Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

A young ex-boxer and a priest team up with the sister of a victim of the local mob to find out who killed her brother and try to stop the mob from unfairly controlling all of the work and wages that should be going to the dockers in the area.This is one of those films that everyone says is a classic but I hadn't got round to seeing. All I can say is- the people who say this is a classic are undervaluing the film greatly. I knew as I was watching this that one of my favourite films that I hadn't even seen for the first time from start to finish yet was unfurling before my very eyes.Karl Malden, Eve Marie Saint and Lee J Cobb are all remarkable.But then theres Marlon Brando. One still of him from this movie, any still of him from this movie is worth a million Monets. The fact that he went into acting and the movies specifically is a wonder. To see his face, his expressions, everything about him in this film projected onto a huge cinema screen reminded me why I love the movies. Flawless.A masterpiece.

A triumph of movies in its realistic depiction of a man alone bucking the system, "On The Waterfront" scores in another department for me. It's a prime example of a film overcoming what the late Roger Ebert liked to call "the idiot plot."As Mr. E. put it, the idiot plot is where a movie depends on its characters acting like complete dolts in order for it to function. Here, an idiot summons a pal to a roof knowing his bully buddies who want to silence the pal wait there, not figuring that they might, you know, push him off said roof and silence him for keeps.A priest kicks off a tense meeting by asking who killed the guy, thinking somehow someone will just blurt it out and not figuring a public forum might intimidate them into further silence.A union boss figures the best way to keep idiot #1 quiet is to kill his brother and hang him on a hook for him to see the night before said idiot is scheduled to give testimony. Oh, and when the guy tells what he knows anyway, the boss blows his top and attacks him in front of the press.Still, "On The Waterfront" triumphs over such qualms and delivers a solid story, aided by powerhouse performances. Marlon Brando centers everything with an assured turn as Terry Malloy, a former boxer turned goon for Longshoremen's Local 374. Sure, Terry's an idiot, but he has a lot of heart: "I figured the worst they were gonna do was lean on him a little bit. Wow. He wasn't a bad kid, that Joey."Brando's scenes with Eva Marie Saint as Joey's sister, Edie, retain a kind of raw power, of two people finding each other in a cruel world and making something good amid the carnage. Their scenes together have an intimacy and subtlety that make them stand out more. One critical moment between them, easy to miss, is when during their first extended time together, after she lets him do most of the talking, she quietly reveals she has had her eye on him for a long time, back at school when he was a troublemaker and she was just a mousy kid in braces and braids.Director Elia Kazan was at the midpoint of his distinguished career, and gets a lot of mileage off of scriptwriter Budd Schulberg's tough-talking script. The scenes around the pier hut where the union boys run their scams are crisp and flavorful, dominated by Lee J. Cobb's nasty Johnny Friendly. "Everything that moves in and out, we take our cut," he boasts.Here and elsewhere, there is an "on-the-nose" quality to the dialogue, and to the way the film is constructed. It's manipulative the way we see Terry shot in the mesh of his pigeon coop like he's in a web, or how a crossbeam gives an aspect of a crucifix whenever Edie appears. Yet it works. "On The Waterfront" is a kind of passion play for organized labor, arguing successfully that tolerating corruption makes for a sin of omission.The famous "coulda been a contender" scene with Brando and Rod Steiger as his brother Charlie remains parody-proof, and the socko ending with Terry's big confrontation at the dock remains one of the great moments of cinema. They are rare big scenes that fully earn their acclaim.I don't love "On The Waterfront." I find it too pushed in places, and not very convincing. But it still holds up well as a testament to what movies can do, and how they can make you feel.

The movie is rich with awards and recognition. The movie was nominated for 12 Oscars and won 8. Exceptional and outstanding in all the ways, the actor's performance, direction, cinematography, music etc. The first movie of Eva Marie Saint. She won Oscar for the best supporting actress. Her chemistry with Marlon Brando was amazing. The dock is ruled by a corrupt man called Johnny Friendly. The protagonist, Terry Malloy works for Johnny. Johny kills a man who stands against him. Terry is the only person who knew what happened. To add to the situation Terry falls in love with the sister of the victim.A definitely must watch movie. Do not miss this.#KiduMovie

Dear Martin Scorsese, I watched your interview on the special features section of the On The Waterfront DVD. You did make some good points about how On the Waterfront was a pioneer in the way the streets of New York was filmed and looked on screen. You also stated that Brando's performance was unique and you had not seen anything like it before except for John Garfield in Force of Evil. But I was thinking about Sterling Hayden in The Asphalt Jungle. I am not comparing Sterling to Brando. But I was thinking about how both the characters were conflicted by the corruption around them, seemingly unable to escape their terrible circumstances. Brando exuded the lonesomeness and melancholy of the failed boxer trying to save his soul by standing up to the union boss who controls the livelihood of the longshoremen. I see parallels between Brando's performance in On the Waterfront and De Niro's in The Raging Bull. I also think Lee.J.Cobb's performance is seriously underrated. He upstaged Brando in some of their scenes together. Cobb's menacing certainty about his evil manipulative ways was a perfect foil for Brando's confusion. Their interactions were the best part of the film. I wish the writer had written more scenes with the two of them squaring off. I was not too impressed by the weepy Eva Marie Saint or the saintly Karl Malden. On the Waterfront tells a universal story. It is a very depressing film when you think about it. I can never forget the final scenes when Brando is being beaten up by the thugs and all the longshoremen simply crowd around and look on. The shots of them passively crowding around the brawling men like sheep was clearly used by Kazan to convey their impotence. Best Regards, Pimpin. (8/10)