Mike O'Dowd Movies

This classic story of Mob informers was based on a number of true stories and filmed on location in and around the docks of New York and New Jersey. Mob-connected union boss Johnny Friendly (Lee J. Cobb) rules the waterfront with an iron fist. The police know that he's been responsible for a number of murders, but witnesses play deaf and dumb ("plead D & D"). Washed-up boxer Terry Malloy (Marlon Brando) has had an errand-boy job because of the influence of his brother Charley, a crooked union lawyer (Rod Steiger). Witnessing one of Friendly's rub-outs, Terry is willing to keep his mouth shut until he meets the dead dockworker's sister, Edie (Eva Marie Saint). "Waterfront priest" Father Barry (Karl Malden) tells Terry that Edie's brother was killed because he was going to testify against boss Friendly before the crime commission. Because he could have intervened, but didn't, Terry feels somewhat responsible for the death. When Father Barry receives a beating from Friendly's goons, Terry is persuaded to cooperate with the commission. Featuring Brando's famous "I coulda been a contendah" speech, On the Waterfront has often been seen as an allegory of "naming names" against suspected Communists during the anti-Communist investigations of the 1950s. Director Elia Kazan famously informed on suspected Communists before a government committee -- unlike many of his colleagues, some of whom went to prison for refusing to "name names" and many more of whom were blacklisted from working in the film industry for many years to come -- and Budd Schulberg's screenplay has often been read as an elaborate defense of the informer's position. On the Waterfront won Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Actor for Brando, and Best Supporting Actress for Saint. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This stark but interesting low-budget thriller stars Lee Philips as Elliot Freeman, a veteran of the Korean War who has returned home to New England and is following his muse as an artist. Freeman inherited a fortune from his wealthy father and is earning an impressive reputation for his paintings, but he remains a tense and moody individual. Freeman had a brief fling with one of his nude models, Dolores (Kaye Elhardt), but she's also been dating Charlie Perone (James Farentino), a beefy truck driver described as "the Stanley Kowalski of the laundry set." When Dolores is stabbed to death, both Freeman and Perone are suspects, and while brassy bar girl Silvia (Sylvia Miles) is willing to provide an alibi for Charlie, Elliot isn't so lucky, and things get even more complicated when a handful of students from a nearby women's college his sister attends turn up dead under the same circumstances as Dolores. Along with early screen appearances from Sylvia Miles, James Farentino, and Dick Van Patten (yep, the Eight Is Enough guy), Violent Midnight also features some fleeting nudity that probably kept it out of a few drive-ins in 1963 but insured big crowds for those that did screen it. Violent Midnight was also screened under the titles Black Autumn and Psychomania (not to be confused with Don Sharp's amazing 1972 film Psychomania, about a gang of undead bikers). ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

When Woody Allen's fans refer to his "earlier, funnier" pictures, they often cite his directorial debut as a shining example. Co-written by Allen and Mickey Rose, this side-splitting takeoff of crime documentaries stars Allen as Virgil Starkwell, a sweetly inept career criminal. The film's most celebrated sequence involves Virgil's inability to write coherent holdup notes ("I have a gub"), but others include Virgil's losing battle with a recalcitrant coke machine and his misguided effort to emulate John Dillinger by carving a gun out of a bar of soap (his weapon disintegrates in a heavy rain). As was often the case in Allen's early films, not all the gags work, but for the most part, Take the Money and Run is a delight, enhanced by the on-target supporting performances of Janet Margolin, Marcel Hillaire, and (uncredited) Louise Lasser, as well as the energetic musical score of Marvin Hamlisch. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide