Notable Film Fact(s):
This film 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).
Director Sam Spiegel sent the film script to Marlon Brando and it came back with a refusal. While Spiegel continued to work on Brando, Frank Sinatra agreed to take on the role.
It is also on the Vatican's list of 45 greatest films of all time, compiled in 1995.
Film Synopsis:
Terry Malloy (Marlon Brando) once dreamt of being a great prize fighter, but now works at the docks of Johnny Friendly (Lee J. Cobb), the corrupt boss of the dockers union. He witnesses the murder of longshoreman Joey Doyle by a couple of Johnny's thugs, but won't betray Friendly, who is both his brother's (Rod Steiger) boss and a long-time friend of his family.
Later Malloy meets the dead man's sister Edie (Eva Marie Saint) and feels responsible for his death. She introduces him to Father Barry (Karl Malden), who tries to force him to provide information for the courts that will smash the dock racketeers.
Director:
Elia Kazan
Producer:
Sam Spiegel
Screenplay:
Budd Schulberg
Cast:
Marlon Brando
Karl Malden
Lee J. Cobb
Eva Marie Saint
Rod Steiger
Distributor:
Columbia Pictures
Release Date(s): 28 July 1954 (US)
Running time: 108 minutes
My View Rating: ***
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