I had no idea what I was in for when I chose On the Waterfront as my next film in my Cinematic Revival features. It seemed like an obvious choice starting with the fact that I had never seen it, it won 8 Oscars, it starred Marlon Brando, was directed by Elia Kazan and had the famous “I coulda been a contender” speech. All signs pointed at this one being one to consider and it certainly is a good movie, but it is more than just a movie to many people, primarily Kazan. Some of you may already know the story of Kazan’s involvement in the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) testimonies, but for those of you that don’t this is a rather interesting story to say the very least.
In an effort to make this as abridged as possible let me first tell you that On the Waterfront is about an ex-prizefighter named Terry Malloy (Brando) who works as a longshoreman and something of an errand boy for Johnny Friendly (Lee J. Cobb), the corrupt dock workers’ union boss. Terry gets the preferential treatment due to his brother Charley being Friendly’s right-hand man.
The beginning of the film opens as we witness the murder of Joey Doyle, a man referred to as a squealer, as he is thrown off the roof of a building. Terry set the man up thinking he was going to get roughed up a bit for talking to crime investigators, but as one of Friendly’s thugs says, “He could sing, but he couldn’t fly.” This gets Terry’s brain working and he begins to question the life he has chosen. Following Joey’s death he gets close to Edie Doyle, Joey’s sister played by newcomer Eva Marie Saint, and soon realizes everything he could have been as a fighter was thrown out the window for a life of crime. He was once a boxing contender but that life went out the window once he was asked and complied to throw the biggest fight of his life at Madison Square Garden.
The film leads up to Terry realizing that he must testify in the Waterfront Crime Commission’s attempt to weed out the underworld’s infiltration into the union. It is this build-up and the subsequent results that tie in directly to Kazan’s personal life as he too was in a situation such as Terry’s. Oddly enough while parallel’s can be drawn to Kazan’s life the film itself is also based on the true story of a longshoreman who tried to overthrow a corrupt union. What a small world eh?
You see, the HUAC testimonies I referred to earlier were part of the Committee’s attempts to interrogate Americans about their Communist connections. The committee was started in 1938 and it was in 1947 that it began targeting Hollywood. The concern was that Communists were in a position to place negative images of the United States in films that would have wide international distribution. Kazan plays a major role in all of this as he became known as a man that “named names” in 1952 under pressure from the FBI and the movie studios, but after some soul searching he would claim it wasn’t any pressure that caused him to go back and name individuals involved, rather it was proper, if not patriotic, to expose it. Although I am sure becoming part of the Hollywood blacklist was not high on his priorities.
Kazan was an admitted one-time member of a Communist “cell” inside the New York Group Theater of which he had been a part of and he ultimately named the names of the eight others who were members of his Group Theater Communist cell. You seeing the parallels to On the Waterfront?
I believe that any American who is in possession of such facts has the obligation to make them known, either to the public or to the appropriate Government agency… Whatever hysteria exists–and there is some, particularly in Hollywood–is inflamed by mystery, suspicion and secrecy. Hard and exact facts will cool it.”
I am sure Kazan’s heart felt even more at ease considering he was only giving the committee names they already knew; his testimony only proved he was friendly with the committee and not on the side of the opposition.
There are rumors that Brando initially turned down the role of Terry Malloy due to Kazan’s testimony. It is known that Frank Sinatra was originally cast for the part, but producer Sam Spiegel wanted a bigger name and continued to push for Brando and Brando finally agreed much to the dismay of Sinatra who is said to have filed a lawsuit for breach of contract, yet Kazan contends Sinatra let him off easy.
