A Script By: Budd Schulberg - On the Waterfront

0:00 Welcome to a film By presents a script Buy I'm your host. Brad Kozo. On a script By, we break down some of Hollywood's most famous screenplays and examine why these scripts are considered among the greatest ever written. Today, we are heading to the crime ridden, rotten front of nineteen fifties New York as we dive into On the Waterfront, a screenplay by Bud Schulberg. Now, most people associate On the Waterfront with Marlon Brando's unforgettable performance as Terry Molloy or director Elia Kazan's controversial place in Hollywood history following the Huach heating hearings. But before there was a film, there was a script. It's a screenplay that grabs you from its opening moments and never lets go through the story of a washed up prize fighter caught between loyalty and conscience. Schulberg pulled back the curtain on the corruption, fear, and organized crime that controlled the New York City's waterfront. More than seventy years later, On the Waterfront remains one of the most powerful examples of character driven story telling ever put on screen.

1:02 This is a script By. Let's turn the page. Welcome to Episode six of a script by On the Waterfront, a screenplay by Bud Schulberg, story about brothers, corruption, lost dreams, and the difficult journey from looking the other way to finally standing up for what's right. I remember the first time I saw On the Waterfront. It was in the late nineteen nineties when the AFI released its Lissa the one hundred Greatest American Films. Now, my original plan was start at number one hundred and worked my way up, but that lasted about five minutes.

2:00 Now I jumped right into the top ten, and I started watching the films that I hadn't seen yet. You know, On the Waterfront was ranked I think number eight, and it immediately stood out to me because I knew the film's reputation, I knew Marlon Brand news famous. I could have been a contender speech, but I wasn't prepared for really how powerful the story was. And what I discovered was much more than a crime drama. I mean, it was deeply human story about guilt, loyalty, redemption, and finding the courage to do the right thing when everyone around you is telling you to keep your mouth shut. But as always, before we get started, I wanted to introduce my guests. He's appeared on Docking Base seventy seven, a film buy and Deaf Dave. This is my first chance getting to meet him. I'm very happy that he is doing this. Welcome to the show, Robert Burnette, Robert, thank you so much for joining me today.

2:53 How you doing. I'm doing well. Thank you, and thank you for having me. This is so prestigious to be on the same episode of something that's new. I love that, Yeah, and I love having new people. It's just it's a great way to even talk to people about it and actually even meet new people and stuff. And everyone I've met has been just dynamite. Yeah. Now, this was my first time reading the screenplay, even though I mean I'd seen the film many times. Do you remember when the first time you saw it? Like, what was your reaction then? I mean, what do you think today? And looking specifically at the script, what do you think makes Schulberg's writing a hold up? More than seventy years later?

3:39 Well, I actually saw the film in film school. When out film school film class. When I was in college, I took a lot of film courses and I had never seen this one, and honestly, I had not seen it since and over the years somehow it has sort of blended in my mind with street Car Named Design. So I kept waiting for you know, Stella and all that stuff because they felt I was like black and White and Brando and Carl Malden, that whole you know, a milieu. And I was like, oh, this is a completely different film that I remember, because I kind of blurred them over the years. When I saw it originally, I was more of a fan of old school Hollywood and the whole method thing, and the brutality of it was shocking and powerful, which is wasn't intention that I did not take to it in a way that I might have to like one of the thin Man movies or something else that were more in my wheelhouse at that time. Reading the script, it was fascinating to get a hold of it from you thank you, and and read it through and then watch again, and so much of what we see is on the page. I mean, yes, the performance is amazing. The location shooting is just amazing, even even for today. I mean it's so and really add some much to the film. They could not have done this on a back lot for the same way, but it was all there. It was all there in the script. I had to be brought to life. So

5:11 Kazan and his cohorts managed to pull it off in a really great way. Yeah. Well, let's get into some of our writer's background. The origins of On the Waterfront. They all started with a Pulitzer Prize winning series of articles titled Crime on the Waterfront, written by journalist Malcolm Johnson in nineteen forty eight. Those articles exposed the corruption, violence, and the code of silence that controlled New York socks. Those stories caught the attention of director Elia Kazanne, at the time very famous for Like You Said, a street card named Desire and Panic in the Streets, as well as death of a salesman playwright Arthur Miller, who initially planned to develop the project together. Now. Miller's version, titled The Hook, focused on corruption along the Waterfront, but the screenplay never really moved forward because everything changed in the early nineteen fifties when both men were called before the House of Unamerican Activities Committee, Miller he refused to cooperate, while Kazan chose to testify. The decision ended their friendship and effectively ended their collaboration on the whole Waterfront project. But Kazan then turned to Bud Schulberg, who had also testified before Huach. Together they returned to the Waterfront story, but Schulberg took a hands on approach to the material. He spent months interviewing real long shortmen, priests, investigators, and waterfront residents, gathering the stories, slang, in the experiences that would shape the screenplay. The result was a script that felt authentic because much of it was rooted in reality.

6:39 I mean, through Termulloy's story, Schulberg created a powerful drama about corruption, conscience, and the courage to take stand up and tell the truth now. Because both Kazan and Schulberg had testified before Huach, some critics have argued that On the Waterfront serves as a defense of their actions, not a lot. Himself. Often embrace that interpretation. However, many historians and great filmmakers like Martin Scorsese have rejected and that direct comparison, arguing that Terry malloy exposing murder and corruption on the Waterfront is fundamentally different from the circumstances surrounding the Hugh Acme hearings. Regardless of where one stands in the debate, the screenplay's themes ultimately extend far beyond the politics of the nineteen fifties. Robert, before reading the screenplay, were you aware of the world, real world history that was beyond the creation of it?

7:36 And do you. Think known about the whole Kazam Miller split changes? Is that you know? Do you do the film differently? Though? Well, yes, I did not know about the real life circumstances. Upon watching the film again, it does seem almost documentary, Like, I mean, you can believe these these are real things that are recurring, some sci fi thing. Realized there are no giant ants, there never will be giant ants. You know, the capital is safe in this case, you could, I could totally get it. Yeah, this absolutely could be based on something real. And then I discovered it was a fun sidebar to this. Miller, like any great artist, does not let a good idea go to waste and developed a stage play called A View from the Bridge that he put out a couple of years after this. It is based on his notes from when he was working with Kazan and it deals with a longshoreman in Brooklyn and the trials and tribulations of his family relationships that Miller took it in a different direction. It touches on immigration and family drama and stuff. But yeah, so so, and of course listeners to the other podcast will know I always have to drop in Broadway, so boom, there it is. But yeah, Miller did not let this idea to go to the side. Even after the success of this film, he wrote his own play and it's been revived in number of times. But it's one of the most most produced Broadway shows and it is maybe not as well known as if Death of a Salesman from Millner,

9:08 but it is definitely one of his strongest things. So we have two great works of art that both came out of those same articles and that creative, creative little pool. At the time, Wow, that's great. I did not know that. That's that's fascinating. Now now I'm even more fascinated that I didn't you know, didn't know that. But yeah, great material for that. Yeah, oh wow. Well, we're going to take our first ad break, but when we come back, we will get into the first ten pages and act one of On the Waterfront. Welcome back. We are talking on the Waterfront, a script by Bud Schulberg and dissecting the first ten pages. Now, one of the things that immediately stood out to me was how efficiently Schulberg.

9:50 Establishes the world of the story. Within the first ten. Pages, you know exactly where you are, who the major players are, and how the Waterfront operates. Curely impressive is that Schulberg rarely stops the story to explain a character. Instead, we learn who people are through the way others talk about them. Johnny Friendly's power, Joey Doyle's courage, Terry Malloy's reputation, and even the fear that grips the docks or all revealed naturally through dialogue and behavior. By the end of the opening sequence, the audience understands the rules of this world without ever feeling like they've been given an exposition dump. One thing I noticed while reading the screenplay is that some of the Waterfront slide can feel a little heavy on the page. Terms like cheese eater, dummy up, and change up or shape up appear so frequently that in the hands of lesser actors the dialogue might have felt forced or kind of overwritten. But that's where the collaboration between screenplay and performance becomes so important. Brando Steiger Carl Malton, Lee J. Cobb, and the rest of the cast. They make that language feel natural. They don't sound like actors recite reciting colorful dialogue. They sound like people have lived on these docks their entire lives. It's a reminder that a screenplay isn't the finished product on the page. Schulberg provides the language and the rhythm of the waterfront through their performances. The actors transform that language into something authentic.

11:14 Reading these opening pages, I was really surprised by how much of the story's DNA is basically present right up front. The corruption, the fear, the. Loyalty, the guilt, even you know, Terry's internal conflict are all right there at the very beginning. You know, looking at the first ten pages, what do you think the writer Schulberg does really well that keeps that audience invested right away? Well, I see it as we start off with with you know, the Macro was with giant shot of New York and the ship and all this, and we just kind of panned right in, not pan, but go go right into this into this world. And to your point that there aren't really explanations. It's not an old school thing where It's like here's the star entrance and here's here's him saying, good to see your wife, you know, I mean, you just these random people are popping in and out. It keeps you a little disoriented, which I think adds a little bit to the danger. There is this sort of foreboding and this sort of the characters all just seem tense and anxious and sort of sort of like and not fearful exactly, but and and so you get that right away. And of course the location filming adds so much texture, as does uh Leonard Burns's music, which is a little overpowering sometimes but but you yeah, it's it is. I'm I'm a huge fan of him, and I think this is I'm glad he went to the one film score because this one was just I think too much for the film. And the film's a lot,

12:46 but this is like that it kicks yeah hard. Yeah, but but he did a great symphonic sweep from it. It's great to listen to on his own. But with this film, I wanted to hear the dialogue. I want to hear all those those all those shape ups and dummy ups and all that. But yeah, I just think that all of a sudden, we're just thrust into this environment and something is going on, and Terry is so kind of anxious that we see him walking along and he's kind of shifting his eyes and looking uncomfortable, and you're like, okay, I want to know what is he doing, what's going on, and which of these people are going to be the main players, which people are the background with, you know, So you just get dropped right in and you kind of I don't say you have to figure it out, because the exposition is very clearly yeah, but it is not. It's so dense that it feels more real probably than it would have if it had been fewer actors soundstage, you know, and and less just overlapping riverfront guys talking and just this specific, you know, necessary lines of dialogue.

13:59 Yeah. Yeah, well, let's dig into act one. The first act of On the Waterfront opens with one of the screenplay's most important sequences, the murder of Joey Doyle. What's interesting is that the screenplay originally spends more time on the mechanics of the murder. We see Joey trapped on the. Rooftop and understand exactly how the gangster is closed in on him. The finish film trims much of this material, and I think it's a smart choice. What we don't see is often more powerful than what we do see. Joey's death immediately establ establighes the rules of this world, speaking out as consequences. Everyone knows who is responsible, and nobody is willing to say a word. The screenplay also introduces Terry's central conflict much earlier than many viewers may realize.

14:46 Terry didn't kill Joey Doyle, but he helps lure him to the roof. When Edie later says, I want to know who killed my brother, the next scene cuts directly to Terry. In that moment, Schulberg at Kazan. Tell us that Terry's real battle won't be against Johnny Friendly, it will be against his own conscience. We also learned that Terry benefits from the very system Joey was trying to expose because he's Charlie's brother in part of Johnny Friendly's inner circle. Terry gets easy jobs and special treatment on the docks. That makes his eventual choice more meaningful because he's risking the only security he's ever known. Act one also introduces two important symbols. First is Terry's pigeons, which represent freedom, innocence, and escape from the corruption below.

15:32 The second his father Barry's journey after Joey's death. Edie challenges him for standing on the sidelines while violence continues on the waterfront. It's a moment that quietly begins Barry's own redemption arc. Finally, Act one establishes the screenplay central theme, silence. Everyone knows what's happening on the docks, but fear keeps them quiet. The question driving the rest of the story becomes simple, can Terry molloy fire and the courage to speak up? Act one does a tremendous amount of heavy lifting. It introduces the world of the waterfront, Terry's guilt, code of silence, and even the beginning of both Terry and Father Barry's redemption arcs. What stood out to you the most about Hall Schuberg establishes the story and its themes in the opening act.

16:24 With me, it was the character of Edie. I mean, she's sort of the through line who pulls all the characters together. I mean her conversations with Terry and Father Barry as well. She challenges both of them and even through her grief, she is still trying to do the right thing and hold people accountable. And she's a very strong woman character. I mean, even Restink could have been the pretty blonde who just kind of wasts through and does whatever. But Edi is I don't want to say, the catalyst for a lot of the story, but I feel like she's the engine for a lot of the transitions that the characters make in this because she is constantly asking those questions. Of course, early on in the beginning, we do hear the phrase don't ask no questions, and I'd said, I think more than once by different characters. Well, Edie's asking questions. She's asking who killed my brother? And who's responsible? And what about this? And what are you going to do about it? And what do you know? Father, father Barry, what are you going to do about it?

17:24 And that's not good enough. I mean, she is definitely, like it said, kind of the engine for a lot of the action in the thing in the film. And I think that if she had just been the girlfriend character or the grieving sister who then drops out of the movie after that scene, it would not have had the power it had. But for me, that that was it what's your take on that. She she's part of the glue that has to kind of put everything together. She pulls it out of pulls it out of Terry. You know, it's and like I said, it's got to be can't just be a pretty girl. I mean, luckily they got a not only a very beautiful woman, but a Stella Adler actor, studio trained, you know, actress who can you know, stand up with the best of those guys.

18:18 So oh yeah, it's like it. Almost seems like it's a just a colorful girl part. It's not so much more than that. Right, Well, he said, if you took her out of the film, you would lose so many plot points or so many plot advancements because she I think she really does drive a lot of Terry's actions as well as Father Barry's. I'm going to mention as well. You probably read, but the scene with Edie and Terry where she drops her glove and he picks it up and is putting it on his hand and all that was not in the script and was something that occurred during a rehearsal. Brando continued the scene, both of them being method actors and studying it with the Schusberg and all that. He just kept going and picked it up, but rather than handed back, he was putting it on and fondling it and doing all this business. And she just went with it.

19:09 And because Anne was so impressed with it that they ended up shooting shooting it that way even though it was not scripted. So uh yeah, but it's a lovely moment for those two characters that without dialogue, without even Schulberg's input, they were able to create more depth of their characters. I thought it was a lovely, lovely moment in the film. Yeah, and it it is one where kind of is uh not really the script, but it makes that scene so much better. And I liked that you have debunked the myth that it was while they were shooting that he put on the glove, you know, and it wasn't. It was during a rehearsal, and that's that The big myth is, Oh, it just happened why they were shooting, and it just happened like now, it happened during rehearsal, and then they they knew they were doing it the second time and people say no, no, no, watch how naturally they're like no, they're they're just that good.

20:04 Yeah, exactly. Well, we're gonna take our second and final break. But when we get back, and when we come back, we're going to dive into act two and three of On the Waterfront. Welcome back to a script by we are talking on the Waterfront, and we're talking act two. As the story moves into Act two, Schulberg expands the understanding of the waterfront and the people who live there. One of the screenplay's greatest strengths is that even minor characters feel authentic. Characters like Pop Doyle, Ko Dugan, Tommy Collins, Moose and many others don't feel like movie characters. They feel like people Schuberg Schulberg actually met while researching the docks.

20:47 Through these characters, we gain a deeper understanding of life as a long shortman, work is never guaranteed. Men gather at the Shape the Shape Up hoping to be selected for. A day's pay. Speaking out can cost you your livelyhood, and everyone understands that survival often means staying quiet. As Terry spends more time with Edie and Father Barry, his view of the waterfront begins to change. For perhaps the first time, he starts seeing the human cost of the corruption He's spent years accepting. The people suffering under Johnny Friendly's control are no longer strangers. They are the people he knows. Z Actuo progresses, the pressure begins to build from every direction.

21:28 Edie challenges Terry's sense of right and wrong. Father Barry pushes him toward accountability. Johnny Friendly expects loyalty. Charlie wants to protect his brother while still serving the organization. Terry finds himself caught between two worlds, and it's becoming increasingly clear that he won't be able to remain loyal to both. By the end of Act two, the conflict is no longer simply about who killed Joey Doyle. It's about whether Terry molloy can continue living with himself if he remains silent. Act two is where the Waterfront stops feeling like a backdrop and starts feeling like a real community. Through characters like pop Ko, Father Berry, and Mutt, Schulberg shows us the human cost of corruption. Now, what part of the Waterfront world felt the most authentic and memorable to you.

22:23 Well, the glib answer would be the background people that they actually pulled from, the people who were actually there, but that they did use a lot of non actors in those crowd scenes and things, which gave it a nice cinema veritary quality. But no, I just loved all the supporting characters because you know, God, I always say this about old films, God bless character actors. You know, in a line, in a shot, in a line, in this scene, their appearance, they waste their manner. They could give you this person's whole backstory and their whole whole thing without having to talk about it. You just knew, knew this guy. You know this guy, you know that woman, you know this beaten down you know longshoreman, whoever they are.

23:08 And I love character actors, but and this is what I loved about this was you. I felt like, at any moment it could be like a you know, choose your own adventure thing, and you could have just followed another character because they were so vivid and real, even though they had bits of dialogue and were not essential to the through line of the plot with our trio of main characters and the brother and so on. But I just loved them. I thought they made it made it feel real, even though they were a bunch of fantactic character actors. About the only part of the film I did not like was in this sequence when the foreman is giving out the little coins or chips or whatever he's giving out for people so that they can have a shift that day. And that scened just for some reason, and it, you know, might have been completely what actually happens, but it just did not seem It seemed a little overwrought and a little contrived compared to everything else in the film. But but I just thought otherwise, everything about that just seemed completely real. And I did watch Sue a second time trying to see if I could pick out which were the actors and which were the extras. They just picked up on locations said come fill in the crowd, and it was these actors just blended right in so beautiful. Kao was great. I loved the actor who played Ko. He was just I want like a spinoff, you know, movie for him. But probably what happened.

24:32 Now, now we're going to dig in to Act three, the pressure to choose. If Act one establishes Terry's guilt and Act two awakens his conscience, then Act three is where the pressure becomes impossible to ignore. By this point in the story. Everyone wants something from Terry. Edie wants the truth, Father Barry wants him to do what's right. Jimmy the Golden Warrior looks up to him and is it example, Charlie wants to protect him. Johnny Friendly demands loyalty. Every direction Terry turns, someone is pulling him toward a different future. Now. What makes Actory so effective is that Terry can no longer remain in the middle. Throughout the screenplay, he has tried to avoid choosing sides. He wants to keep his friendship with Johnny Friendly, maintain his relationship with Charlie, and still earn the respect of eating Edie and Father Barry, but the story has been steadily removing those options. The pressure reaches its breaking point in the famous taxicab scene between Terry and Charlie. While the scene is remembered for the I could Have been a Contender speech, its real purpose is forcing Terry to confront the truth for the first time. He openly acknowledges that what was taken from him and the role Charlie played in it. The scene marks the moment when Terry stops making excuses for the people around him. Charlie's death shortly afterward removes Terry's last connection to Johnny Frientley's organization. Any possibility of remaining neutral

26:06 that disappears. The choice Terry has been avoiding for the entire film is now directly in front of him. The final act becomes a battle for Terry's soul. Will it continue protecting the system that has controlled his life, or will he finally stand up and tell the truth. By the film's conclusion, Terry chooses conscience over comfort, truth over loyalty, and self respect over fear. The final walk to the warehouse is more than a physical victory. It is the moment Terry molloy becomes the man Joey Doyle hoped The Waterfront could produce all along. That's what Act three is really about, not the testimony, not even the taxi scene.

26:49 It's about Terry finally realizing that not choosing is itself a choice, and the screenplay systematically removes every place he can hide until he has to decide who he wants to be. Now, Act three is really about choice. Every major character is asking something of Terry, and eventually he has to decide who he wants to be. What do you think, what do you think. Ultimately is the one thing that broke the camel's back? What was the one that made it make his choice. I don't know if it broke the camel's back. But once again, I'm gonna go team eighty with this. I think for me, she is something different. She's a way out.

27:36 She is not part of the masculine the world of the dogs. She's not in friendly its gangs, She's not involved. I mean, she's not part of Yes, her brother worked there, but she had not part of that world in the same way that all the rests of the characters have all these connections. I think it is no mistake that Shilberg made her basic basically the only female character in the film. I mean, there is the grieving mom in the beginning, and there's a few other women pop up here or there. But I think that that she is something that is not in that bubble on that dock. She is a way out for him. So he takes her advice to heed, and uh realizes that she's his only chance he needs to he needs to expand beyond just what he has been doing and the people he has been seeing. I don't know that if there was a you know, a sequel if they would be together.

28:33 But I think that just as a symbol, she was just kind of like she's something different, She's a change, and that gave him the idea that maybe I could have that and not what I have had. That's my take. What and this one's just my curiosity question. What do you think in your mind happens the next day? I don't know, And that's one reason why it's a great film. I mean, you know, so many movies end with some kind of dramatic, fabulous thing that makes you want to stand up and cheer or cry or whatever that cathartic you know, emotion is. But yeah, there is always that question of what next, And yeah, I don't know.

29:19 I mean, I I'm afraid that what would happen is that they would all just settle back, and we could come back ten years from now and it would be them all older. A few of the old Coots are dead now, you know, maybe there's a new mob Boston Town and nothing will have changed. That that is my belief. But I'm gonna want to believe that. You know, he and Needy, they don't move far. He stays on the docks, but he at least gets a little integrity, maybe gets some respect of his own. You know, that's my hope. But I had not really thought about it till you ask. I actually think the other way. If he doesn't go straight to witness protection, he's in that he's in the harbor the next day.

30:05 Oh well, that that would also be dramatic. I honestly don't see him lasting very long. I just yeah, in my opinion, I was like, they're not going to let him just walk right back into work. But so many of the characters who had stakes in the whole death at the beginning of that we're no longer part of. I mean, they we're no longer around. They were either you know, turned in, they died. That whatever had happened, the the symptom had been shaken up a little bit. I mean, there were still people who are going to hold grudges and remember and take sides, but I feel like the the corrupt system that was kind of in place before was shaken enough that maybe it wouldn't snap back into place. One can come an optimist.

30:54 I'm an optimistry of cestimist. There we go, Well, we have broken down all three acts of on the Waterfront. Now we're gonna go beyond the page, and our first section on Beyond the Page is foreshadowing symbols and setup. One of the reasons On the Waterfront continues to reward repeat viewings is the amount of setup in symbolism Bud Schulberg quietly plants throughout the screenplay. The most obvious. The most obvious example is Terry's pigeons. On the surface, they're simply a hobby, but they also represent freedom, innocence, loyalty, and the life Terry wishes he had.

31:35 The rooftop becomes his sanctuary, a place removed from the corruption of the docks below. By the end of the script, the fate of the pigeons mirrors Terry's own journey. Another reoccurring figure is Mut, the homeless longshoreman who drifts in and out of the story. While he functions a little bit as comic relief, at times, he also serves a deeper purpose. Mutt is a constant reminder of what happens to people who are chewed up and discarded on the waterfront system. In many ways, he acts as Terry's conscience, appearing throughout. The story as Terry struggles with his own moral choices. Then there's Joey Doyle's jacket. After Joey's death, the jacket passes from character to character, almost like a physical symbol of its unfinished fight. Whether worn by Ko Dugan, Edie, or eventually Terry himself, the jacket serves as a reminder that Joey's quest for justice didn't die with him. Schulberg also plans one of the screenplay's most important ideas in the early conversations between Johnny, Friendly Charlie, and Terry. After giving Terry special treatment and on easy job, Charlie reminds him, you've got a real friend here, kid, don't forget it.

32:48 Johnny responds, why should he forget it. It's a simple exchange, but it establishes the debt Terry feels. He owes Johnny. The rest of the screenplay is essentially Terry deciding whether that loyalty is worth the cost. Finally, Father Barry's redemption is quietly foreshadowed after Showy's death, when Edie challenges him for standing on the sidelines while violence and corruption continue unchecked. Barry has no real answer, but the accusation stays with him. It seems like a brief confrontation, and Act one eventually comes the foundation of Barry's transformation into one of the story's strongest moral voices. These details they seem small when they first appeal, but each one will pay off later in the screenplay. The reminders that great screenwriting isn't just about what happens next, It's about preparing the audience for what happens next.

33:43 Looking back at. The screenplay as a whole, what piece of any of the foreshadowing and symbolism do you think Schulberg used most effectively The pigeons, the jacket, the father, Barry, or just any something else you saw. Well, I'm going to there is so much to choose from, which again it makes it such a dense fabric, and it is so rewarding because you can kind of follow different strands each time. But I think absolutely the pigeons, and I'm going to take your idea one step further. You were saying, oh, they represent freedom and and and you know, and and light and you know, air versus water. There's all these different things. But the thing about homing pigeons is they keep coming back to this where they left.

34:26 They they're not free they're trained to come back and back back into their cage at the end of their flight. And I think that that is the symbolism, is that these homing pigeons, sure they can fly, but they are trapped. They basically are trapped in this cycle of fly free, do your little thing, but you come back and you get locked up in that cage again at the end. And I think that that, to me, is where the symbolism is so profound, and that's something that seems innocent, and you know, obviously pigeons and doves or symbols of peace as well, but seems so innocent, and that does end up causing this whole death. And this whole plot works off of the idea that Terry has been given this bird to try and get back to Joey and get Joey on the roof. But but no, I think absolutely the pigeons because because they oh, yeah, to go with your your bleak, your bleak sequel. The pigeons will wait for that because like I said that, they they they fly, fly fire, and they're free, and then they come right back and they are locked up in that cage again and uh, stuck there until some other opportunity comes along, which could be absolutely all of our characters stories.

35:40 Yeah, and the whole thing of you know, singing like a pigeon, you know, by testifying and everything, and the way he talks about them, the way the way he's he goes from tough guy to sensitive. Uh, you know, like a father, you know. One of the things that don't don't put spill and Bill any water, because I want to catch cold very much, very parentcy very so. Yeah, I mean dead on the pigeons exactly. Well, let's go into dialogue and subtext. One of the things that makes On the Waterfront such a powerful screenplay is that Schulberg's dialogue is rarely just dialogue. Beneath almost every conversation is a deeper meaning about power, loyalty, fear, or conscience. One of the screenplay's most famous speeches comes from Father Barry after the death of k O Dugan.

36:29 Standing in the ship's hold, he tails the workers. Some people think the crucifixion only takes took place on the cavalry. They better wise up. Barry then compares the deaths of Joey Doyle and Ko Dugan to modern day crucifixions on the surface. It's a religious speech, but beneath it, Barry is reframing the tires story. He's telling the workers that remaining silent the face the corruption is not simply a labor issue or a criminal issue. It's a moral issue. Schulberg also uses dialogue to reveal the system that controls the waterfront. Early in the SCLA, Johnny Freenly rewards. Terry with easy work. And special treatment. Another powerful moment comes when Father Barry tries to convince the long Shortman to testify the working editions are bad. They're bad because the mob does the hiring.

37:14 The only way to break the mob is a stop letting them get away with murder. The logic is simple and direct, yet no one answers him that silence is. The real dialogue. In the scene, the workers understand exactly what Father Barry is saying, but fear prevents them from responding. Throughout the screenplay, Schulberg repeatedly shows that the greatest weapon John Ley Friendly possesses isn't violence, it's fear. The screenplay is filled with similar moments. Characters rarely say exactly what they mean. Terry and Charlie they use boxing to talk about betrayal. Johnny Franlely uses friendship to enforce control, Father Barry uses religion to challenge corruption. Even Edie's questions often fores terarity, confront truce he's trying to avoid. It's a reminder that great dialogue isn't simply memorable lines, it's the meaning hidden underneath them.

38:09 A few screenwriters understood. Subtexts better than Schuelberg. When you think about on the dialogue and on the waterfront, which exchange or speech stands out the most to you? And what do you think he's he's really saying beneath the surface of the words. Well, you mentioned Father Barry's sermon, which was the first thing I thought of when when I heard the question. But Edie, I keep talking about D eighty eight has a lot of great lines. I love when she she asked them, isn't everybody part of somebody else? You know? And and she also has the great jab at Father Barry about well, was there ever a saying who hid in a church? She she has some kind of zingers and yeah, yeah, exactly yes. And I think that it's interesting because I feel like he he doesn't Schulberg doesn't write a lot of sub subtext. In my opinion, I feel like everybody is pretty earnest and pretty direct in what they're saying. I mean, some of the gangsters and and and tough guys kind of beat around the bush a little bit. Uh. They don't overtly threaten and stuff, but I think it is most of their dialogue is pretty straightforward, which I think gives it that realistic quality too, Unlike say Miller, if Arthur Miller's come through with this, Miller's.

39:32 Miller's plays are very poetic, and the speech is not entirely naturalistic. It can be a little lofty. And these people almost nothing I heard sounded like it was written. It wasn't the writer going, oh that's a great line. I just I just that's a singer that's going to be in a five top hundred quotes. I mean, it just sounded like real people talking. So I think maybe for me, Schulberg's genie was writing reality and then clearly the subtext. The actors could play the subtext, but he didn't write write it that way. He wrote it very naturalistically, which is kind of different from from Tennessee Williams street Car Name Desire, where the language is Bowery and poetic, or Arthur Miller, who also got very wordy and very The metaphors is pouring out, and these guys are just everybody's.

40:28 To me, seems like they're speaking very plainly. They may not be telling the truth or the whole truth, but that they The actual dialogue Schulberg wrote is very naturalistic and very believable, even though it may be working. What they're saying may be working against what the scene means or what is. All right, we're going to go page versus screen now. Unlike some classic movies that underwent massively rise steering production, Sholberg's script remains. Large ually intact. However, there are some several notable differences. The screenplay spends more time on Joey Doyle's death, we see the mechanics of the murder more clearly, and spend additional time with Joey trapped on the rooftop and the finish film. Becausean trims much of this material, the result is a sequence that feels so much faster and more suspenseful, and ultimately more powerful because it leads more to the audience's imagination.

41:25 Charlie's death is another sequence that receives more attention on the page than it does on screen. The screenplay provides additional details surrounding the aftermath, while the film moves more quickly towards Terry's emotional reaction and the consequences of the murder. But the biggest difference between page and screen isn't found in what was cut. It's found in the performances. Perhaps the most famous example, as we talked earlier, is the glove scene. You know, that moment, not in the screenplay, but during rehearsal. You know, as we said before, is that you know that happened, and then they decided to film it, and now it's considered this memorable and intimate scenes in the entire movie.

42:10 You know, the taxicab scene. Another example. You know, the words on the page are powerful, but what transformed it into the cinema's most famous moments is the performances. You know, Brando's hesitation, Steiger's reactions, the pauses, the body of language, and the emotion beneath the dialogue elevate the material, you know, beyond what can be captured on the page. But more than most screenplays we've discussed on a script by on the Waterfront feels like an actor's piece. You know, Schulberg provides the foundation, but the film reaches another level because I mean casign Kasemble, he assembled a cast cable of finding the humanity between the between the lines. I mean, the screenplays exceptional, but the performances are what make it, I guess, legendary. After reading the screenplay and watching the film, where do you think the performances add.

43:11 More or the most to his writing? Was their particular scene that became something greater on the screen that it did appear on the page. I'm going to say all of it. Yeah, the performances just lifted it. I so wish that I could, you know, delete part of my brain. I would love to read the screenplay without having seen the movie and see what kind of impact it has because reading it afterward, what I was as I was reading, what I was remembering were the performances, not the dialogue, you know it was it was the cinematography. It was the whole, the whole thing.

43:52 And you know, some screenplays you can read them. You get all the laughs, you get all the tears, It's all there on the page, in the dialogue, and in this several of the pages. I just try and kind of tune out the film and just kind of read through them, and they're just the kind of almost matter of fact exchanges that out of context and without the performances, it would would not be very interesting or even be maybe clear. But so the performances were to me elevated, all of it was. I was not surprised when I dug into Souldberg a little bit more. He didn't write very many screenplays, which I mean, if you're going to write only one, this is a good one to write.

44:33 But uh, and he did a good job with it. But but he was not primarily a screenwriter like Billy Wilder or Ben Hecht or so many of them in that period. Who who were writers writers? Your comment, by the way, about the cutting at the beginning of the film with Joey's death or not not filming it, I should say, but being longer on the page. I was fantasizing when I was reading along and thinking about it. How you know, if if Hitchcock had done this film, it would have been like a fifteen minute segment following Joey, Joey, Joey, Joey, Joey, and then he would have been pushed off the building boom, there were our titles, camera or whatever, and you're like, what, like you would think you were watching the Joey story, and all of a sudden you did get shoved off a roof and we skid over to a completely other film.

45:20 That would be the kind of perverse thing that Hitchcock would have done. So Kazan was smart to shorten that up because Joey was, to use Hitchcock's phrase, he was the what is Hitchcock's word, I'm banking out, not the red herring, the uh I'll think of it later. Hitchcock the mcguffin, the mcguffin. Joey with the mcguffin, he was the little the little thing you had to have to get the story moving. But Hitchcock would have made a meal of it and dragged it out far longer, and needed needed that to happen to get our story going. But at any rate, circling back to your actual question, I think that Schilberg it wrote a great screenplay. But I think that it is the performances as well as the cinematography and all of it that that every scene elevated.

46:12 I don't think there's anything that I said, thought, well, this piece of paper is brilliant reading it. It was all it all came out. Whereas so many films, you read the script and you're getting the impact. I would not have gotten the impact if I'd read the screenplay first. I mean, I try to put myself in the producer's chair of Even if this screenplay came to me and I had the power to make it, what would what would I say? But I agree with you it I would say, you need movie stars for this. This isn't going to do a thing without movie stars. It was a movie star piece. But yeah, I mean it is a great story, but this kind of sorry. To get the attention that it got, it needed big stars.

47:03 You know, it could have been a nothing. And yeah, like I said, I I did put in my little two b q uh the uh a face in the crowd. I heard that's a great movie. Always watched those like Criterion closets, and I always see. What other people like pick. And I think it was Carrie Ellis or no, it was Matthew Reese. Recently did one and. He said facing crowd, Bud Schuberg, And I was like, I'm just doing a thing about Joe Schuber, So it's on. My queue to watch. But yeah, yeah, not very much though. Now you talk about big stars. I mean, I think this movie introduced Deven Marie Saint didn't. It wasn't it her? This one did? Yes, this one.

47:43 Nda was known from Streetcar and he done I think if he visited pot or something else. But but I mean he was. He was definitely a star because of all the attention, because he would bring in the method to movies and no one else mumbled before him on screen. You know. But I don't think is like a star studied movie. It is from today's standpoint because some of the later careers of some of these performers, but especially for the average filmgoer, they would say what stars like Carl Malder he liked the American Express commercial guy, and like even Marie's saying I never heard of her, you know, I mean because she had to just short career comparatively.

48:25 So I don't know, I don't think this is a star studied is I mean performance wise? Yes? Well, I mean I think like they didn't want. Door's Day and you know, well, yeah he was, he was the star. But I think after that, we go he. Didn't want to be. He didn't want to do it. He didn't want to do it, and then goes pal, I made you a movie star. You are famous and rich because of me. So now now we're going to get into what an opinion I feel is the moment that defines the script. Now, like we said before, when most people think of on the Waterfront, they think of the famous taxi cab scene and Marlon Brando's heartbreaking line I could have been a contender. There's no question it's one of the greatest scenes ever filmed. It reveals Terry's regret, his lost potential, and the betrayal he feels toward Charlie and Johnny Friendly. In many ways, it explains how Terry became the man we meet at the beginning of the story.

49:23 But if we're talking about the moment that best defines Bud Schulberg's screenplay, I really think the answer is Father Barry's crucifixion speech. We talked about it before, but following the death of Koe Dugan, Father Barry stands before the Long Shortman and declares, some people think the crucifixion only took place on. Calvary, they better wise up. He goes on to compare those desks to the modern day crucifixions, arguing that every time a good man is silenced for doing the right thing, another crucifixion takes place. What makes this scene so powerful isn't that It is that it isn't just about Ko or Joey. It's about the entire waterfront. In a single speech, Schulberg lays out the central conflict of the story. The problem isn't simply Johnny Friendly. The problem is fear. The problem is silence.

50:15 The problem is a system where ordinary people know the truth but are too frightened to speak out. Father Barry reframes the story from a labor dispute into a moral struggle. He's telling the workers and the audience that neutrality is no longer an option. The famous taxi scene tells us who Terry Molloy is. The crucifixion speech tells us what on the Waterfront is about. It's the moment where the screenplay stops being a story about one man and becomes a story about an entire community tracked by corruption, fear in the cost of remaining silent. More than any other scene in the film, I feel it captures the themes the ideas and the moral questions Schulberg was trying to explore.

51:00 That's why for me, Father Barry's crucifixion speech is the moment that defines the script. If someone had. Never seen on the Waterfront and you could only show them one scene to explain why the screenplay is considered such a classic, which one would you choose? Well, you picked mine for most of the same reasons. You were a little more eloquent than I was in my notes. But yeah, absolutely that scene. If you want to show a scene about acting, you show the taxicab scene. But if you want to show a scene about this movie, you show Father Barry's sermon. It is just astounding. And I always love when directors will give it a person a close up or a medium shot and let them talk for what seems like five minutes I'm sure it is not, and just holds on them. It is so powerful, and so often the impulse is to cut away and do this and that. Yeah, that is definitely the thematic part of the film. It's one of the high highlights of the film watching it to the viewer. But Contender is a great acting lesson that you can watch it out of context because and yet you know, but this is like the tent poles. It holds up the whole film.

52:21 It's his sermon, so complete agreement with you there? Nice, all right, We're moving on to legacy and lessons, and more than seventy years after its release, On the Waterfront remains one of the most influential screenplays ever written. The film was a massive success, winning eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director for Elia Kazan, Best Actor from one of the Brando, Best Supporting Actors for Even Mary Saint, Best Story and Screenplay for Bud Schulberg. It received twelve nominations in total and quickly established established itself as one of the defining films in the nineteen fifties. Over the decades, On the Waterfron has continued to earn recognition.

53:02 The film was selected for the Preservation in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress and remains a fixture on the lists of the greatest American films ever made. In the American Film Institute's original nineteen ninety eight lists of the one hundred Greatest American Films, it is ranked as number eight. So I was right, one of. The most important, but Sir, but the screenplay's legacy goes beyond awards. One of the most important lessons modern writers can learn from Schulberg is the power of authenticity. Rather than inventing a world from scratch, he immersed himself in the immersed himself in the lives of real long shortmen, priests, investigators, and waterfront residents. The result is a screenplay filled with characters, dialogue, and situations that feel.

53:49 Lived in believable. Another lesson is the importance of moral conflict. Terry Malloy's journey isn't driven by external action alone. The real battle takes place inside him. The screenplay also demonstrates the power of supporting characters. Joey, Doyle, Ko Dugan, Pop Doyle, Mutt, Father, Barry, and Charlie all contribute to Terry's transformation. That's why the screenplay continues to resonate decades later. The setting may be specific to the New York waterfront of the nineteen fifties, but the question it asks about loyalty, responsibility, and conscience remain timeless. One of the screenplay's more subtle ideas is the corruption is systematic. Johnny Friendly may be the face of the waterfront racket, but they reference this mister Upstairs reminds us that real power after remains hidden. Is it a theme that still resonates with today?

54:45 Do you think? Well, absolutely, if this was an episode of a headline by I would have a great deal to say about this, because I feel like we are absolutely living in times that are the real power is hidden in their corruption everywhere. I'll just leave it at that. I do have to say though, that I in this film, I mean, there's it's so powerful, and there's so many uh kind of just overwhelming moments of emotion and surprise and discussed. But when they mentioned mister Upstairs for the first time and you know that friendly just to Cog and there's this mister Uptairs, it was chilling, Like I, you know, I was like so caught up in this this web of this corrupt system they had here and to know that this was just you know, one little part of this larger operation it kind of it was it was it was chilling. It was like wow, and like one sentence you just kind of cracked open this movie to me to make it see like, oh, this is not just happening down on Peer thirty seven. This is probably happening in the whole borough, you know, or the whole city.

55:54 And that was that was rough. But yeah, you know, what do they say, absolute power corrupt, absolutely, And I think that it was true in the nineteen fifties and here it is true in twenty twenty six as well. Exactly Well, as we do every episode, I like to pick out a companion, pick something that we feel goes along with the screenplay we're talking about, whether it be a movie, a piece of music, a book, or whatever. I have picked another film. It is actually the film One Eyed Jacks, the only film directed by Marlon Brando, starring himself and Carl Malton. Very kind of similar struggles between this film and On the Waterfront, one of the last westerns made in that Hollywood kind of john Ford.

56:47 Western, you know, very beautiful type of. Landscapes, big long shots, you know, kind of that slow pacing. It's like that, but I mean originally and it kind of ties into next week's episode, is a month's episode as well. But check if you've never seen One Eyed Jacks, really give. It a chance. It's he directs it really well, and obviously he uses people he knows, you know, because you know, you learn. From the best. Robert, what kind of a companion pick do you have for us? Before I go into that, I do have to give pray to Carl Malton. Holy cow, what an actor. Oh yeah, it's so easy, especially if you're of a certain age, to maybe only know him from the streets of San Francisco, where he was co starred with the young Michael Douglas and they were cops in San Francisco for a dozen seasons, it seemed like, and it was a dumb police show, I mean, and then he did some cheesy commercials. But my gosh, in the nineteen fifties, he was in Streetcar, he was in this film, he was in Gypsy, he was in a musical. I mean, for Heaven's sakes, he was doing all kinds of amazing work. And I think if audiences think of him at all now, and I don't know that he's one that most people think of, but they associate him with with kind of a bad cop show from the seventies, And that's the disappointing because gosh, he played career, he had.

58:11 He plays a great bandit in One Eyed Jack's Carl Mauldon, the father Barry plays a great bad guy. I have not seen that one, so I'm going to I'm going to look that up. I'm going to add that. So thanks for the recommendation. My companion pick was was super easy for me. It just came to me like that. I'm going to say Tom waits nineteen eighty five album rain Dogs, which I will parent, was a stiff belt of whiskey. Tom Waits is gritty and and I kind of classic. He's one of my favorite singer songwriters. But this whole. Album is set almost in that same milia as as the film. There's long shorremen and docs and and and mysteries and uh, it's It's not a not a concept album per se. It is a rock album or pop album.

59:00 He kind of falls between, but it fits this like like even Marie Sage's Glove it is. It's a great uh great pairing, I think. So if you haven't listened to rain Dogs film fans, watch on the Waterfront, listen to Tom Wade's rain Dogs. The whiskey is optional, but I like it. That's a great pick and our first music pick too. That's awesome. I love that you're bringing all like left you know, left field stuff I love. It that that's what people come to a spect for me, so I try. And deliver awesome. Well, that is going to be a wrap on On the Waterfront a screenplay by Bud Schulberg, a script that takes a simple crime story and transforms it into something much, much bigger, a story about loyalty, guilt, redemption, and the courage to stand up for what's right when everyone.

59:51 Around you is telling you to stay silent. What makes On the Waterfront endor isn't just as iconic performance as or memborable dialogue. It's the human nity at the center of the story. Through Terry molloy, father, Barry, Edie Doyle, and the people on the Waterfront, Schulberg created a screenplay that asked difficult questions about conscience, responsibility, and the price of doing the right thing. More than seventy years later, those questions still resonate, and that's what make it makes it work. It's not just a story about corruption on the docks. It's a story about finding the courage to choose who you want to be. Robert, what's coming up for you? Any appearances? Where can people hear from you?

1:00:32 I don't know if you wanted to talk about your business. I think it's great. I will tell you lots of things, but I did want to call out one thing I'll be celebrating only fourth besides Independent Day is even Marie Saint, who is still alive and still with us and will be one hundred and two years old only fourth of this year. Amazing at any rate. But no, beyond that, I am often on the Docking Base seventy seven podcast. I show up a lot on movie episodes, Disney episodes, and just kind of here and there coming up. We've got a bunch of fun ones coming down the road. We're doing a series on movies that feature sword fighting, so we'll be doing Princess Book, which is a popular one, very soon.

1:01:16 So that was fun. Yeah, it's carry Alis. You mentioned him earlier here here he pops up again. And then beyond that, Yeah, my husband and I have a dog treat business called may Roman Co Dog Treat Bakery, and we sell wholesale and all around town here in Cincinnati where I'm based. So that keeps us busy and surrounded by dogs, which makes me very happy. I love that. That's the one thing right now is that my dog is out of town. And she better just welcome me with open pause. When I see her in a few days. I keep feeling like I hear her, though I keep i's she's not here, but I feel like I hear. But that's awesome. I think that is your business is so cool. Well, next time on a Script By, We're trading the waterfront for the war Room. We'll be diving into Doctor Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb screenplay by Stanley Kubrick, Terry Southern, and Peter George, a brilliant political satire that transformed a terrifying Cold War thriller into one of the funniest and most influential comedies ever written. That's Next Time on a Film By presents a script Buy. Make sure you keep up with a film Buy, with new episodes dropping every Monday and a continuing Star Trek series Phasers Set the Stun every Wednesday. You can also find us on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and x Be sure to visit the official site at www afilm by podcast dot com and email us at a film By Podcast at.

1:02:47 Gmail dot com. We love hearing from you, sharing opinions, taking requests, and debating great movies. Until then, I am Brad Kozo. And remember every great film begins with great scripts.