REVIEWED BY DAN STUMPF:

   

ON THE WATERFRONT. Columbia, 1954. With Marlon Brando, Eva Marie Saint, Karl Malden. Lee J. Cobb and Rod Steiger. Written by Budd Schulberg. Directed by Elia Kazan.

THE HARDER THEY FALL. Columbia, 1956. With Humphrey Bogart, Rod Steiger, and Jan Sterling. Written by Budd Schulberg. Directed by Mark Robson.

   I should not be surprised that two movies from the same studio, with the same writer, should feel so similar, but I watched these back-to-back, and it was like having the same dream twice.

   Both films involve corrupt bosses enriching themselves by exploiting simple (and simple-minded) men who make a living by brute strength. In Waterfront it’s longshoremen jumping to the tune of Lee J. Cobb as Union Boss Johnny Friendly; Fall offers Rod Steiger as Nick Benko, Fight Promoter, but they’re both basically the same character: venal, ruthless, and possessed of a sublime indifference to the pain of others.

   But the similarities don’t end there — they’re just beginning. Early on in both films, someone who crosses the bosses meets an untimely and violent end. More to the point of the narrative, both feature a protagonist who works for the Boss, uneasy about things he sees going on, but compromised by his position in the organization:

   Waterfront’s Terry Malloy (Brando) has a brother (Rod Steiger) in Cobbs’s inner circle; in Fall, Bogart is a well-respected (but out-of-work) sportswriter, helping Steiger (again) build up odds on an oversized Bum, but both men are essentially hiring themselves out as tools to enable the exploitation of others. And in both movies, the drama builds as our heroes begin to ask themselves “What kind of tool am I?”

   Sorry about that. But the question never is satisfactorily answered in either film. In both cases, they manufacture dramatic crises to provide a “Movie-Ending” that rings palpably false — in my ears, anyway. Schulberg and Kazan don’t explain how Terry Molloy, shunned for squealing and avoided for safety’s sake one minute, becomes the rallying point for the dock workers after he gets his ass whupped by Cobb’s goons. But the ending of Fall is even worse than that, with Bogart sitting down at his typewriter to do an exposé of “The Boxing Racket.”

   I hasten to add that these unsatisfactory (to me) finales come late in the films, too late to spoil a couple of very watchable movies. On the Waterfront is an acknowledged classic, and The Harder They Fall is an underrated gem. Maybe not a spectacular coda to a career like Bogart’s but not bad at all.

   I want to say something about the acting. Waterfront was Brando’s sixth film, and by now he was comfortable on the screen, but still visibly hard-working. He’s also surrounded by actors from the same school where he learned his craft, and the interplay between them is like watching a well-oiled machine operating perfectly.

   But I find the thesping in Harder more fun to watch. Rod Steiger attacks his part with real method-madness: animated, powerful, and vigorously phony; his performance is fascinating to watch, but obviously a performance.

   Bogart, in his seventy-fifth and final film, simply walks across the screen and dominates it effortlessly with the assurance of an established Star. Acting never enters into it; he simply is Bogart. And the clash of the two actors and the two styles brings a riveting intensity to their roles that is no less impressive for having probably been inadvertent.