Terry Malloy (Marlon Brando) is a longshoreman in his local dockyards. However, he also runs errands for Johnny Friendly (Lee J. Cobb), the longshoreman’s union leader who is corrupt, dictatorial and connected to mobsters. If he likes you, you get work. If not, you starve. And the longshoremen live a life of suppression and fear. Terry finds himself an accomplice in the murder of a young man named Doyle who was reporting Friendly’s activities to the authorities. Terry also finds himself falling in love with Doyle’s grieving sister, Edie (Eva Marie Saint), and just make his life even more complicated, a local priest, Father Barry (Karl Malden) is encouraging him to risk his own life to speak up against Friendly. Will Terry end Friendly’s reign of terror? Or will he end up mysteriously murdered too?
We’ve hit another film that has “icon” status. On the Waterfront may not quite have the catchy household name as Gone With the Wind or Casablanca, but it is often on “top movies” lists, and Marlon Brando’s “I coulda been a contender” speech is an oft-quoted moment. I was expecting something along the lines of How Green Was My Valley, a study of the everyday struggle of the poor and downtrodden- only this time about dockworkers rather than 19th-century Welsh miners. On the Waterfront is that kind of film on some level, but it also employs a heavy gangster edge, more human-on-human violence, and a focused storyline on one character rather than an ensemble.
And I thought it was pretty darn good. This is one of Brando’s highest-regarded performances (it won him his first of two Oscars) and he’s so natural in his expressions and movements that it’s easy to see why he receives such acclaim. What we are now seeing is the movement from heavily-rehearsed, theatrical acting styles, into more emphasis on naturalism and method acting. Brando would famously only half-learn his lines, preferring to work on his character’s mannerisms and just kind of see what happens when the camera rolls. He does it so brilliantly that I often forgot I was watching Brando, and thought I was seeing a real working-class longshoreman. He is very much a 50’s symbol- young, attractive, and rebellious against the older generation’s ways of life. He is the Elvis Presley of acting.
Eva Marie Saint is also very engaging- vulnerable and diminutive but also strong-willed and easy for an audience to support. The love story between them is treated with tenderness and it felt believable- the gruff, sardonic worker and the soft-spoken, Catholic school girl balancing each other out and falling in love. It’s lovely, involving writing.
The plight of the workers is that they are torn between their horror at the corruption of Johnny Friendly and their reliance on him for work and money and this is demonstrated very well by some increasingly violent confrontations. The social issues addressed are quite specific to the 1950’s, and may be less relevant now (How Green Was My Valley felt very timeless by comparison), but there were still some very powerful moments, such as when Terry reveals to Edie his involvement in her brother’s death, and when Terry discovers the dead body of someone very close to him.
What lets the film down slightly are two things. Firstly, the villain himself I found too pantomime. Lee J. Cobb is outstanding in Twelve Angry Men, but here he was a bog-standard gangster surrounding by lurching, dim-witted minions like the villain in a Bugs Bunny cartoon. His eventual comeuppance felt clownish rather than sincere compared to the grittiness of the rest of the film too. And secondly, I was bloody glad to have subtitles because without them I wouldn’t know what the hell was going on. The characters speak in such authentic New-York-via-New-Jersey accents full of colloquialisms that make them sometimes difficult to understand, and the complex relationship between the longshoremen, the police and the mob is a bit obscure as a result.
On the Waterfront is worth a watch. It has some cracking acting from the leads, it serves up an exciting story, and has powerful moments. But, it’s not a powerful film. That villain needed to be far more villainous.
Highlight
The scene in which Terry tells Edie about his involvement in her brother’s death. Strikingly, director Elia Kazan only shows snippets of dialogue, with the overwhelming sounds of the boats and factories blocking out the lines and consequently intensifying the moment.
Lowlight
The final scene gave little comeuppance to the villain, and didn’t really make a lot of sense to me. Exactly who is supporting who changes suddenly for reasons which are left unclear to modern eyes.
Mark
7/10
On The Waterfront is one I’ve been slightly dreading because it’s the first real time I have to acknowledge that my reviews may at times carry a heavy bias. In this case - it’s the simple fact that I strongly dislike films that classify themselves as ‘gritty gangster films’. There’s nothing more offputting to me than the idea of a Western or a Gangster film, it just doesn’t appeal in any way. The stories are usually hyper-masculine, there aren’t any decent women in them, and there’s often a lot of focus on guns. So while these films may be classed as among the greatest in the world, I won’t actually like them enough to seriously rate them.
It’s a slight relief to say that On The Waterfront isn’t quite in that category. It’s still far from a favourite, and I did find myself drifting off at various points, longing for just a hint of comedy or a light-hearted moment. It’s a constantly oppressive film, making it clear at every point how everyone is wretched and miserable in this hugely working class atmosphere. But it’s a good story - if a little thin - and the idea of corrupt dock businesses was far from fictional, with many records of various companies being found out to be run by mobs.
It’s a treat too to see Marlon Brando. Despite the fact that he was a rather diminutive 5”8, he’s still a real matinee idol and the looks that sent Hollywood wild are at their peak here. He’s also - as Paul says - heralding in the introduction of Stanislavsky as a popular and recognised acting style. That means he has to, in some sense, ‘become’ the character, taking on their thoughts and feelings. Stanislavsky acting or ‘Method Acting’ is still hugely popular in modern cinema with devotees such as Meryl Streep, Alan Rickman and Daniel Day-Lewis all having famously stayed ‘in character’ all day long. With Brando, it lends him an air of spontaneity and freshness that sometimes has been lacking from our previous films. In one scene he picks up Eva Marie Saint’s glove, plays with it, and eventually puts it on. This was improvised apparently, and I found myself fixated on the glove, rather than the events for the whole scene.
But that’s probably where my admiration of this film ends. I found the gangster/gritty stuff pretty dull as expected and while Brando is certainly bringing in a fresh approach, he is by no means the best at it. There are far greater actors who have used this style since and so I found him interesting contextually but not massively impressive overall. His famous line ‘I coulda been a contender’ was so quietly delivered that I fail to see how it has become iconic, and overall I found myself not caring for any of the characters.
Iconic film? Not for me. But it’s interesting to see the new style of acting appear after decades of staidness. Did I care about anything in the film? Not really. It’s a film with machismo running through it, and I just find that dull. At several points I kept thinking of Bette Davis in All About Eve and wishing On The Waterfront had even a hint of the flair and lightness of that.
Highlight
The scene in the restaurant when Brando tries to instinctively calm Eva Marie Saint by picking up her glass and pouring beer into her mouth. It’s oddly charming and reveals a lot of the character swiftly. It’s good to see some modern ‘show not tell’ acting emerging.
Lowlight
As Paul said, the villain doesn’t even bear talking about.
Mark
4/10
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