| On the Waterfront |  | Director: Elia Kazan
Actors: Marlon Brando, Karl Malden, Lee J. Cobb, Rod Steiger, Pat Henning
Category: Video
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Avg. Customer Rating:  15 reviews
Sales Rank: 37561
Language: English (Original Language)
Rating: Parental Guidance
Media: VHS Tape
EAN: 5024165617915
ASIN: B00004RSNG
Theatrical Release Date: November 5, 1954
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.co.uk Review
Marlon Brando's famous "I coulda been a contenda" speech in On the Water Front is such a war horse by now that a lot of people probably feel they've seen the film 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 has created 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
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| Customer Reviews: Read 10 more reviews...
Hit the rewind button and marvel in his excellence !!! October 6, 2007
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Multi Oscar winning film, brilliantly directed, with a superb cast. Eva Marie Saint is excellent, Karl Malden, Rod Steiger, but the genius of this film is of course Marlon Brando.
Marlon Brando - A stunningly handsome man, who wasnt just a beautiful face, this man was possibly the greatest actor of all time.
With his unique voice and a face that has you transfixed at the screen, Marlon Brando delivers an absolutely stunning performance in this film.
The scene in the car with Rod Steiger, where Brando says ' I could have been someone'...just hit the rewind button over and over again....that is one of the finest scenes in cinema history. It's 'real' and he acts to perfection.
Marlon Brando gives the performance of a lifetime in this film. We all know Brando is excellent in the Godfather, but this is Brando at his finest.
Anyone who wants to be an actor, just watch that scene over and over again, because Brando is the Master.
The REAL best movie ever made July 24, 2007
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Citizen Kane is usually given the title of best film ever, for its artiness and bigness of direction and screenplay, but I've always thought it a tad too designed for this accolade, a tad self-consciously arty and brilliant. There are a few others that are usually higher up the list than OTW, but I believe this movie has the most right to be named the greatest. Dramatically, it is the best of all the top all time movies, giving us real human drama rather than clever film art or literiness. It has a great screenplay of its own, a good, human story, a sense of style born out of its New York School of Acting methods and some real film craft of its own, including the most talked about scene in movie history. All this it has, and I haven't yet mentioned the greatest movie performance ever, by that man, Marlon. Add Steiger, Cobb, Malden and Marie-Saint all with inspired performances and surely what you have is the best movie of all time! In my eyes it is.
And this is a great DVD package as it has lots of very watchable extras about the stars, the making of the film, that scene, and a brief explanation of the (new to Hollywood) method acting style, which plays a starring role in this great movie.
Stirring classic May 4, 2007
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Hollywood is an industry which occasionally spits out a strong film, a movie that is literately scripted or handsomely shot, with fresh ideas or accomplished direction, or all these things.
But for every one of these rarities we the public are given thirty-odd Titanics, a dozen American Pies, and many Pearl Harbours. For every Steven Soderberg, we have twenty Michael Bays.
Producers know that they can invest in a damp sqiub of a project like the idiotic Gothika and break even; they know that bankable stars and state-of-the-art SFX will give Armeggedon box office returns ten times that which was originally invested, despite the film's mind-numbing mediocrity and its unmistakeable air of arrogance.
Hollywood. The public flock. Some are demanding, others are not. Mainstream mediocrity isn't a new phenomenon, as some may have us believe, and it wasn't ushered in with the creation of the blockbuster, I'm sure.
But some films, such as Michael Bay's aforementioned turkey, are so devoid of character and drama (those principal musts) as to become cynical. There's a certain narcissism that informs a lot of mainstream projects, a vacuity and concern with the superficial that should be quite depressing for any remotely discerning filmgoer.
Thank god, then, for films like On the Waterfront, a genuinely strirring drama from writer Budd Schulberg and director Elia Kazan. Though it belongs to a bygone era the themes which inform this tough-minded drama are both universal and timeless.
The story follows young hoodlum Terry Malloy, a failed boxer lamenting his failure to reach the big-time. He reluctantly falls under the wing of evil union boss Johnny Friendly, to whom Terry's older brother Charlie is an accountant.
When Terry is duped into taking part in the murder of a fellow docker, Joey Doyle, he is pressured by the vehement priest Father Barry to expose the corruption on the waterfront and bring down Friendly. Motivated by his love for Doyle's sister Edie as much as he is by his own conscience, Terry must decide whether to stand by his principles, exposing Friendly's crimes and in the process his brother Charlie's, or to play deaf and dumb and lose not only Edie but his own sense of self-respect.
The story to On the Waterfront was largely seen as a thinly-veiled apology from Kazan to the so-called sympathisers of Communism on whom he informed during the notorious McCarthy investigations.
Anyone who argues that Terry Malloy's decision to stand up and rebel against the formidable Johnny Friendly is a socialistic statement of Kazan's is being sentimental. We need only to analyse Malloy's actions and motivations to realise that he is individualistic in attitude. For a start, at the start, he won't reveal anything about Joey Doyle's demise, even when he is issued with a sub-peona by the police. After that it is more wounded pride and self-preservation that spurs him on, rather than any sense of civic duty towards his fellow men. That's not to say that he doesn't emanate a sense of decency. Malloy is immoral, not amoral. And given the chance to redeem himself he accepts. But even then he is spurred on by revenge rather than a desire to see social justice done.
The fine cast, including sterling support from Karl Malden as Father Barry and the incomparable Lee J Cobb as mob boss Friendly, are all on form, led by Brando's (riveting) and aided in their work by Schulberg's meaty script.
If there is a weakness its the occasional editorial blip, that makes even Brando look clumsy. But it doesn't matter, because by the end, as a battered Malloy climbs to his feet to walk through the massive iron gates, you'll have seen one of the very best Hollywood movies ever made....
KAZAN's greatest film, BRANDO's 1st OSCAR:key Post WW2 film! March 26, 2005
10 out of 11 found this review helpful
On the Waterfront (1954) - Oscar-winning Brando's early peak and a key post-war American film that remains hugely admired and controversial in equal measure. Don't forget just how equally superb are the lovely Eva Marie Saint, Karl Malden and Rod Steiger in key supporting roles, in this monochrome masterpiece that remains Elia Kazan's best film.Who can ever forget he classic "I coulda been a contender Charlie...instead of a bum which is what I am" dialogue with brother Steiger in the back of the taxi cab. Stunning 50s cinema, influenced by film noir and brilliantly shot by ace lensman BORIS KAUFMAN. Buy it, rent it, marvel at BRANDO's performance. Sheer class Marlon/Terry Malloy - you WERE a contender and in fact wiped the floor with 99.9% of the American acting establishment. A TRULY GREAT FILM.
A Classic January 24, 2005
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
A powerhouse performance from Brando is the highlight of an engaging and thought-provoking movie. Made in 1954 by Elia Kazan, the film tackles issues of brotherhood, organized crime, religion, love and responsibility, by following the story of a dockworker and ex-boxer caught up in a struggle over mob labour interests. The support cast are terrific and despite the worthiness of some of the themes the film never lacks for pace or passion. This includes one of Brando's finest moments with the 'coulda been a contender' scene and is a must see for all movie devotees.
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