WATCH PARTY: On the Waterfront (1954) dir. Elia Kazan @ Richard Tucker Library

We'll be in a bigger meeting room on the left hand side of Richard Tucker. (I'm still figuring out where this room is.)

RUNTIME: 108 minutes

SYNOPSIS (via Criterion.com): Marlon Brando gives the performance of his career as the tough prizefighter-turned-longshoreman Terry Malloy in this masterpiece of urban poetry. A raggedly emotional tale of individual failure and social corruption, On the Waterfront follows Terry’s deepening moral crisis as he must decide whether to remain loyal to the mob-connected union boss Johnny Friendly (Lee J. Cobb) and Johnny’s right-hand man, Terry’s brother, Charley (Rod Steiger), as the authorities close in on them. Driven by the vivid, naturalistic direction of Elia Kazan and savory, streetwise dialogue by Budd Schulberg, On the Waterfront was an instant sensation, winning eight Oscars®, including for best picture, director, actor, supporting actress (Eva Marie Saint), and screenplay.

BLURBS:
**"**It’s a great film, in no small part due to Marlon Brando’s staggering performance and Leonard Bernstein’s blustering score." - Kat Sachs, Chicago Reader

"It is one of the most powerful American movies of the 50s, and few movies caused so much talk, excitement, and dissension -- largely because of Marlon Brando's performance as the inarticulate, instinctively alienated bum, Terry Malloy." - Pauline Kael, The New Yorker

"As unspoiled in its key elements as the day it was made, On the Waterfront is indisputably one of the great American films, its power undiminished. Even more today than half a century ago, it demands to be seen." -Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times