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Staring:
Marlon Brando,
Karl Malden,
Lee J. Cobb,
Rod Steiger,
Pat Henning
Director:
Elia Kazan
Average Customer Rating:  
List Price: $19.94
Our Price: $7.49
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Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Binding: DVD
Brand: Sony
EAN: 9780767804271
Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, DVD, Special Edition, NTSC
ISBN: 0767804279
Label: Sony Pictures
Manufacturer: Sony Pictures
Number Of Discs: 1
Publisher: Sony Pictures
Region Code: 99
Release Date: 2001-10-23
Running Time: 108
Studio: Sony Pictures
Theatrical Release Date: 1954 |
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Product Description
An ex-fighter is caught up in the waterfront gangs after the death of his brother.
Amazon.com essential video
Marlon Brando's famous "I coulda been a contenda" speech is such a warhorse by now that a lot of people probably feel they've seen this picture already, even if they haven't. And many of those who have seen it may have forgotten how flat-out thrilling it is. For all its great dramatic and cinematic qualities, and its fiery social criticism, Elia Kazan's On the Waterfront is also one of the most gripping melodramas of political corruption and individual heroism ever made in the United States, a five-star gut-grabber. Shot on location around the docks of Hoboken, New Jersey, in the mid-1950s, it tells the fact-based story of a longshoreman (Brando's Terry Malloy) who is blackballed and savagely beaten for informing against the mobsters who have taken over his union and sold it out to the bosses. (Karl Malden has a more conventional stalwart-hero role, as an idealistic priest who nurtures Terry's pangs of conscience.) Lee J. Cobb, who created the role of Willy Loman in Death of Salesman under Kazan's direction on Broadway, makes a formidable foe as a greedy union leader. --David Chute
Amazon.com
Marlon Brando's famous "I coulda been a contenda" speech is such a warhorse by now that a lot of people probably feel they've seen this picture already, even if they haven't. And many of those who have seen it may have forgotten how flat-out thrilling it is. For all its great dramatic and cinematic qualities, and its fiery social criticism, Elia Kazan's On the Waterfront is also one of the most gripping melodramas of political corruption and individual heroism ever made in the United States, a five-star gut-grabber. Shot on location around the docks of Hoboken, New Jersey, in the mid-1950s, it tells the fact-based story of a longshoreman (Brando's Terry Malloy) who is blackballed and savagely beaten for informing against the mobsters who have taken over his union and sold it out to the bosses. (Karl Malden has a more conventional stalwart-hero role, as an idealistic priest who nurtures Terry's pangs of conscience.) Lee J. Cobb, who created the role of Willy Loman in Death of Salesman under Kazan's direction on Broadway, makes a formidable foe as a greedy union leader. --David Chute
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Being A Contender, 2009-10-03
Marlon Brando starred in one of his least pretentious roles in this film about a dock worker in NYC who decides to fight the corrupt officials who run the docks. Eva Marie Saint plays the young woman whose brother is murdered by them. Of course, Marlon who had something to do with the brother's murder, and Eva Marie fall in love but Karl Malden as the priest keeps it on a higher plane. The moral struggle against corrupt gangs who intimidate and murder to influence the community and the struggle to live a moral life is a classic tale which carries a powerful whop!
 Walk like a man, 2009-10-18
This is a movie about pidgins, both literally and figuratively. Local priest (Karl Malden) goes up against cabal.
This might be entertainment for some and was a type of movie art that came and passed. This presentation is a good variant of the genre. People that enjoy "Citizen Kane" will enjoy this film. The acting is touted as great, however everyone acted the same as it is a 1954 style; if it is so good out of its time and place there would be movies like this today. I suggest that a better variant is "Funeral in Berlin".
For people that look at other film dimensions the music is over the top heavy handed. The one plus is that the music (Leonard Bernstein) usually does not compete with the dialog. Unfortunately the one exception is the "I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender." statement where all the violins break out next the rush of horns and whatnot.
I will not go into detail on the movie as there is just the chance you have only heard about this movie and haven't seen it yet, but be prepared for stool pigeons and dead pigeons.
After 50 plus years the film is sort of out of place. So to gain a good perspective on why it is so popular you will need to watch the commentaries and other DVD extras. Then re-watch the movie.
The Teahouse Of The August Moon (DVD) Marlon Brando, Glenn Ford
Absence of Malice ~ Paul Newman
Such a good thing such devilish practices disappear, 2010-06-07
Not so much of a great film as a great young actor. Marlon Brando is quite convincing in this early role. But the plot of the film is both true to the core and false to the bone. We are in New York, on the harbor, on the side of the dockworkers and the very strange atmosphere that existed in not so long ago a time and that may still exist in some harbors in Europe and the USA. To get a job, a daily job quite too often, short time anyway, you had to come in the morning to be selected in order to answer the numbers required by the bosses, in that case the authority of the harbor. These names were selected and called by the union itself. Such a power and the very comfortable income you can get out of it is of course captivated by some union leaders who look more like gang leaders than union leaders. And they accepted no dissent in the rank and file. Killing was even a game that brought some entertainment to those bored Mafiosi. Till one murder too many was done and performed on someone who had the heart of the dockworkers and a daughter who wanted him to be eulogized. That was enough to trigger an explosive situation, in which the local catholic priest is playing the "good devil" for these gangsters and the "guardian angel" for the dockworkers. Apart from that the film is rather trite. The end though is a marvelous piece of work. The defeated union leaders are rejected by a unanimous vote of all dockworkers in support of Terry Malloy who was the stake of the fight and thus vote with their feet against the already forgotten union leaders. But one detail may not be as visible as it should be. The dockworkers are able to walk to the ships when, and only when, the representative of the harbor authorities let them go through. In other words the gangsterized union leaders are only defeated because the harbor authorities say so. It is not class struggle but it is gang war and company within the union with the support that can change from one moment to the next from the bosses in the harbor. Do not think these practices are finished. Far from it. They are an everyday reality in some professions where the unions, or rather some groups of unionized people, have taken the control of the workforce. It is true in harbors, but also in airports and in train-transport companies, at least in Europe. And even if that is waning away little by little.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne, University Paris 8 Saint Denis, University Paris 12 Créteil, CEGID
Great Stars in a Dated Film, 2010-02-25
Presents many great stars in the prime of their careers--Brando, Karl Malden and Eva Marie Saint (in her first starring role.) Yet, in the context of contemporary standards. the plotline is clearly dated, and the acting somewhat histrionic and stereotypical. As a result, the viewing experience is just not as good as one might expect given this film's classic status.
The best of Marlo Brando, 2010-01-24
On the Waterfront is a real classic film. The interwoven story between the shipyards workers and the Union held by a group of exploiting mafioso bosses is at the heart of the movie. It deals with questions of conscience, of right and wrong, of retribution and seeks to get the viewer involved actively. It represents an era of great difficulty for the masses and the impossibility to extricate oneself from the mafia's stranglehold on workers. It takes an accident to start unrolling the entanglement in which all were.
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