[lbo-talk] Owners of the world unite

[Michael Yates]

On the Waterfront manages to be both antiunion and anticommunist, and the main point is the righteousness of naming names. At a time when the left-led unions, which were among the CIO's most democratic and least corrupt unions, and ones that also won among the best collective bargaining contracts for their members had recently been expelled and viciously redbaited, Kazan chose to pick a union that was corrupt and still managed to get in an anticommunist angle justifying his own wretched behavior before HUAC.
Though the "I coulda  been a contender" scene is famous, I imagine that many viewers knew what the subtext was when the film opened. A critical period in US labor history had just passed, and so many more people were in unions then relative to the employed labor force, with much more ferment politically, strikes, etc. There were vibrant working class communities across the nation, and many more radicals in them. So the kind of mass ignorance we see today was not nearly as great then. Even in my father's conservative union and town, workers at the glass factory regularly talked about politics and national and world events. It is safe to say that if you walked the streets of this town today interviewing people under say 65 years old, the level of ignorance would astound you.
No wonder Brando didn't want to take this role, and no wonder he was unhappy with his performance. I watched the film many years after I had first seen it, and I was impressed with how awful it is.