YMMV / On the Waterfront

• And You Thought It Would Fail:
  • Darryl F. Zanuck declined to produce the film saying, "Who's going to care about a bunch of sweaty longshoremen?"
  • Upon completion, Columbia chief Harry Cohn predicted that the $900,000 production would tank, but the film grossed more than $9,000,000 upon its initial release.
• Awesome Music: Leonard Bernstein's score.
• Complete Monster: Michael J. Skelly, known as "Johnny Friendly" to all, is the crooked union boss who rules the docks with an iron fist. Friendly keeps the civilians around the docks kept in a controlled fear, subjecting them to beatings with steel pipes and threats of their lives to force them into silence about his criminal activities. Anyone who proves to be a thorn in Friendly's side is murdered by Friendly and his goons, as demonstrated by Joey Doyle being flung off a rooftop and Kayo Dugan having a shipment of whiskey barrels dropped on his head as punishment for trying to rat on Friendly's operations. Having killed them and "a dozen more" good men who got in his way according to Father Barry, Friendly orders his minion Charley to kill protagonist Terry Malloy—Charley's own kid brother—and when Charley refuses, Friendly has Charley killed and his body left on display before trying to murder Terry and Edie Doyle to silence all loose ends. When Terry survives and testifies against him, Friendly baits Terry into a fistfight, only to have his thugs jump in and brutally beat Terry to within an inch of his life.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Terry's brother Charley Malloy became this for being an honorable right-hand man, deeply caring for his younger brother, and his redemption in the end, including getting killed for it.
  • Father Barry is well-liked for being a Badass Preacher who's not afraid of Friendly and his thugs, convincing Terry not to resort to violence when his brother is killed.
  • Even the film's Big Bad, Johnny Friendly has his fans, for reasons listed under Evil Is Cool.
• Evil Is Cool: Johnny Friendly has a couple of fans for Lee J. Cobb's incredible performance along with being able to intimidate his workers into silence, and strategizing his plans for murdering those who object to him. There's also how Friendly's able to convince Terry he had meant well initially, and how he thinks he's doing the right thing with his abusive status due to his troubled beginnings.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Marlon Brando's character being controlled by a mob boss becomes a lot more depressing when you remember he'll eventually become one in 1972.
  • The aspect on the fight being thrown during the movie becomes this in light of the infamous episode of 21 when defending champion Herb Stempel, under orders from the producers who wanted challenger Charles Van Doren to become the new champion, took a dive and said this film won Best Picture in 1955 instead of Marty^note Stempel, who knew the answer was incorrect especially since "Marty" was one of his favorite films, originally went public with the charges of the fixed game but was initially dismissed as a sore loser; only to be validated when another quiz show, Dotto, was also exposed as being rigged; thus triggering the late 1950s quiz show scandals
• Iron Woobie: Terry Malloy, big time. The man lost his father during his childhood, his gangster brother Charley sabotaged his chances of becoming a boxer, he witnessed two murders (the first of which he was duped into being an accessory), got his life threatened several times, saw Charley’s dead body hanging on an alley wall, became an outcast to the people on the waterfront when he reports Johnny's gang in court and got the living hell beaten out of him when he stood up to the union soldiers. Yet he takes in all of that pain like a champ. Is it any wonder the people started believing in Terry more than Friendly after seeing his serious determination?
• Memetic Mutation: The entire taxicab scene has been referenced in some way.
  • "You don't understand! I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody instead of a bum, which is what I am."
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • Pat Hingle makes his film debut as Jocko.
  • Oscar-winning character actor Martin Balsam plays one of the agents from the Crime Commission.
  • Fred Gwynne is one of Johnny Friendly's associates.
• Signature Scene: The taxicab scene.
• Unintentional Period Piece: Early in the film, when the policeman covers Joey Doyle's body with a newspaper, one of the pages shows photos of Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe with the headline "Mr. and Mrs." DiMaggio and Monroe married on January 14, 1954.

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