Review of On the Waterfront (1954) by Cole P — 08 Sep 2011

A lot happens on the waterfront. There's racketeering, oppression, murder, and underpaid workers. In the daytime its run like a rigged Vegas game show. Come nightfall and the slums are engulfed by ritzy, murderous crooks. Everybody is afraid to speak up, a colloquial term so deviously christened by the underworld as D&D (deaf and dumb). Anybody who doesn't follow D&D (labeled as canaries) digs their own grave. That's what Terry Malloy (in an Oscar worthy performance by Marlon Brando) does for the duration of this movie. He digs his own grave, but he wields a hook instead of a shovel.

I think the strength in this film comes in its performances and its depiction of life on the waterfront. Sure, skeptics might deem some of the mobster scenes as glitzy and the violence as gratuitous--but it surely isn't sugarcoated. And for characters like Father Barry (Karl Malden) or Edie Doyle (Eva Marie Saint's debut), the scenery is almost too visceral to take in at once. But to retort, this is a thematic advantage. For instance, Edie was warded off into the country to become a nun (a tactic helmed by her father in fear of her becoming demoralized by the life on the docks). But Edie learns that to pursue the life of the immaculate is only succumbing to ignorance. What she cannot learn in books, she must witness firsthand on the waterfront. Similarly is Terry Malloy. His talent at boxing may have won him a bout with the middleweight champion of the world, but because of his background, his prospects were ruined. He was dragged down into the same hellish world from whence he came and throughout this film, Malloy realizes no escape.

As a catharsis to his pain is Father Barry, who deems the most righteous way to deal with the mobsters is to rise against them. It's a lesson Malloy learns by the end of the film. He figures if he can't be a champion amongst the wealthy and exotic, he might as well become the idol (the Christ figure) of the downcast.

On the Waterfront yields great performances from its three leads, although I admit to feeling a tad underwhelmed by its mobsters (who egregiously seemed like the fathers of the mob in The Dark Knight). Nevertheless, the film is wonderfully shot (showing some great hazy cinematography of what I guesstimated was Jersey City via the geography of Manhattan parallel to the docks), and Leonard Bernstein delivered a score adumbrating his legendary West Side Story. Released in 1954, I think it paved the way for other mobster/union movies to come. It's an unforgettable tale of religion; inaction vs. action.

As a personal preference, I'd love to see what this film might look like shot in color.