One of the most talked-about films of the fifties, On the Waterfront was (and is) controversial for its accusation that the dockers' union was run by gangsters, coming at a time when the union was hounded by McCarthyism ("the waterfront ain't like America" is one motif); and for its defense of informing, coming from Elia Kazan, a "friendly witness" at the HUAC hearings (as were author Budd Schulberg and actor Lee J. Cobb, who plays the vicious union boss Johnny Friendly). But it also remains an enduring film classic for Marlon Brando's performance as the forlorn dockworker Terry Malloy, who could have been a contender but almost ends up a dead pigeon in "Palookaville." His dazed humanity lends sorrow to the brutal poetry of Schulberg's script, and Cobb and Rod Steiger's consummate cruelty. Leonard Bernstein's fine score is more urban than urbane, but Boris Kaufman's cinematography has a kind of overarching importance that leaves behind gritty realism for the strangely religious tone the film takes when Karl Malden's Father Barry invokes the Saints on the waterfront.