| Collector's Corner August 2004
 On
the Waterfront
- Starring: Marlon Brando, Karl Malden,
Lee J. Cobb, Rod Steiger, Pat Henning, Eva Marie Saint
- Director: Elia Kazan
- Theatrical release: 1954
- DVD release: 2001
- Video: Fullscreen
- Sound: Dolby Digital mono
- Released by: Columbia TriStar Home Video
Marlon Brando spent countless hours on the psychoanalyst’s
couch, trying to reconcile his success with his insecurity -- a classic symptom of having
been raised by alcoholic parents. But the internal turmoil served Brando well on the stage
and screen. His neuroses translated into film as searing power wedded to an emotional
tenderness that drove audiences of the 1950s into paroxysms of adulation.
Brando couldn’t understand this, and didn’t
particularly like it. He always felt conflicted about his fame and money. "Acting is
the expression of a neurotic impulse," he once said. "It’s a bum’s
life. Quitting acting is a sign of maturity." He told a reporter, "The only
reason I’m here in Hollywood is because I don’t have the moral courage to refuse
the money."
There’s a good case to be made that Brando quit
acting, in any traditional understanding of the craft, quite early in his career. He
frequently refused to memorize his lines, preferring to rely on off-camera cue cards or
improvisation. This came as a reaction to his work at the Actors’ Studio (a school
founded by the director of On the Waterfront, Elia Kazan), where they taught
Stanislavsky’s "Method," a system by which actors seek motivation by trying
to find aspects of their characters within themselves rather than by
"pretending" to be someone else entirely. Early in his career, Brando’s use
of the Method could be electrifying; later in his career, he could just look lazy.
Brando’s death last month started me thinking about
which of his 41 films would qualify as a "must have" for collectors. Most agree
that his work in On the Waterfront is the most gripping of his career. He plays
Terry Malloy, a has-been ex-prizefighter who now works for Johnny Friendly (Lee J. Cobb),
a corrupt union boss in the shipyards of Hoboken, New Jersey. Friendly operates his
longshoremen’s union by stealing from his brothers and his bosses, demanding
kickbacks for work, and then offering usurious loans to the people to whom he denies work.
Friendly also gambles on prizefights, and once used Terry’s brother, Charley (Rod
Steiger), to put pressure on Terry to throw his biggest fight, the one that could have led
to his being a contender for the championship. Terry’s reward was a cushy job on the
docks doing odd jobs for Friendly, though he spends most days just sitting on his butt.
One day, Terry helps set up one of Friendly’s deadbeats, but suffers a bout of
conscience when Friendly has the man killed. When Terry meets the dead man’s sister,
Edie (Eva Marie Saint), he is infatuated, but he can’t get over the fact that he
helped cause her brother’s death. With the pestering of the parish priest (Karl
Malden), Terry begins to feel he should tell the police -- but Charley, under
Friendly’s orders, tries desperately to make Terry see the dangers in ratting. Terry
is stuck: Should he clear his conscience, alienating his new love and getting himself in
potentially fatal trouble? Or should he keep mum and keep working for Friendly?
On the Waterfront was ripped from the headlines of
the day: It was based on "Crime on the Waterfront," Malcolm Johnson’s 1949
newspaper story about dockside racketeers. A few months after Johnson won the Pulitzer
Prize for the story, screenwriter Budd Schulberg began hanging out on the Hoboken docks,
researching the characters for a screenplay. His first contact was Father Corridan, a
notorious, chain-smoking, cussing priest, whom Schulberg used as his model for Karl
Malden’s character. Schulberg talked Corridan into showing him around and getting in
with the longshoremen. He then began writing articles about what he found, and by 1951,
the uproar caused the Senate to form the Kefauver Committee to study the Mafia’s
infiltration of labor unions. When Kefauver decided to make the hearings public by
televising them, millions of people tuned in to see the gangsters and longshoremen
testify.
Another government committee, which had been formed in the
late 1940s, was attacking Hollywood's ties to the Communist Party -- the House Un-American
Activities Committee. Led by J. Parnell Thomas, the committee was purposely
destroying the careers of anyone who had been a communist or anyone who refused to name
names in front of the committee. The then president of the Screen Actors Guild,
Ronald Reagan, gladly turned over the names of all Guild members who were also members of
the Communist Party. Most of them refused to testify, which put them on the
producers’ "black list"; the rest of Hollywood vilified the few who did
testify. Amongst the few who did agree to testify included writer Budd Schulberg, actor
Lee J. Cobb, and director Elia Kazan.
Kazan always claimed that there was nothing
autobiographical about his decision to make a movie about the pressures put on Terry
Malloy to testify. He had directed a chain of successful films -- A Tree Grows in
Brooklyn, Gentleman’s Agreement, A Streetcar Named Desire, Viva
Zapata -- and felt that Hollywood would produce anything he wanted. But even with all
the concurrent press and gripping story, Kazan couldn’t get Hollywood to buy the
script of On the Waterfront -- most producers thought it was just too dark.
Finally, a maverick named Sam Spiegel (The Bridge on the River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia) offered to do it. Production was set
with a small budget and the lead role was offered to Frank Sinatra, but Spiegel had
different ideas. He figured he could raise more money by hiring Marlon Brando, then a much
bigger box-office draw than Sinatra. Kazan was happy with Brando, and production
commenced.
Though Brando is remembered chiefly for his "I coulda
been a contender" speech, he does a lot more for this film. Watch chapter 9, when
Edie drops her glove. Brando leans over, cleans it off, starts playing with it, and
eventually puts it on his own hand. The scene was completely, if accidentally, improvised,
but it adds a dimension of poignant kindness to Terry Malloy. In chapter 12, 41:45 into
the film, Terry tries to make peace with Edie. He leans in close to her and starts
nervously pulling on his chin, trying to come up with the words that will make her stay.
Again, Brando’s masterful portrayal shows Terry’s softer side.
If all you’ve ever seen of On the Waterfront is
the short "contender" clip, you’ll be stunned by the whole scene in chapter
20. Rod Steiger, as Charley, Terry’s big brother, gives a performance fully equal to
Brando’s. Charley has been sent by Johnny Friendly to make sure Terry doesn’t
talk to the government. Friendly has instructed Charley to kill Terry if he has to. The
two brothers sit in the back of a cab as Charley tries to tell his baby brother why he
shouldn’t squeal. Their conversation has the real-life feel of two brothers, until
Charley makes a mistake and gives away the plot. He then pulls a gun on Terry. But in the
most tender, oddly loving way, Terry just looks in his brother’s eyes, softly says,
"Oh, Charley," and gently pushes the gun aside. When Charley realizes he
can’t go through with it, he tries to talk Terry into joining Friendly’s mob.
Terry, more disappointed than angry, asks why Charley didn’t try to look out for him
more when he was younger. You can see the wheels turning in Charley’s head, as he
realizes that failing with Terry is a death sentence for both of them. This scene is among
the most powerful in all of film, and so much more than the small snippet we usually see.
The rest of the cast is superb. In fact, five of On the
Waterfront’s actors were nominated for Oscars. Brando and Saint won for Best
Actor and Best Supporting Actress. Cobb, Malden, and Steiger were all nominated for Best
Supporting Actor, but they canceled each other out. Steiger was robbed. He finally won an
Oscar 13 years later, for In the Heat of the Night, but On the Waterfront is
his masterpiece. Also nominated was Leonard Bernstein, whose fabulous score -- his only
music for film (West Side Story and On the Town were written for the stage)
-- underpins nearly every scene.
Columbia TriStar’s DVD honors the film. It’s a
dark black-and-white movie, but its shadowy backgrounds come across with very good detail
-- not quite in the league of Citizen Kane, but much
better than most. The mono sound is clear, but Bernstein’s score has been mixed so
high that it occasionally obscures the dialogue. The extras are mostly instructive and
interesting. Richard Schickel, author of Brando: A Life in Our Times, and Jeff
Young, author of Kazan: The Master Director Discusses His Films, provide
fascinating if occasionally inaccurate commentary. I especially appreciated the 25-minute
treatise (imaginatively titled "Exclusive Featurette") on what makes On the
Waterfront a great film, and the 12-minute interview with Kazan. I only wish that
Columbia TriStar had offered the music on a separate track; collectors of film-score
recordings have begged for a recording of this music for the last 50 years. The rest of
the extras are the usual suspects.
On the Waterfront is eighth on the American Film
Institute’s list of the 100 best American films of all time. In all, the film was
nominated for 11 Oscars and won eight: Best Film, Director, Actor, Supporting Actress,
Cinematography, Script, Editing, and Art Direction.
Brando would make 34 more films, but only his work in The Godfather comes close to what he did in On the
Waterfront. Unfortunately for Brando, he spent the last 35 years of his life as the
punch line of too many jokes. Elia Kazan went on to make a number of wonderful films,
including East of Eden, A Face in the Crowd, and America America.
In 1999, at age 89, he received an honorary Oscar inscribed, "In appreciation of a
long, distinguished and unparalleled career during which he has influenced the very nature
of filmmaking through his creation of cinematic masterpieces." Forty-seven years
after Kazan testified before the McCarthy committee, most of the audience refused to
applaud.
...Wes Marshall
wesm@hometheatersound.com |
