On the Waterfront

You'll have two film reviews. I rewatched two of my old favorites, On the Waterfront and The Train in the last twenty-four hours. Instead of writing new reviews, I'll be lazy and copy and paste my old IMDB comments for them here.

On the Waterfront

Terry Malloy (Marlon Brando) is a failed ex-boxer who is now essentially working as an errand boy for crooked longshoreman union boss/mob chieftain Johnny Friendly (Lee J. Cobb). Malloy rebuffs attempts from the police to enlist him for questioning when one of his friends is murdered by Friendly's thugs, afraid that he will be perceived as a "rat" by his co-workers at the docks. However, the inquiries of his dead friend's sister (Eve Marie Sant) and the driven local priest (Karl Malden), along with the refusal of his hit-man brother (Rod Steiger) to follow boss's orders and kill him, drives Terry to do the right thing - no matter what the cost.

"On the Waterfront" is undoubtedly one of the great achievements of American cinema. Directed by Elia Kazan, who is best remembered for his role in aiding the HUAC investigations into Hollywood in the early '50s, the film has been read as an attempt to explain his involvement in the investigation, with the mob standing in for the Communist Party and the dock workers as his colleagues in Hollywood, many of whom were blacklisted and lost work over the investigation - and many of whom never forgave Kazan.

This is certainly an interesting way to look at the film, and there is some credence to it. At first, Terry, a generally good guy who has hit a rough patch in his life, is reluctant to aide the Federal investigation because he doesn't want to betray his friends and he fears the backlash against him. But the efforts of the lovely sister of his best friend and the kindly but driven preacher drive him to do the right thing - and ultimately his colleagues stand beside him and reveal Johnny Friendly for what he is - a cowardly crook - expressing Kazan's hope that he would be forgiven for turning against Communists in the film industry

.In real life, this didn't quite happen; Kazan was continually ridiculed for his role in the HUAC investigation, which, for all its excesses, was not chasing after ghosts. To be fair, unlike the (now provably real) Communists in the State Department and elsewhere in the US government/military, liberal intellectuals and artists in Hollywood who were seduced by Communist idealism weren't really a threat to American security, as misguided as their views might appear today. Nonetheless, it's something of a shame that such a talented director was so ridiculed for doing what he thought was right by his clannish colleagues.

Politics aside, "On the Waterfront" still holds up very well today, in no small part due to the acting. This is one of Marlon Brando's finest performances, when he was at the height of his talent, well before he became an overweight caricature of himself. Terry Malloy is a character who, while not particularly bright or insightful, is driven by a determination that there is something wrong with blindly sticking up for his friends. Once he sees what his bosses are, he risks everything in order to do what's right. He's bitter about his failed boxing career, which we learn was largely sabotaged by his brother Charley, and his inability to connect with something greater than being "a bum". Every scene Brando is in is brilliant; this is, simply put, one of the greatest performances of all time, completely naturalistic and utterly believable.The cast is filled with other brilliant actors, with Eve Marie Sant wonderful as Edie, the girl who Terry falls for and drives him in the right direction. Karl Malden gives a powerful performance as Father Barry, a truly inspirational character who is completely honest and clear-cut in his views of right and wrong. Lee J. Cobb is wonderfully understated as Johnny Friendly, with Rod Steiger delivering the finest performance of his career (with the possible exception of "Doctor Zhivago") as Terry's conflicted brother (the famous taxi scene between the two is justly considered one of the finest acting moments in film history). Like Brando, Steiger would become a self-deprecating ham late in his career, but here he gives a truly powerful, believable portrayal of a man torn between love for his brother and serving his boss.

There are so many aspects that one could focus on with the film, and I'm limited in what I can say. Skilfully directed and shot, with a wonderful script by Budd Schulberg and one of the greatest casts ever assembled, "On the Waterfront" stands today as a powerful, inspiring drama. 9/10