STACK #180 Oct 2019

EXTRAS FEATURE

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Onthe Waterfront

Lee J. Cobb as racketeer boss Johnny Friendly

Directed by Elia Kazan 1954

Mob, corrupt union leaders and the shipping companies – all greasing the palms of local New York politicos. Johnson's heroic series pulled no punches describing in detail bribery, beatings, thievery, kickbacks, extortion and the brutal murder of the longshoremen hiring boss Andy Hintz, who was executed for refusing to let the Mob muscle in on his pier. This unholy trinity controlled the lives of all the employed longshoremen and stevedores by enforcing the law of D'n D (Deaf and Dumb) – to talk was to rat and to rat was to stand exposed and unprotected, which would inevitably result in violent retribution. Hollywood screenwriter Budd Schulberg had already taken on organised crime in his novel The Harder They Fall, which dealt with the then endemic boxing rackets. He was convinced that Johnson's waterfront expose was fertile material for a ground-breaking movie. Director Elia Kazan agreed with Schulberg and work began on a script. When the first draft of a screenplay was completed, Kazan made the rounds of all the major film studios. Hollywood was a capitalist organisation and during its early years had been extremely anti-union. This had led to a firm belief by the movie moguls that trade unionism and labour organisations were dangerous fields to tread for motion picture subjects. Furthermore, this was 1953, the height of anti-communist hysteria in America, and financing a movie seen as a justification for informants was deemed far too controversial for the studios. Consequently, every single studio rejected Kazan and Schulburg's proposed movie story outright. With the project totally snubbed, it was eventually rescued by maverick independent film producer Sam Spiegel, who not only agreed to finance the production but also struck a distribution deal with the New York office of Columbia Pictures. Kazan wanted his protégé, the pioneering method actor Marlon Brando, for the lead role but Brando turned the part down. Spiegel then suggested Frank Sinatra, primarily because the movie would be shot in and around the waterfronts of Hoboken, New Jersey – Sinatra's hometown. According to Sinatra, he had "a handshake deal" but no formally-signed contract. Consequently, he was furious when he heard that Brando

N ot only was On the Waterfront an important American film it was also a game- changer for Hollywood. The early 1950s had begun to see the gradual disintegration of the studio system that had served Hollywood well for three decades. The rapid expansion of television sets in every American home vastly depressed Hollywood both financially and spiritually. Hampered by a strict moral

Production Code since 1930, the major film studios had by and large aimed their productions at an all-age audience from six to sixty. This was demonstrated in the main core of its films to a commitment to family-friendly subjects invariably with happy endings. But following WWII, American culture and attitudes had changed significantly. Cinemagoers began to ask themselves why should they have to pay to see such movie stories when there was now an abundance of similar shows beamed into their parlours every evening? The continual decline in audiences – which caused hundreds of cinemas to close across the US – made the production of a high volume of movies inefficient. Subsequently, it was no longer economical for the major film studios to maintain the now old-fashioned factory- like studio system. However, the collapse of the system generated the rise of the independent film producer who, unlike the old movie moguls, would challenge the Production Code head-on by financing movies with more hard-hitting adult themes. This was the background of the independent production On the Waterfront . The idea for the film began with an exposé series written in 1948 for The New York Sun by reporter Malcolm Johnson, which won him a Pulitzer Prize. The

New York commercial waterfront was a cesspool of corruption and violence run by the Mob. Brooklyn-based Albert Anastasia, who came up through the mafia as the top enforcer of Murder Incorporated, was the boss of bosses of the eastern seaboard crime fiefdom. It was a three-way criminal collusion of the Fact: The demands of the Production Code for each movie were not mandatory but many theatres would not show a film that didn't bear the Production Seal. The adverse publicity that followed would invariably bring out every advocacy group to boycott the film. As a consequence, movie executives routinely caved in to the Code's demands.

Karl Malden, Marlon Brando and Eva Marie Saint in a scene from the film

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OCTOBER 2019

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