Best Picture Winner: 1954

On the Waterfront (1954)

After years of glossy, polished Best Picture winners comes On the Waterfront, a gritty, stark look at corruption and murder plaguing a town that survives on its longshoremen trade. By shooting on location and utilizing multiple close-ups to provide a feeling of intimacy, director Elia Kazan makes the audience feel like they are participants in the action, not just witnesses.

Terry Malloy (Marlon Brando) is having a crisis of conscience. Having followed his older brother Charley (Rod Steiger) into the clutches of corrupt union boss Johnny Friendly (Lee J. Cobb), Terry has unwittingly participated in the murder of Tommy Doyle, a longshoreman who has testified against the union for the Waterfront Crime Commission. An emerging romance with Tommy’s sister Edie (Eva Marie Saint) and a determined priest (Karl Malden) urging the dock workers to unite and fight against Friendly cause Terry to reevaluate both his past and present circumstances.

On the Waterfront casts aside the typically attractive Hollywood aesthetics to provide a bleak, urgent look at characters seemingly caught in no win situations. Terry knows the danger he faces by becoming a rat. But he also knows that without telling the truth he will not be able to stay with the woman he loves. When Johnny asks Charley to “talk” to Terry about a potential betrayal, Charley knows if he doesn’t persuade Terry to keep quiet, it could mean both their lives. Later in the film we learn that Charley, on behalf of Johnny Friendly, asked Terry to take a few dives in the boxing ring, thereby ending what could have been a prosperous career for Terry. These two brothers’ demons are unleashed during the classic scene in a taxicab where Terry, teary-eyed, tells Charley, “You shoulda looked out for me a little.”

Brando is an actor who so immerses himself in his roles that he becomes the character. His Terry Malloy is character we feel for because we completely understand the circumstances that put him on the wrong path. Terry’s evolution into someone poised to risk his life to stand up against evil is one of the great character arcs of the cinema. Brando never overplays Terry. There are several instances where the actor could have delivered dialogue full of thunder and rage but instead chose quiet and sadness. It is a deservedly praised performance.

The rest of the cast is in top form. Steiger convincingly portrays a man who must decide whether to sacrifice his own for his brother’s. Karl Malden’s Father Barry delivers a stirring emotional plea to the dock workers after an “accident” claims the life of one of their own. And Eva Marie Saint perfectly balances her character’s naïveté and outrage.

In spite of the film’s bleak subject matter, On the Waterfront is ultimately an uplifting experience due to its resolution. The film plays as well today as it did more than fifty years ago since its subject matter is as timely as ever. What we need now are some more Terry Malloys.