Rented "On the Waterfront" this weekend. I had seen part of it on TV years and years ago, and always meant to go back and see the whole thing.
It's funny to see Brando so young. And Eve Saint Marie, she is so beautiful.
I thought the ideology behind the movie was very interesting. It was from the 50s, and it was set in a poor neighborhood. The men trying to work on the docks were "ethnic," which was how things were in the 50s. They don't seem SO long ago, but class differentiation was much more distinct then.
The 60s made a difference.
These men and their families talked about getting "food on the table." One recurring motif is how a dead man's jacket is given to someone else who needs it. Jackets, clothing, basic needs were not taken for granted.
They were poor and hard-working. They also had no prospects for anything better. Edie's (played by Saint Marie) father tells her that he worked and slaved and saved so that she could get out of there. She had been sent to a convent to study. She was sheltered, but she had seen enough to be grateful for it.
The men kept complaining about unloading bananas.
Bananas, now, are the cheapest fruit in the store. Not so in the 50s. I doubt that the average dockworker ever had the opportunity to eat a banana.
They were struggling to get potatoes. It was hard.
But the point of the story was union corruption. That's a tricky topic. Unions were created to stop corporate or "boss" corruption. But then, Unions became corrupt, and they began to exploit the workers. Almost like, where the bosses left off, the unions took up.
But it was hard to get unions going! They establishment of unions took a lot of work.
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Article comments
1 - Eric Olsen
Nice analysis Murphy - I still have a crush on EMS. She smoked in North by Northwest and was still hot, though much more maternal, in the Russians Are Coming.
2 - Sean Hackbarth
What a movie! Brando was tough and vulnerable. The rest of the cast was strong and the story was smart.