On The Waterfront 1954

I finally got around to watching one of my Christmas presents the other night the new 3 disc release of On The Waterfront from Criterion. It comes in a nice package with 3 aspect ratios including the usual 1.33.1 full screen version and the 1.66.1 vesion  which is the one I picked to watch. Also included is the 1.85.1 widescreen version, which I might watch in the future. The film by now is very well known for its story of labor, racketeering and corruption on the docks of Hoboken New Jersey, for the towering performance of Marlon Brando who plays the conflicted ex-boxer Terry Malloy and for Elia Kazan the director of the film who gave damaging testimony in 1952 before the House of Un-American Activities Committee where he named names. I’m not going to tackle this thorny subject, there is much material available on this part of Kazan’s biography, including the many extras that come with the dvd, but it does hover over the film like the smudgy gray skies over the Hoboken landscape. I think its a very good, maybe even great film with a few flaws including the sometimes intrusive Leonard Bernstein score and the brave happy ending, but even with these criticisms of mine, the film after all these years is still strong and moving. As I said Brando (God was he beautiful)  gives what I think is truly one of the great performances in the history of film, (do I dare say the greatest) and Eva Marie Saint matches him in her debut and Oscar winning performance as Edie the sister of a murdered dockworker whose demise off a roof opens the film. Their scenes together are brilliant and heartbreaking including the famous improvised glove sequence. This is also the only film that I really can stand that trio of ham on rye actors Rod Steiger, Lee J. Cobb and Karl Maldern who give what I consider their finest performances, especially Steiger who plays Brando’s corrupt and tarnished brother Charley. Memorable scenes abound including a fast and furious wedding in a bar, Brando and Steiger in the back of a cab riding off to death, “I coulda have class” Brando and Saint’s intense bedroom scene, their running down an alley trying to escape a speeding and deadly truck, Brando finding his beloved pigeons dead (there are lots of references to these pests throughout the film) and many others. I should also mention the great cinematography by Boris Kaufman and look for unaccredited bits by Martin Balsam, Pat Hingle, Fred Gwynne and Nehemiah Persoff. Nominated for an astonishing 12 Oscars it eventually won 8. American films really came of age and grew up with this one.