Trying to find movies I haven't touched in my 38 years of existence, and well, it does occur to me that I haven't seen any of Marlon Brando's earlier films. Granted, a lot of this must go to my brother's credit for many reasons once I told him of many movies I haven't seen well, the rest you'll figure out. On the Waterfront is Marlon Brando's first of two Academy Awards, furthermore, launched his career into high standards. The funny thing about this movie is, browsing through the movie on Wikipedia is a huge story about McCarthyism for which I don't know how this has anything to do with communism hell, not to go in so much detail but the way I got out of this movie was that it's all about corruption as well as faith and justice.
Dockworker Terry Mallory (Marlon Brando) had been an up-and-coming boxer until powerful local mob boss Johnny Friendly (Lee J. Cobb) persuaded him to throw a fight. When a longshoreman is murdered before he can testify about Friendly's control of the Hoboken waterfront, Terry teams up with the dead man's sister Edie (Eva Marie Saint) and the streetwise priest Father Barry (Karl Malden) to testify himself, against the advice of Friendly's lawyer, Terry's older brother Charlie (Rod Steiger).
What I like most about the movie and this was coming into at least fifteen minutes into the movie is that the film was made for only 910,000 dollars, though sure back then it's a typical big budget but if you make this film now it's mostly nothing compared to making movies right now. Moreover what struck me more about the film was it's real locations in fact majority of the film was shot in Hoboken, New Jersey, but getting to the point when you see real locations at times on film in the thirties, forties or fifties it almost feels like they only shoot at local studio lots and the only time you see real locations are either in westerns back when they were making cowboy films or The Third Man staring Orson Wells. And so, with this movie it feels like a real city their shooting at including the docks of the harbor as well and even the church for which I liked about the movie mainly because it's really the trend of one director making a film work where the actors are making the film believable. The most important thing in what makes this film great is that you see Marlon Brando's rise to stardom in this film, and he really does a fantastic job in this film as well as being the lead in what lead to his rise to fame and the interesting thing about the filming, is that Brando's mother had recently died furthermore he had to go into therapy to resolve his issues with his parents so, when you watch the movie through, you can see the pain and emotion he's bringing through the course of the film. The other thing in what makes the films great to watch is not only just Marlon Brando is that they have acquired a bunch of talented actors in the supporting roles like Lee J. Cobb who I remember seeing 12 Angry Men, and he played the last guy to say not guilty and Karl Madden who played the abusive father to Anthony Perkins in Fear Strikes Out and I thought his performance was great because he's doing everything to give faith to the people about the corruption in their town as well as convincing Brando's character to not use violence but give faith by testifying against Cobb's character. I would most certainly recommend, for everyone to watch one of Marlon Brando's earlier works but more importantly shows a ton of themes of corruption and crime as well as Christianity blending through the course of the movie. Furthermore, whenever I see a movie that has a low budget and depends on talented actors, I'm always intrigued in seeing films like On the Waterfront.
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