The subject matter of On the Waterfront is alienation at the lowest social level…. Terry Malloy, the hero of On the Waterfront, is alienated at the instinctive level of the adolescent and the bum, and the drama, as those who made the film see it, is in his development of consciousness and responsibility, his taking his place as a man. The attempt to create a hero for the mass audience is a challenge and a great big trap. On the Waterfront meets the challenge, falls into the trap. (p. 47)

Elia Kazan's On the Waterfront … is a significant, almost a definitive, example of a type of film which traditionally finds Hollywood at its most expert: the melodrama with a stiffening of serious ideas, the journalistic exposé of crime and corruption. Its subject harks back to the racket-smashing thrillers of the 'thirties; its style—location shooting, conscientious concern with surface realism—belongs to the present decade; its pretensions, the attempt to build au...

A small but obviously dedicated group of realists has forged artistry, anger and some horrible truths into "On the Waterfront," as violent and indelible a film record of man's inhumanity to man as has come to light this year. And, while this explosive indictment of the vultures and the meek prey of the docksides … occasionally is only surface dramatization and an oversimplification of the personalities and evils of our waterfront, it is, nevertheless, an uncommonly powerful, exci...

On the Waterfront is "political," Lindsay Anderson claims [see excerpt above], in a way comparable to The Grapes of Wrath. I would put the whole emphasis differently. Whatever its origins, the film comes to us and should be judged primarily as personal drama. Implications there are, of course—but apparently not the ones Mr. Anderson wants. There are two sides in the film, one characterised by a thorough-going viciousness, the other given a Christian shading. To which sides does Terry ow...