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Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated) Binding: VHS Tape EAN: 9786303402079 Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, NTSC ISBN: 6303402070 Label: Sony Pictures Manufacturer: Sony Pictures Number Of Items: 1 Publisher: Sony Pictures Release Date: February 24, 1998 Running Time: 108 minutes Sales Rank: 1638 Studio: Sony Pictures Theatrical Release Date: 1954
Amazon.com essential video: Marlon Brando's famous "I coulda been a contenda" speech is such a warhorse by now that a lot of people probably feel they've seen this picture already, even if they haven't. And many of those who have seen it may have forgotten how flat-out thrilling it is. For all its great dramatic and cinematic qualities, and its fiery social criticism, Elia Kazan's On the Waterfront is also one of the most gripping melodramas of political corruption and individual heroism ever made in the United States, a five-star gut-grabber. Shot on location around the docks of Hoboken, New Jersey, in the mid-1950s, it tells the fact-based story of a longshoreman (Brando's Terry Malloy) who is blackballed and savagely beaten for informing against the mobsters who have taken over his union and sold it out to the bosses. (Karl Malden has a more conventional stalwart-hero role, as an idealistic priest who nurtures Terry's pangs of conscience.) Lee J. Cobb, who created the role of Willy Loman in Death of Salesman under Kazan's direction on Broadway, makes a formidable foe as a greedy union leader. --David Chute
Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
Rating: - Marlon Brando was definitely a contender.
Marlon Brando, who won an Oscar for this role, changed the face of acting in the mid 20th century.
He's brilliant, inspired, and completely magnificent. And who hasn't heard, "I coulda been a contender, I coulda been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am."
This movie is a classic, a movie that should be in everyones collection.
They just don't make them like Brando, anymore.
Rating: - The greatest movie of all time
On the Waterfront has all the power that Brando was capable of, filmed in black and white the lighting and stength of the images together with the power of the story make this for me, the greatest movie ever.
Brando is recognised by many, myself included as the best actor ever. This is probably the best example of his craft.
Rating: - A one-way ticket to palookaville
On the Waterfront begins on a shipping dock. The weather is raw and cold. A man emerges from a small wooden shack. He's bundled in the clothes of a poor common man--a laborer. His eyes are to the ground; his hands are stuffed deep into his pockets. Several well-dressed men follow him out of the small shack; they're all smiles. One of these men reaches out to pat the laborer's shoulder: "You take it from here, slugger," he tells the laborer.
The laborer is Terry Malloy (Marlon Brando). The mob has a problem with Joey Doyle. Mobster Johnny Friendly (Lee J. Cobb) runs the docks and his ... Read More
Rating: - A film of major social importance; not to mention utterly fascinating to watch...
A staple for any fan of Marlon Brando, `On the Waterfront' is much more than a showcase for the actor's immense talent. No, `On the Waterfront' is a brilliant study of oppression, power and the struggle for control, not of others but of ones self. Sure, Brando delivers one of the finest performances of his career, but even with his dynamic performance stripped from the films core we are still left with a magnificent film that will stand the tests of time.
Marlon Brando plays Terry Malloy, an ex-prizefighter turned longshoreman living in New Jersey. The docks are run by the mob, everyone ... Read More
Rating: - Among the greats
Probably the only good thing produced by "McCarthyism"; in the end it is the story of "ratting out" by Kazan, who testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee, naming his friends.
But it is also the story of standing up to evil. It is a post-WWII commentary on that achievement. And, in this regard Brando creates a hero for the ages in a remarkable picture in which I see something new every time I watch it.
Look, for example, for the New Testament parables, The "cloak" in the form of the Jacket that ends up with Terry Malloy, and Dugan's "ascension" from the ... Read More
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