On the Waterfront (1954)
Classic movies can get encrusted by their own legend: It's hard to watch "Gone With the Wind" without thinking about the search for Scarlett or to take in "Casablanca" without musing on the myth of Bogart. One reason for this is that we now see the great films in diminished circumstances, on DVD at best, or in scratchy prints on late-night TV at worst. The chance to watch a four-star classic the way it was meant to be seen -- fresh print, big screen -- is so rare as to be worth the trip.
So: "On the Waterfront" in a 50th-anniversary run at the Kendall Square Cinema, from today through Christmas Eve. Go.
If you do go, pretend it's 1954 and you're sitting down to watch the film the week it opens. The eight Academy Awards it will win -- best picture, director, actor, script, and supporting actress among them -- are eight months away. Marlon Brando is still an amazing screen presence, the eerily beautiful rebel of "A Streetcar Named Desire" and "The Wild One," but maybe you're not wholly convinced the kid can act. The lead actress -- somebody named Eva Marie Saint? Never heard of her.
You're perhaps aware that the script is based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning reportage by Malcolm Johnson about corruption on the docks of Hoboken, N.J., but you know nothing of director Elia Kazan and screenwriter Budd Schulberg's ulterior motives -- that both had named names to the House Un-American Activities Committee and had every reason to favor a script about a heroic informer.
So when does it hit you that you're in the presence of movie greatness? From the opening shots of Boris Kaufman's clear-eyed black-and-white photography and the first strains of Leonard Bernstein's plangent score? From the scene in which ex-boxer, dockworker, and full-time palooka Terry Malloy (Brando) small talks with Edie Doyle (Saint), the sister of the man he indirectly had killed? (Maybe the hair on the back of your neck pricks up when she drops her glove and he picks it up and plays with it and the moment feels as raw and unscripted as it in fact was.) From the heartbreaking "I coulda been a contenda" speech given by Terry to his mob-lawyer brother Charley (Rod Steiger) in the back of a cab? From the moment you sense an inarticulate man slowly and fully realizing his capacity for decency?
You don't think the tough waterfront priest (Karl Malden) is hokey because you're not put off by religion in movies; still, the crucifixion imagery at the end knocks you out of your seat. And you're not prepared for the violence, for the very real-looking beating Terry takes from the goons of crooked union leader Johnny Friendly (Lee J. Cobb) or the bloody climax that follows. And maybe you leave the theater with a vague feeling that a new era in movies is stirring, just beginning to stand on its feet.
Maybe. But, for now, forget everything I just wrote. Just go see "Waterfront" in a fresh print with a fresh mind.
Ty Burr can be reached at tburr@globe.com.
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