceremony somewhere. Terry is expressing his frustration at losing the opportunity to be a real champion, but he is also shifting the blame to Charlie who made the deals that led Terry to throw the fights. This frustration is nothing new, but until this moment, Terry has kept it bottled up, afraid to express it. You can see in every move, every note of that delivery, just how much this has been festering.

If I can fault anything in this film, it is how neatly it all wraps up. The script is based on the true story of a longshoreman who attempted to overthrow a corrupted union. The real story ended in failure, but that wouldn’t do for a movie. The ending we get feels artificial, designed to manipulate our emotions. Even as Terry’s stumbling onto the docks, inspiring the other workers to throw Friendly overboard and into the water, it just feels too manufactured. This is not the fault of the actors , all of whom are excellent. Instead, this is simply a case of realism being replaced with the need to satisfy audiences. It makes you feel good but rings with a high degree of artificiality.

This is one of those films that everyone needs to see. It’s a tour de force for actors showcasing their talent, including Eva Marie Saint, who is making her debut here. Even the ending, which doesn’t quite ring true, is satisfying and has us cheering Terry on even as he can barely walk after taking a severe beating. This is quite simply one of the greatest films ever made. If you have strong negative feelings about Elia Kazan and cannot get over the allegorical aspects of this script, I can see why you might not like it. All others, though, will find a rich tapestry of moral ambiguity and a classic example of right versus might. 

Academy Award Nominations: 

Best Motion Picture: Sam Spiegel (won)

Best Director: Elia Kazan (won)

Best Actor: Marlon Brando (won)

Best Supporting Actor: Lee J. Cobb

Best Supporting Actor: Karl Malden

Best Supporting Actor: Rod Steiger

Best Supporting Actress: Eva Marie Saint (won)

Best Story and Screenplay: Budd Schulberg (won)

Best Art Direction - Black and White: Richard Day (won)

Best Cinematography - Black and White: Boris Kaufman (won)

Best Film Editing: Gene Milford (won)

Best Music Score of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture: Leonard Bernstein

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Release Date: July 28, 1954

Running Time: 108 Minutes

Not Rated

Starring: Marlon Brando, Karl Malden, Lee J. Cobb, Rod Steiger, Pat Henning, and Eva Marie Saint

Directed By: Elia Kazan