On the Waterfront released 50 years ago today

On the Waterfront Released: July 28, 1954 Studio: Columbia Genre: crime drama/thriller Box Office (numbers in millions): Domestic: 9.60 Worldwide: ? Adjusted for Inflation: Domestic: 219.90 Worldwide: ?

Directing: Elia Kazan Screenwriting: Budd Schulberg Starring: Marlon Brando, Eva Marie Saint, Lee J. Cobb, Karl Malden, Rod Steiger Review: “Budd Schulberg’s unflinching account of N.Y.C. harbor unions (suggested by articles by Malcolm Johnson)” LM is a “powerful, gripping drama” VD “that mirrors the political climate of the early 1950s.” A07 “The theatrical trailer promised ‘a story that’s as warm and moving as Going My Way (but with brass knuckles!)’ – as good a description as any for this Oscar-winning morality tale. The characters struggling with pier pressure include an ex-boxer with a soft spot for pigeons, a luscious nun-in-training and a priest with a mean punch.” TV “Winner of eight Oscars…Leonard Bernstein’s music is another major asset. Film debuts of Saint, Martin Balsam, Fred Gwynne, and Pat Hingle.” LM In one of “his most famous performances” VD as a “longshoreman who ‘coulda been a contender,” A07 Marlon Brando is “inarticulate ex-boxer champ Terry Malloy.” FS He “witnesses the murder of a fellow dock worker, a victim of gangster union boss Cobb’s oppressive hold over the longshoremen – punished for ‘singing’ to an investigation commission. When Terry begins to fall in love with shy and frail Edie (Saint), the dead man’s sister, his allegiances are challenged.” FS He rebels against his brother Charlie (Steiger), a corrupt mob lawyer, and his world of “union violence, greed, and deceit.” VD “After his brother’s murder, he defiantly stands up against the hoodlums on the waterfront.” FS “Movie mogul Darryl F. Zanuck passed on the script for Twentieth Century-Fox, believing no one would ‘care about a bunch of sweaty longshoremen.’ Elia Kazan and screenwriter Budd Schulberg went to Columbia Pictures. Even then the script went through many drafts, including character Terry Malloy as an investigative reporter before becoming the iconic sweaty longshoreman.” MSN Sources: A07 American Film Institute (2007). “AFI’s 100 Years…100 Movies – 10th Anniversary Edition” FS Filmsite.org “100 Greatest Films” LM Leonard Maltin “100 Must-See Films of the 20th Century” MSN MSN Entertainment (7/19/2018). “100 Best Movies” by Shahnaz Mahmud TV TV Guide (August 8-14, 1998 issue). “50 Greatest Movies on TV and Video” VD Video Detective (1997). “Top 100 Films of All Time”

Awards/Honors/Lists: Dave’s Movie Database Lists: Awards: Oscars: Wins: 8 – including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (Brando), Supporting Actress (Saint), Best Story and Screenplay Nominations: 12, including Best Supporting Actor (Cobb), Best Supporting Actor (Steiger), Best Supporting Actor (Malden) Other Lists/Honors: Critics’ Picks: Roger Ebert Leslie Halliwell/John Walker Leonard Maltin First posted 8/24/2019; last updated 6/2/2023.

Today in Movie History (1951): A Streetcar Named Desire released

A Streetcar Named Desire Released: September 19, 1951 Studio: Warner Bros. Pictures Genre: romance Box Office (numbers in millions): Domestic: 8.0 Worldwide: -- Adjusted for Inflation: Domestic: 231.20 Worldwide: --

Directing: Elia Kazan Screenwriting: Tennessee Williams, Oscar Saul Starring: Vivien Leigh, Marlon Brando, Kim Hunter, Karl Malden Review: This is a “powerful, frank dramatic adaptation of Tennessee Williams’ Pulitzer Prize-winning play, based upon Oscar Saul’s adaptation.” FS “The performances…remain among the most electric in American film.” TV This is the story of Blanche DeBois (Leigh), “a neurotic, fragile, aging Southern belle,” A07 who visits her sister (Hunter) “in a down-and-out New Orleans project in the French Quarter.” FS Hunter is married to Stanley Kowalski, a “blue-collared brute.” A07 Marlon Brando recreates the role of Stanley, “the role that made him a star on Broadway.” A07 “Mitch (Malden), one of Stanley’s buddies takes an interest in Blanche until Stanley strips and ultimately reveals the secrets of her embarrassing, lurid past. After being ‘raped’ by Stanley in a heavily-censored and edited sequence, the vestiges of her shattered self are led away to a mental institution.” FS “The brutish Stanley Kowalski reminds us how Marlon Brando became Marlon Brando. And Vivien Leigh’s Blanche DuBois is a heartbreak, and not just because she evokes an aging Scarlett O’Hara: Of all the screen actresses who played one of Williams’s doomed heroines, Leigh best personified the fate that befalls fragile souls in a world of Stanleys. Censors forced Williams to alter the play’s ending, but Streetcar is still a steamy hothouse of a movie.” TV Sources: A07 American Film Institute (2007). “AFI’s 100 Years…100 Movies – 10th Anniversary Edition” FS Filmsite.org “100 Greatest Films” TV TV Guide (August 8-14, 1998 issue). “50 Greatest Movies on TV and Video”

Awards/Honors/Lists: Eras: Awards: Oscars: Wins: 4: Best Actress (Leigh), Best Supporting Actor (Malden), Best Supporting Actress (Hunter), Best Art/Set Direction Nominations: 12: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (Brando), Best Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design, Best Sound Recording, Best Musical Score Hall of Fames: Lists: First posted 3/9/2025.

Apocalypse Now released

Apocalypse Now Released: August 15, 1979 Studio: United Artists Genre: war/drama Box Office (numbers in millions): Domestic: 83.47 Worldwide: ? Adjusted for Inflation: Domestic: 335.50 Worldwide: ?

Directing: Francis Ford Coppola Screenwriting: Francis Ford Coppola, John Milius Starring: Martin Sheen, Marlon Brando, Robert Duvall, Dennis Hopper Review: “Orson Welles abandoned plans to film Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and made Kane instead. In the early ‘70s, Francis Coppola returned to the idea, with George Lucas down to direct on location in the middle of the Vietnam conflict. Eventually, Coppola grasped the reins himself, and the project mushroomed into” T98 “a masterful, thought-provoking, pretentious film” FS “about the nightmarish, moral madness of the Vietnam War.” FS It is filled “with beautifully-chaotic,” FS “staggering, Oscar-winning photography by Vittorio Storaro,” LM “incredible battle scenes, and the famous helicopter raid.” VD Considered by many to be the best war movie of all time.” FS The movie tells “an almost surreal account of a captain’s journey [Sheen] into the depths of the Vietnam jungle to assassinate a demented, decorated AWOL officer [Brando] who started his own loyal tribe.” VD “But it is the insanity of the Vietnam war…that really blows his mind. By the time he reaches renegade Green Beret Brando, his crew is dead, and he has nearly become the man he was sent to kill.” A07 A “grueling production in the Philippines led to vast budget overruns and physical and emotional breakdowns.” FS However, it was marked by “incredible performances, especially that of hawkish Lt. Colonel Kilgore (Duvall) who ‘loves the smell of napalm in the morning.’” FS “The casting of Brando is…brilliant as movie-making, but it turns Vietnam into a vast trip, into a War of the Imagination.” T95 The “film’s conclusion…is cerebral and murky [but it is] still a great movie experience most of the way.” LM Sources: A07 American Film Institute (2007). “AFI’s 100 Years…100 Movies – 10th Anniversary Edition” FS Filmsite.org “100 Greatest Films” LM Leonard Maltin “100 Must-See Films of the 20th Century” T95 Time Out (1995). “Centenary Top One Hundred Films” T98 Time Out (1998). “Readers’ Top 100 Films” VD Video Detective (1997). “Top 100 Films of All Time”

Awards/Honors/Lists: Dave’s Movie Database Lists: Dave’s Movie Database Genre Lists: Oscars: Wins: 2, including Best Cinematography, Best Sound Nominations: 8, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Supporting Actor – Robert Duvall, Best Film Editing Other Awards: Other Lists/Honors: Critics’ Picks: Roger Ebert Leonard Maltin Quentin Tarantino First posted 8/3/2019; last updated 5/30/2023.