On the Waterfront 1954

Interesting that this is the movie for this week. The Elia Kazan Collection an 18 disc box set with 15 movies was just released. Included in the collection is On the Waterfront and The 1947 Best Picture winner A Gentleman's Agreement. Also included are other Elia Kazan classics like A Streetcar Named Desire, Splendor in the Grass, and East of Eden.

On the Waterfront is about a corrupt union of longshoresmen and a guy who is caught between his conscience and loyalty to the union. Marlon Brando ins an ex-boxer Terry who is now  a longshoresman and his brother is one of the union bosses.  His brother and the union boss use him as a mindless thug. He is a guy who just does as he is told, doesn't think to hard, and doesn't really care about anyone besides himself. But over time he learns that people are taking advantage of him and he slowly becomes aware of the needs of those around him. A big part of his change comes from Edie(Eva Marie Saint), who is looking for the murderer of her brother. This puts a big strain on Terry because he was used to help lure her brother to his death. For along time he plays the part of just a deaf and dumb (D and D) member. Going along with what his brother and the union bosses tell him to do. But he begins to see that neither one of them have been looking out for his best interests. This leads to one of the most famous scenes and lines  in the movie where he confronts his brother and tells him " 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." He then goes in front of a jury and tells all of what he knows about the corruption and brings the people responsible for the murder to justice.

This is a great movie. Besides best picture the movie won 7 other awards. Both Marlon Brando and Eva Marie Saint won acting awards. They both gave amazing performances. It was pretty cool seeing a Marlon Brando in his prime. It is hard to believe he is the same guy in the Godfather 20 years later. The movie also won best writing for Budd Schulberg and best directing for Elia Kazan. Although it didn't win best music score I thought the music was great. It is the only non musical score written by Leonard Bernstein.

The interesting thing I found out about this movie is some of the meaning behind the movie.  Both Budd Schulberg and Elia Kazan were called to testify in front of the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) in 1952.  There they both named people who they were associated with during their time in the communist party. They both were able to keep their jobs in the movie industry because they cooperated but lost a lot of friends who felt they had done the wrong thing by ratting out their friends. One of the people that felt they were wrong was Arthur Miller who was once friends with Kazan. When Miller wrote the play "The Crucible" which compared the HUAC hearings to the the witch hunt in Salem, Ma. Kazan took it as an attack on him for speaking out. His response to "The Crucible" was On the Waterfront where the hero is the person that speaks out against injustice. The testimony that Kazan gave to HUAC caused him great pain. He did not want to lose his film career nor did he want to testify. He is quoted as saying "I hate the Communists and have for many years, and don’t feel right about giving up my career to defend them. I will give up my film career if it is in the interests of defending something I believe in, but not this".  All of the people Kazan had named were already known and he did not out anyone.  But he was still considered a rat and even when he won a lifetime achievement Oscar in 1999 there were still some who would not applaud him. 

The movie is considered one of the best movies. It was voted number 9 by AFI in 1997 and 19 in 2007. The quote "I coulda been a contender" was on AFI's list of best quotes at number 3. It is on the IMDB TOP 250 movies, and it still stands up over time. No matter what the reasons for the making of the movie was the transformation of the character from bum to leader is classic and timeless.

Gentleman's Agreement

I have been trying to get these out every Thursday but this one didn’t quite make it. The 20th movie to win Best Picture and the third in a series of socially aware movies Gentleman's Agreement is about a writer’s investigation into anti-Semitism in post WWII America. It took me a few tries to watch the whole movie because it's a little boring and I kept falling asleep. Gregory Peck plays a magazine writer who moves to New York from a rural town. His first assignment at the magazine is to write a piece on anti-Semitism. He tries to come up with a new angle and decides the only way he can write something different is to experience it himself and he pretends to be Jewish for six months. During the six months he experiences different types of prejudice even some from other Jews, and the whole experiment puts a strain on his relationship he just started with a young woman and also his family and friends.

The movie seems kind of dated as anti-Semitism is not a prevalent nowadays or at least not as obvious. Or maybe I am just being naïve in thinking that. Either way the movie just doesn’t resonate with me and just felt preachy. Gregory Peck gives another amazing performance as he usually does. Elia Kazan was considered one of the Best Directors of the time he had 5 nominations and 2 wins for best director. He did win best director for this movie, but I read that he did not like the movie. He felt that if lacked passion and that the romance was too forced. I agree with that. The romance in the movie was kind of forced. He meets this girl and the next day they are engaged. It appears that another girl likes him but nothing happens and it just seems like it was an after thought. The studio execs at the time did not want this movie made. Most of them were Jewish and they thought that making this movie would just stir up a hornet’s nest, but producer Darryl F. Zanuck thought it was a good topic to talk about after the revelations of what happened in German Concentration Camps. While the movie did cause some problems wjen it was released for the most part it was widely accepted and was one of the highest grossing movies of the year. It appears to me that it was a bad year for film and there were not many good movies released that year and this might have been the best movie of the year. The only other movie I saw that was released in 1947 was Song of the South and while that is notable for other reasons I would not consider it a great movie. I never did see Miracle on 34th Street even though it is played every year at Christmas time I am not much into Christmas movies.

Other Facts
Beat Miracle on 34th Street for best picture.
The first special award for foreign film was given to Shoeshine, although it was not made an official competitive category till 1956.
James Baskett received an Honorary Award for playing Uncle Remus in Song of the South making him the first African American male win an academy award, (the first African American Male to win a competitive award would be Sidney Poitier for The Defiant Ones in 1958). Song of the South also won best song for “Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah” and oddly enough Song of the South was never released on DVD in the United States because of what is seen as racial stereotyping of African Americans.