Capital Celluloid 2023 — Day 224: Sun Aug 13

On The Waterfront (Kazan, 1954): Prince Charles Cinema, 12.15pm


This is a 35mm presentation.

Time Out review:
Superb performances (none more so than Marlon Brando as Terry Malloy, the ex-boxer unwittingly entangled in corrupt union politics), a memorably colourful script by Budd Schulberg, and a sure control of atmosphere make this account of Brando's struggles against gangster Lee J Cobb's hold over the New York longshoremen's union powerful stuff. It is undermined, however, by both the religious symbolism (that turns Malloy not into a Judas but a Christ figure) and the embarrassing special pleading on behalf of informers, deriving presumably from the fact that Elia Kazan and Schulberg named names during the McCarthy witch-hunts. Politics apart, though, it's pretty electrifying.
Geoff Andrew

Here (and above) is the trailer.

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