When On the Waterfront was first released to American movie theaters on July 28, 1954, the film’s director, Elia Kazan, was worried about how well it would do on opening day. Actors Marlon Brando, Eva Marie Saint, Rod Steiger, Karl Malden and Lee J. Cobb gave the film plenty of star power. But there hadn’t been as much advance publicity about it as Kazan would have liked.
So, on the morning of July 28th, Kazan went to Times Square to see how many customers were turning out to see the first showing of On the Waterfront at New York’s popular Astor Theatre, an early matinee scheduled for 11:00 a.m.
According to Richard Schickel’s biography of Kazan, the director was surprised to see a line of a hundred or so people waiting to get in. It was an early sign of the film’s success.
Indeed, On the Waterfront was both a commercial and critical success, garnering eight Academy Awards, including a Best Director Oscar for Kazan. The American Film Institute lists it as one of the 100 Greatest American Films even made.
It also includes one of the most famous movie quotes ever uttered: “I coulda been a contender!”
The line is spoken by Brando, as the washed-up boxer turned longshoreman, Terry Malloy, to his brother Charley (Steiger). Charley is an ethically-challenged lawyer who works for Johnny Friendly (Cobb), the brutal mobster who runs the local longshoreman’s union.
After Terry witnesses a fellow longshoreman murdered by Friendly’s thugs, Friendly tells Charley to make sure Terry sticks to the union’s “D and D” (“deaf and dumb”) code.
When Charley presses Terry about this, it reminds him that Charley had forced him to end his boxing career years before, at the orders of the same gangster. “You was my brother, Charley,” he says. “You shoulda looked out for me a little bit. You shoulda taken care of me, just a little bit, so I wouldn't have to take them dives for the short-end money...I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am.”
Terry goes on to become a hero when he testifies against Friendly before a Congressional waterfront crime commission.
Many observers have noted that, in part, On the Waterfront seems to be Kazan’s cinematic justification for his own testimony before the McCarthy-era House un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) on April 10, 1952.
In the 1930s, Kazan was a member of the Group Theater, a New York City theater collective that included a number of politically progressive, left-leaning actors, playwrights and directors.
During his 1952 HUAC testimony, Kazan named eight former Group Theater members who he said had once been Communists, including Clifford Odets and Paula Miller, who later married the famed acting mentor Lee Strasberg. Kazan also criticized the “Hollywood Ten” for refusing to cooperate with the hunt for alleged Commies in the movie industry.
Kazan’s testimony (online here) made him a controversial figure throughout his life. And, the controversy has continued since Kazan’s death in 2003.
His supporters feel his artistic achievements as a director outweigh the fact that he was one of many people in the film and theater world who “named names” and went along with the anti-Communist hysteria that led to the “blacklisting” of many actors, writers and directors in Hollywood.
His critics view him as a despicable snitch, who was willing to hurt former friends to protect his lucrative career.
Reading things Kazan said about the controversy himself over the years, I get the sense that he viewed his HUAC testimony as an act of conscience that was similar to Terry Malloy’s testimony to the waterfront crime commission in On the Waterfront. For example, two days after appearing before the House un-American Activities Committee, Kazan paid for an ad in the New York Times in which he tried to justify what he had done. He said in one paragraph:
“Whatever hysteria exists — and there is some, particularly in Hollywood — is inflamed by mystery, suspicion and secrecy...Secrecy serves the Communists. At the other pole, it serves those who are interested in silencing liberal voices. The employment of a lot of good liberals is threatened because they have allowed themselves to become associated with or silenced by the Communists. Liberals must speak out.”
Decades later, his 1997 autobiography, Kazan wrote:
“If you expect an apology now because I would later name names to the house Committee, you've misjudged my character. The ‘horrible, immoral thing’ I would do, I did out of my true self...The people who owe you an explanation (no apology expected) are those who, year after year, held the Soviets blameless for all their crimes.”
I love On the Waterfront and many other movies Kazan directed (my other special favorites are A Streetcar Named Desire, Viva Zapata! East of Eden and Baby Doll).
But I do question whether “exposing” former friends who seem to have been “guilty” — at worst — of having some misguided political views in their younger days is similar to exposing graft, extortion and murder committed by a gangster.
I hope that, if I had been put on the HUAC hot seat, I would have had the guts to respond like actress Lillian Hellman.
In a letter she sent to HUAC Chairman John S. Wood on May 19, 1952, Hellman explained that she was willing to appear before the committee, as requested. However, she made it crystal clear that she would not name names.
Her letter includes a famous quote about acts of conscience that you may know:
“To hurt innocent people whom I knew many years ago in order to save myself is, to me, inhuman and indecent and dishonorable,” Hellman wrote. “I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year’s fashions.”
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