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On the Waterfront has a script that is a work of love and shows it.
Under Elia Kazan's direction, Marlon Brando puts on a spectacular show, giving a fascinating, multi-faceted performance as the uneducated dock walloper and former pug, who is basically a softie with a special affection for his rooftop covey of pigeons.
It's hard to deny that Marlon Brando's performance as a dock worker and ex-fighter who finally decides to rat on his gangster brother (Rod Steiger) is pretty terrific.
You miss this, you're buyin' a one-way ticket to Palookaville.
Indisputably one of the great American films, its power undiminished.
So when does it hit you that you're in the presence of movie greatness?
Raises important issues about the nature of power.
Elia Kazan's seminal American classic.
Marlon Brando is outstanding as a former boxing champ torn between family and duty in the magnificent On the Waterfront
The film is shot on location in black-and-white, semi-docu style, which suits the realistic subject and commonplace characters, particularly Terry Malloy, the passive dock worker forced to become a crusader-fighter, splendidly played by Brando.
It's pretty electrifying.
This movie has to be considered one of the very best of all time.
Do the politics make it bad? Not at all. It's a fictional story, not a soapbox.
The difference between pre- and post-1950s cinema - before and after Brando - is as pronounced as moving from black and white to color.
Brando made one of his most indelible impressions in this relentlessly dramatic, ever-controversial tale of loyalty and betrayal in the world of working-class unions, first released in 1954.
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