One of the glories of the history of Hoboken is that the 1954 motion picture On the Waterfront was filmed almost exclusively in the city. The film won Academy Awards for Best Picture, Director, Actor, Supporting Actress, Story and Screenplay, Black-and-White Cinematography, Black-and-White Art Direction and Set Direction, and Film Editing.
In addition, Karl Malden, Lee. J. Cobb, and Rod Steiger were all nominated for Best Supporting Actor, the first time three performers in the same film were so named.
Star Marlon Brando, director Elia Kazan, and the picture itself also earned New York Film Critics’ awards and Golden Gloves awards for the year. Kazan added a prize from the Directors Guild of America, while writer Budd Schulberg also took the annual Writers Guild of America honors.
On the Waterfront was more than a blockbuster; it was a film event. It brought to the screen the best of the Method, the naturalistic acting style taught by Lee Strasberg and others at the Actors Studio. Also, it is arguably the best of the social protest films, shot in grainy black and white, of the 1950s.
The local players
Before filming began, Hoboken Mayor John Grogan appointed municipal employee Tony D’Amato as the city’s official liaison with the production company. Among this one-man film commission’s accomplishments was to get scores of Hobokenites into the movie. Just about everyone who lived in Hoboken in the early 1950s has a story about a family member who was – or almost was – in the movie.
New York Times reporter Anthony DePalma Jr. has told the story that his father had an opportunity to have his legs fill in for Brando’s in the climactic scene in which Terry staggers up to the gate of the pier. DePalma Sr. refused because, on the piers, he was known as “Tony All The Time,” and nothing so trifling as the prospect of a screen debut was going to break his perfect attendance record.
DePalma Jr. is quick to add that his uncle’s truck did appear in the movie, cruising down Willow Avenue in the background of a scene in Church Square Park.
Then there was Jimmy Francis, a longshoreman and ex-fighter who lost three bouts with Jimmy Braddock before Braddock became heavyweight champion.
According to columnist Larry Babich, Francis actually taught the great Brando a thing or two about how to walk after absorbing a beating. Apparently, Kazan remained dissatisfied with three takes of a scene in which Brando totters up the ramp from the yacht club after being worked over.
When Francis bounded out of the assembled work gang, did a perfect recreation of a rubber-legged fighter, and fell to the ground, the crowd loved it. More to the point, so did Kazan, who told Brando to copy what Francis had done. The consummate method actor, of course, complied.
Getting their start in pictures
Many Hobokenites who did appear in the movie were just faces in the work gangs, but a few went on to minor careers as actors.
Retired longshoreman Anthony Amato, an extra in On the Waterfront, has had non-speaking parts in The Godfather, Godfather II and Donnie Brasco.
Longshoreman Johnny Sanducci is only a face in the crowd in On the Waterfront, but his jacket played a more prominent role. It was Sanducci’s garment that passed from the characters of Joey to Dugan to Terry as a symbolic passing of the mantle from hero to hero. Sanducci also had a bit part as one of Vito Corleone’s bodyguards in the wedding scene in The Godfather.
Some Hobokenites were more than extras in the film. One was Mikey Rubino, then a longshoreman. As the bridegroom in the wedding reception, Rubino tells his new wife, “You gotta stop smokin’ so much.”
Another was Pete King. All the police officers in the film were actual members of the Hoboken Police Department. King, who plays a cop during the film’s Crime Commission hearing, gets to speak moments later. When Brando’s character, Terry, complains that having two cops accompanying him everywhere makes him uncomfortable, King replies, “You oughta be glad we’re following you.”
Frank Marnell, a Rue School gym teacher at the time, drew the enviable, if nameless, role of the Mr. Big who turns off his television set in the middle of the Crime Commission hearing. Marnell reappears in front of Pier C near the film’s end as Terry lurches toward the door. Hands in the pockets of his overcoat, the prepossessing Marnell utters the words that give Terry his victory – “All right. Let’s go to work.” – just before “The End” appears on the screen and the gate closes.
Hobokenite Matty Russo delivers the line that summarizes the plight of the film’s longshoremen, “Hey, who do you have to see to get a day’s pay around here?” Later in the film, he precipitates a fight at the wedding reception when he tries to kiss the bride in a more than congratulatory way.
Russo, known around town as “John Wayne,” went on to a 40-year career as a character actor, appearing most prominently in The Seven-Ups, the 1973 unofficial sequel to The French Connection.
The biggest part awarded a local was that of the 12- or 13-year-old Tommy, which went to local teenager Tommy Hanley. Tommy is Terry’s acolyte, helping care for his pigeons, imitating his swagger, and succeeding him as leader The Golden Warriors.
He has one of the film’s most memorable lines: “A pigeon for a pigeon.”
Film’s inspiration?
Finally, no discussion of Hoboken and On the Waterfront would be complete without mentioning “Tony Mike” DiVincenzo, who may or may not have been the prototype of Terry Malloy.
While many commentators have doubted that writer Budd Schulberg had ever heard of him, DiVincenzo had, in fact, testified before a real-life Waterfront Commission on the facts of life on the Hoboken docks and had, in fact, suffered a degree of ostracization for his deed.
DiVincenzo sued Columbia Pictures over the appropriation of what he considered his story, and settled out of court for $25,000.
Editor’s note: A full version of this column was originally printed in Hoboken History Issue No. 18, published by the Hoboken Historical Museum. Please visit the museum at 1301 Hudson St. for more information. All of the past columns from this year-long series are now available online by visiting www.hobokenreporter.com, scrolling down the left-hand side of the page, and clicking on “150th Anniversary.”