Where to watch On the Waterfront (1954)

Trivia & production notes

• Frank Sinatra had a handshake deal to play Terry Malloy and even attended a costume fitting, but Elia Kazan pushed for Marlon Brando partly because casting Brando would secure a larger budget for the film.
• Director Kazan hired Karl Malden to film a screen test with Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward performing the love scene, specifically to show producer Sam Spiegel that a Brando-like actor could play the role more forcefully than Sinatra.
• After Brando was cast, Frank Sinatra demanded the role of Father Barry but was rejected when producer Sam Spiegel informed him that Karl Malden had already been signed for the part.
• Screenwriter Budd Schulberg spent two years researching the waterfront, attending rebel meetings and visiting bars before writing the script.
• The film's antagonist Johnny Friendly was partly based on Johnny Dio, a real-life mobster involved in labor racketeering.
• The project originated as a script called The Hook written by Arthur Miller, who refused Columbia Pictures' demand to change the antagonists from corrupt union officials to Communists.
• Arthur Miller withdrew from the project over his disenchantment with Kazan's friendly testimony before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, and Kazan replaced him with Budd Schulberg.
• The entire film was shot over 36 days on location in Hoboken, New Jersey, using the historic church Our Lady of Grace for exterior scenes.
• Theater showings of the film produced such violent audience reactions that many cinemas had to call in police to maintain order.
• Marlon Brando's performance is regarded as a watershed moment in cinema history and helped popularize method acting and Stanislavski-based approaches in film.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article On the Waterfront, available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Rewritten for StreamShack; errors are ours — tell us about them.