On the Waterfront (1954) is a classic, award-winning, controversial film directed by Elia
Kazan - a part drama and part gangster film. The authentic-looking, powerful film is
concerned with the problems of trade unionism, corruption and racketeering. And it is set on
New York's oppressive waterfront docks, where dock workers struggled for work, dignity, and
to make ends meet under the control of hard-knuckled, mob-run labor unions that would force
them to submit to daily 'shape-ups' by cruel hiring bosses.
To add realism, it was filmed over 36 days on-location in Hoboken, New Jersey (in the cargo
holds of ships, workers' slum dwellings, the bars, the littered alleys, and on the rooftops). And
some of the labor boss's chief bodyguards/goons in the film (Abe Simon as Barney, Tony
Galento as Truck, and Tami Mauriello as Tullio) were real-life, professional ex-heavyweight
boxers. The low-budget film brought a depressing and critical, but much-needed message
about society's ills to the forefront, and was hailed by most critics.
The film's morality tale of corruption ends with its ultimate defeat and the saving of the
community by a morally-redeemed martyr (a common man with a conscience). With a
naturalistic acting style, Marlon Brando portrayed Terry Malloy, an inarticulate, struggling,
brutish hero and small-time, washed-up ex-boxer who took a regrettable fall in the ring. Now
an errand boy and 'owned' by the union boss, he is unaware of his own personal power. But
eventually because of torment over his actions and his realization of new choices in life, he
joins forces with a tough-minded, courageous and crusading priest (Malden) and a loving,
angelic blonde woman (Saint), a sister of one of the victims, to seek reform and challenge the
mob.
The political and criminal context of the film's background and history are extremely
important. The similarity between Terry Malloy's whistle-blowing testimony against his own
corrupt group paralleled director Elia Kazan's self-justifying admissions before the House UnAmerican Activities Commission (HUAC) two years earlier (in 1952) as a 'friendly' witness
regarding his one-time membership in the Communist party and the naming of others who
were sympathizers. Kazan attempted to vindicate himself politically with this semiautobiographical film - the justification of naming names ('squealing') to expose the evils of
corrupt unions, and the suggestion of sympathy advocated for squealers.
The film's story was based on New York Sun (now defunct) newspaper reporter Malcolm
Johnson's expose, found in a series of 24 articles called Crime on the Waterfront. The series
chronicled actual dockside events, labor racketeering in New York's dockyards, and corrupt
practices, and won the 1949 Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting. It revealed rampant bribery,
extortions, kickbacks to union officials, payoffs, theft, union-sponsored loan sharks, murder,
and the mob's tyrannical influence on New York's waterfront. Originally, Kazan had hired
playwright Arthur Miller in 1950 to research the world of longshoremen in Brooklyn’s Red
Hook area (and use material from Johnson's articles), and craft a script for a film to be titled
The Hook. It had a similar plot to the 1954 film - the setting of a Brooklyn waterfront with a
militant trade unionist hero struggling with mobsters in the dockworkers union. The film was
never produced, due to HUAC pressure on Columbia Pictures' studio chief Harry Cohn, who
told Miller to change the villains from corrupt and militant union officials and gangsters to evil
communists, so it would have a “pro-American” feel -- but Miller refused and pulled out as
screenwriter.
Arthur Miller was replaced by novelist and scriptwriter Budd Schulberg (another 'friendly'
witness before HUAC), who worked in collaboration with Kazan. The film's plot was taken
from Schulberg's own original story - which reworked all the previous material and also
dropped the Communists in the plot. On the Waterfront emphasized the waterfront's strict
code of "D and D...Deaf and Dumb" -- keeping quiet instead of 'ratting out' or testifying (as a
'friendly' witness) before a Congressional waterfront crime commission against bullying union
boss Johnny Friendly (an interesting and ironic choice of names), portrayed by Lee J. Cobb:
[Schulberg based Karl Malden's character on the tough and profane-mouthed waterfront
Catholic priest Father John M. Corridan, and Pat Henning's character on a Father John
disciple named Arthur Browne. Terry Malloy was modeled after whistle-blowing longshoreman
Anthony De Vincenzo, and Johnny Friendly was based on mobster Albert Anastasia, chief
executioner of Murder, Inc.]
The harsh, naturalistic, well-acted and uncompromising film was hugely successful, critically
and financially. Its budget of slightly less than $1 million brought in almost $10 million at the
box-office. Boris Kaufman's gritty black and white cinematography was singled out as
superior, and the film received a phenomenal number of Academy Award nominations twelve. It won eight Academy Awards including: Best Picture and Director (Kazan), Best Story
and Screenplay (Schulberg), Best Actor (Brando), Best Supporting Actress (Saint in her film
debut), Best B/W Cinematography (Boris Kaufman), Best B/W Art Direction-Set Decoration
(Richard Day), and Best Film Editing (Gene Milford). Three of its other four nominations were
supporting acting nods (for a total of four): Best Supporting Actor (Lee J. Cobb, Karl Malden,
and Rod Steiger), and Best Scoring (Leonard Bernstein). This was the only film that wasn't a
musical for which Leonard Bernstein ever provided the soundtrack.
Following the credits, drumbeats accompany a scene at the New York waterfront, where a
large ocean liner is docked. The angry gangster union boss, Johnny Friendly (Lee J. Cobb)
who callously rules this section of the waterfront, walks up the gangplank with his mobster
entourage from the office (shack) of the Longshoreman's local Union. Slow-witted, illiterate
waterfront bum Terry Malloy (Marlon Brando) follows behind, surviving as a lackey by running
odd jobs and errands for Johnny and doing strong-arm work.
He is asked to lure to the rooftop of his tenement building a young dockworker Joey Doyle,
one of the informant union workers who is planning to cooperate with crime investigators by
testifying (before the Waterfront Crime Commission) against gangsters who tyrannically
control the docks. Terry shouts to fellow pigeon-lover Joey in his apartment, in the opening
lines of the film. He unwittingly becomes a pawn in setting a trap to murder his fellow
longshoreman dockworker:
Joey, Joey Doyle!...Hey, I got one of your birds. I recognize him by the band...He flew into my
coop. You want him?
Terry keeps pigeons in coops on his tenement apartment's rooftop, and soon convinces
potential informant Joey to meet him on the roof. When he looks up to the rooftop, he sees
the dark figures of two men standing there. Instead of joining Joey on the roof, he releases his
pigeon into the air, and then walks down the street to a seedy bar, Johnny Friendly's BAR. In
front of the corner saloon is Charley Malloy "The Gent" (Rod Steiger), Terry's smartly-dressed
older brother and manager. Charley, who works as Johnny Friendly's smart and crooked
lawyer and as chief lieutenant, is flanked by two of Friendly's goons.
In shock, Terry witnesses Joey's murder, as he is hurled from the rooftop to his death many
stories below with a bloodcurdling scream. One of the thugs coldly states: "I think somebody
fell off the roof. He thought he was gonna sing for the Crime Commission. He won't."
Unknowingly set up, Terry is stunned by the murder, believing that the racketeers (and his
brother) would only threaten the man:
I thought they was gonna talk to him...I thought they was gonna talk to him and get him to
dummy up...I figured the worst they was gonna do was lean on him a little bit...Wow! He
wasn't a bad kid, that Joey.
Two of the thugs make a joke about the 'squealer' who has threatened to 'sing' to the crime
commission and break the waterfront's unspoken code to be 'D and D' (Deaf and Dumb):
A canary.
Maybe he could sing but he couldn't fly!
In the street, a shocked crowd gathers around Joey's body. Introduced characters are local
parish priest Father Barry (Karl Malden) who delivers the last rites, Joey's father Pop Doyle
(John Hamilton), and Joey's fresh-faced sister Edie (Eva Marie Saint). One of the neighbors,
Mrs. Collins (Anne Hegira) knows this was no accident: "Same thing happened to my Andy
five years ago...(about Joey) He was the only longshoreman that had the guts to talk to them
crime investigators ... Everybody knows that." Pop laments that his son didn't follow his
advice: "Kept telling him. Don't say nothin'. Keep quiet. You'll live longer." Angered by the
senseless murder of the brother she was close to, Edie screams: "I want to know who killed
my brother!"
In the rough waterfront bar where some of the patrons watch a prizefight on a TV above the
bar, Big Mac (James Westerfield) the waterfront hiring boss, brings beer-drinking Johnny
Friendly a thick wad of bills, revealing union racketeering, corruption, strong-arm tactics and
payoffs: "Here's the cut on the shape-up. Eight hundred and ninety-one men at three bucks a
head, that's, uh, - twenty-six seventy-three...We got a banana boat at 46 tomorrow. If we
could pull a walk-out, it might mean a few bucks from the shippers. Them bananas go bad in
a hurry." Friendly responds sharply: "Ask two G's." A whole network of runners for Friendly's
mob are in the bar including a weasel-like banker nicknamed "J.P." Morgan (Barry Macollum)
and another conniving mobster named Skins (Fred Gwynne).
As a man in his 30s who is exploited like a pawn by others, ex-prizefighter and has-been
Terry knows that he owes his waterfront career and livelihood to Johnny Friendly, head of the
racketeers, and to his brother Charley, although he was forced to take a 'fall' in a boxing fight.
But he also realizes that he is dull-witted and inarticulate, and not even capable of accurately
counting a wad of bills. Big Mac good-naturedly comments on Terry's lack of education:
The only arithmetic he ever got was hearing the referee count up to ten.
But Terry is hot-tempered, and reacts harshly to the criticism. Charley excuses his brother's
a-typical behavior: "It's just the Joey Doyle thing. You know how he is. He exaggerates the
thing. Just too much Marquis of Queensbury. It softens 'em up."
Johnny raises his voice and explains how he became head of the local union and continues to
maintain a lucrative (but illegal) operation. He also calmly rationalizes to Terry about the
death of Joey Doyle - a waterfront dockworker who might have threatened the entire
business:
When I was sixteen, I had to beg for work in the hold. I didn't work my way up out of there for
nuthin'...You know, takin' over this local took a little doin'. There's some pretty rough fellas in
the way. They gave me this (he displays an ugly scar on his neck) to remember them by...I
got two thousand dues-payin' members in this local - that's $72,000 a year legitimate and
when each one of 'em puts in a couple of bucks a day just to make sure they work steady well, you figure it out. And that's just for openers. We got the fattest piers in the fattest harbor
in the world. Everything moves in and out - we take our cut...You don't suppose I can afford to
be boxed out of a deal like this, do ya? A deal I sweated and bled for, on account of one lousy
little cheese-eater, that Doyle bum, who thinks he can go squealin' to the Crime Commission?
Do ya? (pause) Well, DO YA?
Terry is given "a present from your Uncle Johnny," a fifty-dollar bill, and then promised a
prime work area at the docks at the next morning's shape-up: "Put Terry up in the loft.
Number one. Every day. It's nice, easy work, you see. You check in and you goof off on the
coffee bags. OK?" Charley reinforces Johnny's kind gesture to his brother with a warning:
"Hey, you got a real friend here. Now don't forget it."
Up on his rooftop at daybreak the next day, Terry tells a fourteen-year old neighborhood boy
named Tommy (Thomas Handley) that he thinks his pigeons have the life:
Boy, they sure got it made, huh? Eatin'. Sleepin'. Flyin' around like crazy. Raisin' gobs of
squabs.
The faint sound of ship's whistle brings Terry back to reality and he hurries to the docks,
where hundreds of men mill around on the pier. [The film effectively uses authentic sounds
from its environment: foghorns, ship's whistles, etc. to heighten the realism.] Some of the
longshoremen are muttering about the unfortunate Doyle death, because he "couldn't learn to
keep his mouth shut." Two of Friendly's goons threaten Timothy J. "Kayo" Dugan (Pat
Henning): "Why don't you keep that big mouth of yours shut?...What are you, a wise guy?"
Dugan replies: "If I was wise, I wouldn't be no longshoreman for thirty years. I'm poorer now
than when I started." Pop Doyle passes the mantle of Joey's jacket to Kayo.
While waiting for the morning's work, Terry is approached by Glover (Leif Erickson) and
Gillette (Marty Balsam), representatives from the Waterfront Crime Commission. The
commission is "getting ready to hold public hearings on waterfront crime and underworld
infiltration of longshore unions." When questioned by them about what he knows, being the
last one to see Joey alive, Terry pleads ignorance:
I don't know nothin', I ain't seen nothin', I'm not sayin' nothin'.
At the 8 am whistle announcing the shape-up at the pier entrance (for 5 gangs and 100
banana carriers), Big Mac calls forward men to work for the day. Terry Malloy is favored and
one of the first to be called. From the side, Edie and Father Barry watch, as he tells her: "This
is my parish. I don't know how much I can do, but I'll never find out unless I come down here
and take a good look for myself." When Big Mac is surrounded by the men, he throws the
work tabs over their heads, causing a mad, animalistic, free-for-all scramble.
Terry meets the sister of the murdered union worker when he grabs a tab that Edie's father
had seen first. When she wrestles with him for the tab, he first teases her, withholding the tab
from her. But when he learns she's "Joey Doyle's sister," he gives her the working tab. She
gives it to her humiliated father so he can work. Father Barry asks the rejected men who have
been denied work: "What do you do now?...Is this all you do, just take it like this?...Huh?
What about your union?" He is told that the lawless local union is mob-controlled by Johnny
Friendly: "The waterfront's tougher, Father, like it ain't part of America." Father Barry offers
the men "the bottom of the church" as a safe haven so that they can discuss their grievances
- it can be one place where it's safe to talk.
At work, Charley finds Terry lying comfortably on a pile of coffee bags while reading a photo
magazine filled with bikini-clad women. He sends Terry on an "extra detail" to sit in on tough,
insistent Father Barry's meetings (with the "Doyle girl") that he is organizing in his parish to
expose union racketeering. Terry is to keep "a run-down" on the "names and numbers of all
the players." Terry argues that he doesn't want to stool, but Charley straightens him out:
Let me tell you what stooling is. Stooling is when you rat on your friends, the guys you're with.
Johnny wants a favor. Don't think about it. Do it.
In the church meeting with only a handful of longshoremen in attendance, Father Barry
speaks out against the controlling power of the mob and stands up for moral principles
against the corrupt bosses. He preaches about the reality of the situation:
Isn't it simple as one, two, three? One. The working conditions are bad. Two. They're bad
because the mob does the hiring. And three. The only way we can break the mob is to stop
letting them get away with murder.
He attempts to determine who killed Joey Doyle, asking: "Who killed Joey Doyle?" The
reaction to the Father's question is total silence - the men either look down, blankly stare
away, or look embarrassed. Then the priest asks a second, more pointed question: "How can
we call ourselves Christians and protect these murderers with our silence?" Terry sits at the
back of the parish during the meeting, viewed suspiciously: "The brother of Charley the Gent.
They'll help us get to the bottom of the river." Father Barry cuts through the talk and returns to
the crucial question:
Now listen. You know who the pistols are. Are you going to keep still until they cut you down
one by one? Are ya?
The priest is told by Kayo Dugan that there is a code of silence, called "D 'n D" on the docks:
"Deaf and dumb. No matter how much we hate the torpedoes, we don't rat." Father Barry
persuasively argues that they must break the code of silence and testify, but he feels
defeated when the men don't respond to his words:
There's one thing we've got in this country and that's ways of fightin' back. Gettin' the facts to
the public. Testifyin' for what you know is right against what you know is wrong. Now what's
ratting to them is telling the truth for you. Now can't you see that? Can't you see that?
The meeting is suddenly broken up when rocks shatter the church windows. As Father Barry
pairs off the men, Terry suddenly grabs Edie and leads her to safety down a fire escape.
Thugs who wield long clubs and baseball bats mercilessly ambush and beat the men.
Walking Edie home through a park, Edie asks Terry about where his affiliation lies:
Edie: Which side are you with?
Terry: Me? I'm with me, Terry.
After he identifies his self-interest, Terry is confronted for a handout by an old rummy, onearmed derelict longshoreman named Mott Murphy (John Heldabrand). The man recognizes
Edie and Terry, and accuses him of being there the night Joey was killed. Although bought off
by the toss of some coins by Terry, Murphy spitefully calls him a "bum." Terry tells Edie to pay
no attention to the "juice-head" who hangs around the neighborhood.
In an exchange of small talk as they continue walking through the park, Terry learns that Edie
attends a "regular college" in Tarrytown that is "run by the Sisters of St. Anne." She is a
teacher trainee, and aspires "to be a teacher." As they walk, Edie accidentally drops one of
her white mittens. Terry picks it up and cleans it off, but instead of immediately returning it, he
holds it, and then puts it on his left hand - as a substitute for getting close to her.
Edie reminds him that "it isn't just brains. It's how you use them." Terry has always been awestruck by Edie, having first seen her years earlier as a teenager when they went to Catholic
school together. He remembers what she was like, with simple observations:
Terry: You know, I've seen you a lot of times before. Remember parochial school out on
Pulaski Street? Seven, eight years ago? Your hair, you had your hair, uh...
Edie: In braids.
Terry: Looked like a hunk of rope. And you had wires on your teeth and glasses, everything. I
mean, you was really a mess.
Edie: I can get home all right now, thanks. (She removes the glove from his hand.)
Terry: Now listen. Don't get sore. I was just kiddin' ya a little bit. I just needed to tell ya a joke.
You grew up very nice.
Edie: Thanks.
Terry: You don't, you don't remember me, do ya?
Edie: I remembered you the first moment I saw you.
Terry: By the nose, huh? (She smiles at him) Well, some people just got faces that stick in
your mind.
Edie: I remember you were in trouble all the time.
Terry: Now you got me. Boy, the way those Sisters used to whack me, I don't know what.
They thought they was gonna beat an education into me, but I foxed 'em.
Edie: Maybe they just didn't know how to handle you.
Terry: How would you have done it?
Edie: With a little more patience and kindness. That's what makes people mean and difficult.
People don't care enough about them.
Terry: Ah, what are you kiddin' me?
He is interested in seeing her again, although he feels unfamiliar, awkward emotions for her
during their departure.
When she gets home, her father has already packed her suitcase and made preparations for
her return trip to St. Anne's. After witnessing her goodbye from Terry out the window, he tells
her that he disapproves of her association with Terry: "A daughter of mine walkin' arm-in-arm
with Terry Malloy. Do you know who Terry Malloy is?" He informs her of the thugs Terry is
associated with: "He's the kid brother of Charlie the Gent who is Johnny Friendly's right hand
and a butcher in a camel hair coat."
Edie tells her father that she sees him differently than the tough exterior appearance he
always projects - he has a sensitivity that others cannot see: "He tries to act tough, but there's
a look in his eye." Her father knows she has always been soft-hearted and soft-headed: "You
think he's one of them cases you're always draggin' into the house and feelin' sorry for. Like
that litter of kittens you brought in." And he has worked all his life to shelter her and make life
better for her: "And every time I heist a box or a coffee bag I says to myself, that's for Edie, so
she can be a teacher or somethin' decent. I promised your Mom, Edie. Don't let her down."
Not wanting to be ungrateful, Edie is still stubbornly determined to remain:
...But Pop, I've seen things that I know are so wrong. Now how can I go back to school and
keep my mind on things that are just in books, that aren't people living? I'm gonna stay, Pop.
And I'm gonna keep on tryin' to find out who is guilty for Joey.
That evening on the tenement rooftop, where Edie looks at Joey's coop, Terry catches sight
of her. He proudly talks to her about his fondness for his racing pigeons - the "champion flock
of the neighborhood." "I started them Golden Warriors. You might say that I was the original
Golden Warrior." Tommy idolizes Terry: "This bum here is my shadow. He thinks I'm a tough
man because I boxed pro a lot."
She thanks him for helping to feed Joey's pigeons: "I wouldn't have thought you'd be so
interested in pigeons." And then he explains how dangerous a pigeon's life can be:
You know this city's full of hawks? That's a fact. They hang around on the top of the big
hotels. And they spot a pigeon in the park. Right down on him.
He proudly takes out one of the larger pigeons from the coop, a lead bird named Swifty that
won't let other birds take his top perch.
Edie: Even pigeons aren't peaceful.
Terry: There's one thing about them though, they're very faithful. They get married just like
people.
Tommy: Better.
Terry: And they stay that way till one of 'em dies.
Edie: That's nice.
Taking her for a drink of Glockenheimer beer in a "saloon" (with a special entrance for ladies),
Terry tells Edie that he used to be a prizefighter, but before that, he was an orphaned kid after
his father was killed:
I had to scrap all my life. I might as well get paid for it. When I was a kid, my old man got
bumped off and - and never mind how. Then they stuck Charley and me in a dump they called
a Children's Home. Oh, boy! That was some home. Well, anyhow, I ran away from there and I
fought in the club smokers and peddled papers and Johnny Friendly bought a piece of
me...Yes, then, uh, I was goin' pretty good there for awhile. And after that, uh. Well, I don't
know, what do you really care? Am I right?
Kind-hearted toward him, Edie expresses a philosophy of life totally foreign to him. He
believes in a 'dog-eat-dog' world point of view ("Do it to him before he does it to you"):
Edie: Shouldn't everybody care about everybody else?
Terry: Boy, what a fruitcake you are!
Edie: I mean, isn't everybody a part of everybody else?
Terry: And you really believe that drool?
Edie: Yes, I do.
Terry: ...You wanna hear my philosophy of life? Do it to him before he does it to you.
Edie (complaining): I never met anyone like you. There's not a spark of sentiment or romance
or human kindness in your whole body.
Terry: What good does it do ya besides get ya in trouble?
Edie: And when things and people get in your way, you just knock them aside, get rid of them,
is that your idea?
Terry still doesn't believe he is responsible for Joey's death - "fixin' him wasn't my idea"
although he is allegedly blamed for it:
Edie: You don't believe anybody, do you?
Terry: Listen, down here, it's every man for himself. It's keepin' alive. It's standin' in with the
right people, so you got a little bit of change jinglin' in your pocket.
Edie: And if you don't?
Terry: And if you don't - right down.
Edie: That's living like an animal.
Terry: All right, I'd rather live like an animal than end up like Edie: Like Joey? Are you afraid to mention his name?
Her brother's name keeps popping up in their conversation. Suddenly, in the film's most
touching scene, Edie pleads with him to help find her brother's killer, but he refuses, knowing
that his loyalties are with his brother Charley, his steady work, and loyalty to Friendly's mob
and its code. But Terry is still deeply touched by her pure request, and disturbed that he can't
help her:
Edie: Help me if you can, for God's sakes!
Terry: Edie, I'd like to help, I'd like to help, but there's nothin' I can do.
Edie: All right. I shouldn't have asked you.
Terry: Here, come on, have a little beer. Come on, come on. (He puts the glass to her lips, but
she doesn't drink)
Edie: I don't want it. You just stay here and finish your drink.
Terry: Oh, no, no, listen, don't go. I got my whole life to drink. (pause) You sore at me?
Edie (innocently): What for?
Terry: Well, I don't know, for not, for not bein' no help to ya.
Edie (intensely): You would if you could. (She strokes his face gently)
She has deep faith in him and in basic human nature, and this causes him inner pain to hear
her. Obviously, he is influenced by her and cares for her, and he begins to feel more guilty,
frustrated and responsible for the murder. Gradually, he starts to be persuaded to turn against
the union.
On their way out of the bar, they encounter a boisterous wedding reception in progress - in a
room decorated with paper streamers. Dreamily, they begin to dance together to the music of
the party, and soon are spinning around. Terry grins and jokes with her: "Ah, you dance
divinely...The Sisters oughta see you now." Terry draws her to him, and they dance closely
together, just as Edie breathlessly shares her dizzying feelings with him while her eyes are
closed: "I feel like I'm just floating. Just floating. Just floating." Terry's lips draw near to hers,
but they are interrupted before they are able to kiss each other.
One of Johnny's men, Barney (Abe Simon) approaches, ordering Terry to report to his boss
immediately: "He just got a call from 'Mr. Upstairs.' (Whispering) Something's gone wrong.
He's pretty hot." Before they can leave the bar, Terry is served with a subpoena to testify at
the State House at 10 o'clock on Friday morning regarding Joey's murder. Edie asks the
angered, pained, and tortured Terry about what he is going to tell the committee, and whether
Johnny Friendly and his brother Charley had anything to do with the murder:
Edie: What are you going to do?
Terry: I ain't gonna eat cheese for no cops, and that's for sure.
Edie (intuitively): It was Johnny Friendly who had Joey killed, wasn't it? (Terry doesn't
respond) Or he had him killed, or he had something to do with it, didn't he? He and your big
brother Charley? (Still no response from Terry) You can't tell me, can you? Because you're
part of it. Cause you're just as bad as the worst of them. Tell me the truth, Terry!
Terry: You'd better go back to that school out in daisyland. You're drivin' yourself nuts. You're
drivin' me nuts. Quit worryin' about the truth all the time. Worry about yourself.
Edie: I should've known you wouldn't tell me. Pop said Johnny Friendly used to own you.
Well, I think he still owns you.
She tells him she believes he is 'owned' by the bosses and insults him - she calls him "a
bum":
Edie: No wonder everybody calls you a bum.
Terry (obviously hurt): Don't say that to me. Edie. Don't say that to me now.
Edie: No wonder. No wonder.
Terry: I'm only tryin' to help ya out. I'm tryin' to keep ya from gettin' hurt. What more do ya
want me to do?
Edie: Much more!
Terry: Wait a minute.
Edie: Much, much, much more!
Edie runs off, as Terry looks after her - deeply pained.
As he leaves the bar, Charley and Friendly drive up in a car in front of him. They are worried
about another informant longshoreman, Kayo Dugan (Pat Henning), who left the parish
meeting that Terry had attended. Terry vainly explains that nothing happened: "It was a big
nothin'. The priest did all the talking." However, according to Friendly, a half hour after the
meeting was broken up, Kayo Dugan went into a secret session with the Crime Commission
and "he done all the talking." "Dugan knew thirty-nine pages of our operation," an
exasperated Friendly exclaims. Incensed, Friendly produces a bound, 39-page deposition of
testimony Dugan gave to the Crime Commission:
Why that crummy pigeon! He ought to have his neck wrung! (To Charley) That's what I get for
gettin' mixed up with this punched-out brother of yours. He was all right hangin' around for
laughs. But this is business. I don't like anyone goofin' off in our business.
Suddenly, Charley lashes out at Terry for "goin' around" with Joey Doyle's sister: "(To Johnny)
Listen Johnny. The Doyle broad. She's got him so he doesn't even know where his feet is
anymore. IT'S AN UNHEALTHY RELATIONSHIP." Friendly pressures Terry to keep away
from Edie for good:
Get rid of her, unless you're both tired of living. You got her address?
Friendly orders Charley to arrange to "muzzle" Dugan, and then Terry is told that he has lost
his "cushy job in the loft. It's down in the hold with the sweat gang till you learn your lesson.
See?" Friendly squeezes and roughly twists (and then slaps) Terry's cheek and face. Charley
yells: "WISE UP!" After they drive off, Terry is left standing there in the dark.
The next day at the docks, the protesting dock-worker Dugan is part of a crew unloading
cases of Irish whiskey from a ship. When a heavy pallet is being raised from the open hatch,
Big Mac signals to the operator of the winch above the hatch to drop the load. The cargo net
plunges down, spilling the entire heavy load of whiskey boxes into the hold of the ship - the
load 'accidentally' crushes and kills Dugan (wearing Joey Doyle's jacket) who is positioned
directly under. Deep in the hold of the ship, Father Barry stands over the body of Dugan and
gives him his last rites at the death scene.
In a symbolic and memorable scene, Father Barry in a "Sermon on the Docks" retaliates by
preaching against apathy and keeping silent. As the men gather around the opening of the
hatch, Barry explains that Joey Doyle and Kayo Dugan were killed because they were
threatening to expose the racketeering of Johnny Friendly:
Some people think the Crucifixion only took place on Calvary. They better wise up. Takin'
Joey Doyle's life to stop him from testifying is a crucifixion. And dropping a sling on Kayo
Dugan because he was ready to spill his guts tomorrow - that's a crucifixion. And every time
the mob puts the crusher on a good man - tries to stop him from doing his duty as a citizen it's a crucifixion. And anybody who sits around and lets it happen - keeps silent about
something he knows has happened - shares the guilt of it just as much as the Roman soldier
who pierced the flesh of Our Lord to see if He was dead.
Although some of the workers react with hostility and yell at him to go back to his church,
Father Barry preaches that his church is anywhere that the longshoremen work:
Boys, this is my church! And if you don't think Christ is down here on the waterfront, you've
got another guess coming!
One of Friendly's mugs, Truck (Tony Galento), harrasses Father Barry by throwing a rotten
banana at him and splattering it all over his shoulder. Terry supports the priest, telling Truck
to "let him finish." Ignoring the mob's anger, the Father continues. He believes the
longshoremen sell their souls every day to the mob, and he tries to convince them to testify
against their employer:
Every morning when the hiring boss blows his whistle, Jesus stands alongside you in the
shape-up. He sees why some of you get picked and some of you get passed over. He sees
the family men worrying about getting the rent and getting food in the house for the wife and
the kids. He sees you selling your souls to the mob for a day's pay.
Another of Friendly's thugs, Barney, hurls an empty beer can at the priest, striking him in the
forehead and drawing blood. Pop shouts out a threat: "The next bum that throws somethin'
deals with me. I don't care if he's twice my size."
Father Barry then denounces the union bosses who benefit off the labors and kickbacks of
the workers. He tells the workers that they should stop doing the bidding of the union bosses
while ignoring each other:
And what does Christ think of the easy-money boys who do none of the work and take all of
the gravy? And how does he feel about the fellows who wear hundred-and-fifty dollar suits
and diamond rings, on your union dues and your kickback money? And how does He, who
spoke up without fear against every evil, feel about your silence?
Terry flattens Truck with a punch to the face when he is about to throw another banana at the
priest. Johnny Friendly notes that Terry's allegiance and loyalty is gradually being drawn
away from the racketeers, due to the persuasiveness of Father Barry.
You want to know what's wrong with our waterfront? It's the love of a lousy buck. It's making
the love of the lousy buck - the cushy job - more important than the love of man! It's forgettin'
that every fellow down here is your brother in Christ! But remember, Christ is always with you
- Christ is in the shape up. He's in the hatch. He's in the union hall. He's kneeling right here
beside Dugan. And He's saying with all of you, if you do it to the least of mine, you do it to me!
And what they did to Joey, and what they did to Dugan, they're doing to you. And you. You.
ALL OF YOU. And only you, only you with God's help, have the power to knock 'em off for
good. (Turning toward Dugan's body) Okay, Kayo? Amen. (He makes the sign of the cross.)
Father Barry rides the pallet up and out of the hatch with Dugan's body on it when it is hauled
up by a crane (heavenward), as the men begin to go back to work.
That night on the rooftop, Edie finds Terry outdoors lying on a mattress, one that he would
often use as a bed on hot summer nights. Terry appears troubled and pensive, now that his
conscience is being affected. She offers him Joey's jacket (it was returned to her after
Dugan's death). Terry believes his pigeons, which are making cooing sounds, are "nervous.
There was a hawk around here before." She huddles close to him, and then he tentatively
reaches out - his emotions overtaking him. They finally kiss at last, and their bodies press
together.
As time progresses, and he develops a growing affection and relationship with Edie and
Father Barry, Terry believes he can redeem himself by coming clean through his testimony.
When Father Barry leaves the confessional booth in the church the next day, Terry rushes
after him, but the priest doesn't want to take his confession. Outside the church, Terry follows
again, grabs the priest by the arm, and then confesses that he was involved in setting up Joey
Doyle for the murder.
The priest finally stops and listens to Terry, who is relieved to have someone to listen to him.
As they take a walk through the park, he tells the tough priest that it only "started out as a
favor...I just thought they was gonna lean on him a little bit. I never figured they was gonna
knock 'em off. And I tried to tell Edie the other night. I really tried. I wanted to tell her. She's
the first nice thing that ever happened to me."
Terry is confident of what would happen to him if he told what he knew about the murder. And
he is reluctant to "put the finger" on his own brother and Johnny Friendly, a life-long friend:
Terry: You know, if I spill, my life ain't worth a nickel.
Father Barry: And how much is your soul worth if you don't?...Listen, if I were you, I would
walk right...Never mind. I'm not asking you to do anything. It's your own conscience that's got
to do the asking.
When Edie appears along the pier wall, Terry also confesses his knowledge to her and admits
his involvement in the murder of her brother. A prolonged blast from a ship's whistle drowns
out and accentuates his words. She is horrified by what he says. She turns and runs away
from him and never turns back.
Up on his rooftop, where he finds Glover, the Crime Commission investigator, they talk about
Terry's prizefight at the Garden against Wilson about three or four years earlier. Terry
reluctantly admits that he was "doing a favor for a couple of pals of mine" by thowing the fight:
"It was all over except for the lousy bet...When those guys want to win a bet, there's nothin'
they won't stop at."
In the dockside longshoreman's union shack, Johnny Friendly appears fearful of Terry
squealing and giving his testimony to the commission. He asks Charley if he will play 'deaf
and dumb' - assured that strong-arm tactics are needed to hush him up:
All I want to know is, is he D and D or is he a canary?
Charley says he doesn't know: "All right. Maybe the boy is outta line, but he's just a confused
kid." Fearing Terry's growing sympathy toward the priest and Edie, Friendly instructs Charley
to warn his brother off.
The next scene is the most memorable scene - the famous taxi cab scene between the two
brothers, wonderfully acted and underplayed. Charley and Terry have just entered the back
seat of a New York taxicab. Charley tells Terry that he's heard a rumor that Terry might testify
in court: "The grapevine says that you got a subpoena." Charley advises him to keep his
mouth shut and not testify ("be a cheese-eater") about what he knows about the corrupt union
bosses - or else! Terry is offered an easy loft job ("a boss loader slot...on the new pier") worth
up to $400 a week, promising: "You don't do anything and you don't say anything." But Terry
is uncertain about the conditions:
There's more to this than I thought, Charley.
Exasperated with Terry's unwillingness to immediately comply, Charley turns toward his
stubborn brother: "You don't mean that you're thinkin' of testifyin' against some people that we
might know?" Agitated, Terry argues desperately: "I'm tellin' ya. I haven't made up my mind
yet!" Charley suggests that if they get to their destination, 437 River Street, and Terry hasn't
made up his mind, there may be serious consequences. Terry is stunned by his brother's
words.
Suddenly, Charley pulls a gun, points it at his brother, and threatens him to take the job and
not talk. Surprised, Terry pushes the gun away - he gently guides its barrel down: "Charley ...
Charley ... Oh, Charley. Wow." After a long pause, Charley changes the subject and begins a
nostalgic, but inaccurate look back at Terry's early life as a boxer:
How much you weigh, slugger? When you weighed 168 pounds, you were beautiful. You
could have been another Billy Conn. That skunk we got you for a manager, he brought you
along too fast.
Embittered, Terry faces up to the fact that he has made nothing of his life - he blames his
brother instead of his manager for his failings. Terry is reminded of how he was given "a oneway ticket to Palookaville" in his boxing days when he knew he had a winner inside himself,
but was told to lose in fixed fights. At one point in his life, he could have risen about his lowlife condition through his skill as a prizefighter. He poignantly looks back to the night of the
fight when he lost all his sense of personal worth and integrity. He realizes that his brother
betrayed him and sold him out to Palookaville (a reference to a palooka, an inferior or
average boxer) for a quick profit, with these words expressing his terrible loss:
It wasn't him, Charley! It was you. You remember that night in the Garden, you came down to
my dressing room and said: 'Kid, this ain't your night. We're going for the price on Wilson.'
You remember that? 'This ain't your night!' My night! I coulda taken Wilson apart! So what
happens? He gets the title shot outdoors in the ball park - and whadda I get? A one-way ticket
to Palookaville.
He continues his sad, pitiable lament, and blames his brother for compromising and
sacrificing his boxing career and his life, thus preventing him from becoming a contender for
the title:
Terry: You was my brother, Charley. You shoulda looked out for me a little bit. You shoulda
taken care of me - just a little bit - so I wouldn't have to take them dives for the short-end
money.
Charley: I had some bets down for you. You saw some money.
Terry (yelling, and heartbroken): You don't understand! I coulda had class. I coulda been
a contender. I coulda been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am. Let's face
it (pause) ...... It was you, Charley.
Charley: OK, OK, I'll tell him I couldn't find you. Ten to one he won't believe it.
Charley, numbed by his brother's confession, shows that he cares for his brother rather than
being cold-blooded. He hands Terry a gun for protection ("Here, take this, you're gonna need
it"). After Terry jumps out of the taxi, the driver takes Charley not to the Garden, but to a River
Street garage, where Truck, Friendly and others are glimpsed. [Charley's failure to convince
his brother not to testify against the mob, or to kill his brother to silence him, dooms him.]
Terry rushes to Edie's place, where she is in bed, wearing only a white slip. In the hallway, he
knocks numerous times and pleads with her to let him in. She begs: "Stay away from me." He
insists fiercely: "Come on, please open the door please." He finally breaks the door down, and
as she huddles in bed, she draws back the covers over her: "I want you to stay away from
me." After he tells her: "Edie, you love me...I want you to say it to me," she responds: "I didn't
say I didn't love you. I said, 'STAY AWAY FROM ME." But he puts his arms around her, and
they end up embracing in a kiss.
A few moments later, they both hear a voice calling to Terry from outside: "Your brother's
down here. He wants to see ya." Terry leaves, with Edie following, believing it might be a trap
to set him up. When he sees Edie being pursued in the dark alley by a truck deliberately
driven towards them, he breaks the glass window in an adjacent doorway with his hand and
protectively pulls Edie inside. As the truck passes by, its headlights illuminate the murdered
body of his brother. Not able to convince his brother to remain silent, Charley has been
viciously killed - his body swings from a longshoreman's baling/meat hook in the back alley.
Waving Charley's gun, Terry vows to avenge his brother's death: "I'm gonna take it out of their
skulls."
Terry emerges from the group of longshoremen to break the stranglehold of the corrupt union.
The brutal killing of his brother completes his conversion. He seeks vengeance by turning
informant stoolie and betraying Friendly. In the neighborhood bar, Terry is convinced by
Father Barry to avoid violence, drop his gun, and fight Friendly in the courtroom with moral
truth to break the code of silence on the docks and Friendly's stranglehold:
You want to hurt Johnny Friendly? Huh? You want to hurt him? You want to fix him? Do ya?
Do you really wanna finish him...for what he did to Charley and a dozen other men who are
better than Charley? Then don't fight him like a hoodlum down here in the jungle because
that's just what he wants. He'll hit you in the head and plead self-defense. You fight him in the
courtroom tomorrow, with the truth as you know the truth.
Terry hurls his gun into a picture hanging behind the bar showing Friendly arm-in-arm with
"Mr. Upstairs," an important personage.
In the courtroom the next day, Terry arrives to testify in televised hearings before the
Waterfront Crime Commission instead of taking a gun down to the waterfront to kill Friendly.
First to testify under oath is Big Mac, who makes the suspicious claim that the financial
records of the local waterfront union happened to be stolen the night before. The second
witness, Terry, turns "stoolie" and betrays Friendly through his testimony. He admits being the
last person (except for the two mugs who murdered him) to see Joey Doyle before he was
pushed from the roof the night he was found dead. After the murder, he claims he went
immediately to the Friendly Bar where he expressed his feelings about the murder to Mr.
Johnny Friendly.
In an elegant room where a TV set broadcasts Terry's testimony, "Mr. Upstairs" tells his
butler: "If Mr. Friendly calls, I'm out...If he calls ever, I'm out." After Terry's words contribute to
breaking wide open the case of Joey Doyle, the counsel pointedly sneers toward Friendly:
"You've begun to make it possible for honest men to work the docks with job security and
peace of mind." Friendly threatens Terry with unemployment and worse, and they must be
pulled apart by police guards:
You've just dug your own grave. Go fall in it. You're dead on this
waterfront and every waterfront from Boston to New Orleans. You don't
drive a truck or a cab. You don't push a baggage rack. You don't work
no place. YOU'RE DEAD!
In his room when he returns from the courthouse, he finds Edie
preparing hot coffee and waiting for him. Moody and disheartened, he
tells her: "My friends won't to talk to me." Neighborhood friend Tommy,
who used to admire and idolize him, has killed his pigeons on the
rooftop and tossed the body of a dead bird at him: "A pigeon for a
pigeon." He is derided and ostracized as a 'canary.' Edie finds him
sitting dejected in the coop, where all of his birds have had their necks
wrung. She sympathizes with him: "There no place that's safe for you
now on the waterfront." The slaughter of his beloved birds is almost
more upsetting to Terry than the murder of his brother Charley.
Up to this point, Terry always thought of himself as a bum. Now, he is
determined to stand strong and prove that he isn't afraid of Johnny
Friendly or any of the others at the shape-up. Transformed by the love
of Edie and his confrontation with the union boss, this helps him develop self-esteem. Terry
no longer believes that he is a bum:
They always said I was a bum. Well, I ain't a bum, Edie.
Fed up and frustrated, but with a deliberate sense of dignity, Terry grabs Joey's jacket and
decides to go down to the morning shape-up for work to get his 'rights.' As he appears at work
to make a defiant stand, the other longshoreman speak in low murmurs about him, stare at
him, and avoid him as an informer.
Inside the union headquarters, a shack at dockside, Friendly feels the pressure from the
courtroom ordeal with Terry. He reads the headlines of The Daily Tribune: "NAME JOHNNY
FRIENDLY AS WATERFRONT MURDER BOSS." He tells his fellow mugs: "Wait till we get
off this front page. Then he's mine. I want him. You hear that? He's mine."
Terry is passed over for work that day and left standing alone. The last person hired, instead
of him, is the one-armed drifter named Mott - who is now apologetic. Big Mac growls at Terry:
"You want more of the same? Come back tomorrow."
In the union shack, Johnny collects guns from his reluctant goons: "Did you ever hear of the
Sullivan Law? They'll be down on us for the slightest infraction now - anything. I'm gonna be
indicted any minute...Can you get it through your heads? They're dustin' off the hot seat for
me. We're a law-abidin' union. Understand?"
Compulsively, Terry marches with a crowd following behind, down the ramp to the union
office. He passionately challenges Friendly and his cohorts when they appear:
You take them heaters away from you and you're nothin', you know that?...You take the
goods away and the kickbacks and the shakedown cabbage and them pistoleros and you're
nothin'. Your guts is all in your wallet and your trigger finger - you know that?...You give it to
Joey. You give it to Dugan. You give it to Charley, who was one of your own. You think you're
God almighty. But you know what you are?...You're a cheap, lousy, dirty, stinkin', mug. And
I'm glad what I've done to you.
Friendly beckons Terry with his hands, tempting him to fight, causing Terry to take the
aggressive challenge.
The film concludes with a confrontation and a furious, savage, bloody
fight between Terry and Johnny. Until he is overwhelmed and
outnumbered by Friendly's thugs, Terry lands some effective punches.
Amazed longshoremen watching the struggle creep forward, but are
prevented from assisting Terry. He is beaten unmercifully behind the
shack and nearly killed in the fight to the death. A swollen-faced
Friendly invites Edie and Father Barry, who have arrived, to attend to
battered Terry's bloody wounds: "You want 'im. You can have 'im. (To
Edie) The little rat's yours." As he lies there senseless and crumpled on
the deck, Terry is barely conscious.
When the longshoremen are called back to work, they rally behind their
fallen Terry, impressed by his courageous will. They threaten Friendly
that they won't return to work without him:
Longshoremen: How about Terry? He don't work, we don't work.
Friendly: Work! He can't even walk!
The father of murdered Joey Doyle impulsively shoves Friendly from the dock into the cold
water, causing a roar of laughter from the crowd. As Terry is assisted, numb, bloody and
injured, he rallies them and painfully prepares to walk back to work. Speaking for all of them,
one of the longshoremen vows: "If Terry walks in, we walk in with him. (To Father Barry)
They're waitin' for him to walk in." Father Barry urges Terry to lead them in, although he is
slow to respond:
Do you hear that, Terry?...You lost a battle, but you have a chance to win the war....Can you
walk?...Just finish what you started. You can!
Groggy and uncomprehending, Terry staggers to his feet to walk up the ramp to the dock as a
symbolic act of courage. He slowly weaves and pushes toward the loading pier where the
shipping boss stands, as longshoremen follow him. Nearly martyred but alive, he breaks the
strangle-hold power of the union boss. The workers, forming a line on the side, rally around
their new leader as he leads the loitering longshoremen back to work through the gate - in an
act of defiance. They ignore the desperate screams of the soaking-wet Friendly, who tries to
prevent them from following:
Where you guys going? Wait a minute? I'll remember this! I'll remember every one of ya! I'll
be back, don't you forget that. I'll be back.
The union boss points at them with an accusing finger, with ominous last words: "I'll be back."
But his words fall on deaf ears in the optimistic, symbolic, and melodramatic ending of the
film.