On the Waterfront is a 1954 American crime drama film, directed by Elia Kazan and written by Budd Schulberg. It stars Marlon Brando, and features Karl Malden, Lee J. Cobb, Rod Steiger, Pat Henning and Eva Marie Saint in her film debut. The musical score was composed by Leonard Bernstein. The black-and-white film was inspired by "Crime on the Waterfront" by Malcolm Johnson, a series of articles published in November–December 1948 in the New York Sun which won the 1949 Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting, but the screenplay by Budd Schulberg is directly based on his own original story. The film focuses on union violence and corruption among longshoremen, while detailing widespread corruption, extortion, and racketeering on the waterfronts of Hoboken, New Jersey.
Theatrical release poster
Marlon Brando as Terry Malloy and Eva Marie Saint as Edie Doyle in the film's trailer
Eva Marie Saint as Edie Doyle and Marlon Brando as Terry Malloy
Karl Malden as Father Barry, with Eva Marie Saint
Elias Kazantzoglou, known as Elia Kazan, was an American film and theatre director, producer, screenwriter and actor, described by The New York Times as "one of the most honored and influential directors in Broadway and Hollywood history".
Kazan c. 1950
Kazan (back row, right) with other members of the Group Theatre in 1938
Elia Kazan in 1967
On the set of Splendor in the Grass (1961)