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    On the Waterfront

    Reviewed by
    pietroantoni@

    Though I have total contempt for Director Elia Kazan and story writer Bud Schoelberg, I am not some moronic asshat to deny that ON THE WATERFRONT is probably the greatest film of the 50's as well as one of the greatest of all time. The reason for my contempt goes back to a time before I was born, during the McCarthy witch hunt for Communist infiltrators into the U. S. of A. It was one of the worst periods in American history, especially as it was turning Hollywood into a Viper's Nest of Communists which it NEVER WAS. Many writers, actors etc, were imprisoned as a select few gave names to Congress to save their own hides. The convicted men and women, in all cases, were blackballed, unable to ever work again within the Hollywood system, ruining lives and families in one fell swoop. ELIA KAZAN AND BUD SCHOELBERG were two of the most notorious snitches on record betraying their colleagues as the rest of Hollywood stood in horror as Congress passed conviction after conviction without even sufficient evidence. It was a horror story.

    With all this fresh on my mind again, it's impossible to write an unbiased critique BUT I WILL! The movie is brilliant and Kazan did deserve the Oscar as Best Director as did the film which took the top Oscar in 1954. One is literally unable to now view such brilliant performances as those of MARLON BRANDO (Best Actor), Eva Marie Saint (winning a supporting Oscar in her first film, to nominees Karl Malden (the priest) and Lee J. Cobb (the corrupt underworld boss) Their performances will always stay with me. It all takes place in the gritty world of longshoremen of 1950's N. Y. when NOTHING got in the way of trade unions and crime. But no one ever expected the likes of Terry Malloy (the Brando character) to do the unthinkable. The screenplay which also won an Oscar is one of the most brilliant pieces of film writing. If that were not enough, LEONARD BERNSTEIN wrote a score for the ages, his ON THE WATERFRONT SUITE now a classic. There is never a dull moment in the film and that is in great measure due to the traitorous director Elia Kazan. In the small scenes, in romantic scenes, in the enormous scenes of conflict, it all blends into a magical whole. Before knowing anything of Kazan, WATERFRONT, which I luckily caught in a Greenwhich Village Cinema revival, changed my cinéma going experience which lasts to this day.

    Ironically or depending on how one reads the whole thing, Kazan was to make very few films after WATERFRONT, just a handful to be exact. I doubt he was ousted by Hollywood but by 1960 with his AMERICA, AMERICA, he called it quits and became a best selling author. Did he have a pang of conscience? Who can really know! In 1975 he turned one of his best sellers into a film with Faye Dunaway, Deborah Kerr and Kirk Douglas, but cinéma had changed. And then he seemed to vanish for some 20 years when he was presented with a special OSCAR for film contribution. HIS BETRAYAL WAS STILL FRESH IN HOLLYWOOD'S MIND, MOST IN ATTENDANCE REFUSING TO STAND TO HONOUR A FILM LEGEND. It must have been tough on him, but not as hard as what he did to many colleagues years before. I would never want such a stain on my conscience. The film deserves a 10, but it's getting a 9 from me for obvious reasons, still not too shabby, I would say. Film has to be its very own entity, separate from any political biases that may hit the scene before, during or after shooting.

    9
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    pietroantoni@  13.1.2015 age: 36-49 14,540 reviews

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