On the Waterfront

“On the Waterfront” was based on magazine articles by Malcolm Johnson; it was to be filmed in New York, partly because the locations demanded it, and partly because Elia Kazan, like Huston, Mankiewicz and Zinnemann, believed the atmosphere in Southern California was detrimental to his work. He was still angry about the cuts Zanuck had insisted on in “Man on a Tightrope”, but nevertheless On the Waterfront was destined for 20th Century-Fox until Zanuck decreed that audiences were not interested in labor problems. The project was taken on by the independent producer, Sam Spiegel, who arranged a deal with Columbia, and whose help in all ways was “tremendous”, according to Kazan. The film reunited Kazan with Marlon Brando, whose performance as Terry Malloy, ex-pug and longshoreman, is one of the best ever recorded on celluloid. A foreword claims that the “film will exemplify the way self-appointed tyrants can defeated by right-thinking people in a vital democracy”, thus avoiding the main problem, which is how tyrants achieve power in the first place. Malloy defeats them not by persuasive convictions (467k) about democracy but by the old movie standbys, revenge and the strength that comes from love. The film’s rich texture and dialogue disguise the fact that Malloy is activated by a