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On the Waterfront: The Pulitzer Prize-Winning Articles That Inspired the Classic Film and Transformed the New York Harbor

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Reading this book is like stepping into another era, and the shocks are everywhere. First of all, the material is from an olf time New York daily newspaper, the SUN, a paper long vanished into the annals of journalism. Thank goodness someone kept some old copies of this scandal-making series of articles by SUN reporter Malcolm Johnson, many of which took up the first page of the old SUN, and filled the paper with an expose on union activities along the piers and docks of old New York. Johnson's son, nonfiction specialist Haynes Johnson, contributes context for his father's Pulitzer-Prize winning scoop.

Budd Schulberg, who read these articles and worked with Elia Kazan on the screenplay of the film, pays tribute to Malcolm Johnson like one craftsman to another. But he's no dummy, Schulberg. The first thing you realize when reading these articles is what a great job Schulberg did bringing life to what is essentially a pretty dry tale of graft, without any real heroes or plot. In presenting this old journalism, Schulberg insures that we appreciate his artistry. There aren't any Terry Malloys in the pages of the SUN, and there are definitely no Eva Marie Saints looking on wistfully.

What you'll take away from what was once the expose of the decade is now merely a case of mutatis mutandis. I'm sure things along the docks have not changed an iota. Prices have, though! Johnson presented as a shocker the annual salary of the corrupt union head--$20,000! That wouldn't get you very far in today's New York. You might be able to buy a life buoy but I doubt it. And yet to his readers, that salary must have repesented the equivalent of a million bucks today, and been instantly a suspicious red flag as though to scream out in 24 pt type, RYAN'S A CROOK.

And what a prescient picture of the Mafia! It was an organization only dimly visible through the underground fog, yet one that extended its tentacles into every arena of modern urban life. Johnson must have been one of the first reporters to dig into it with any depth or understanding. It's a surprise he lived! I would have thought after three or four days of this serial, the boys would have put his shoes into concrete and sunk him under the pier. Instead he lived for another 30 years, with the Pulitzer on his mantel and a grin across his face.

This book contains the twenty-six front page articles of Malcolm Johnson printed in 'The New York Sun' in 1947 and '48. Budd Schulberg wrote the introduction and added some articles of his own. He had previously written THE DISENCHANTED.

Mainly, though, it is almost totally Malcolm Johnson, a reporter who won a Pulitzer Prize in 1949 for these articles which shook the United States as he exposed organized crime on the New York waterfront. This was the basis of the movie 'On The Watrefront' starring Marlon Brando. This exposure led to the Tennessee Senator Kefauver hearings and changed labor laws which influenced America. D. A. Thomas Dewey led the charge and Budd Schulberg followed through by producing the award-winning movie directed by Elia Kazan. It won five Oscars including best picture, best director and best actor. It is one of the Top Ten films of the century.

The articles and resulting movie reveals to the world how organized crime had infiltrated the New York Harbor, the world's busiest port. The '40s photo looking down on New York City shows hundreds of piers at the height of the waterfront's extent and power. The interconnnected piers were the richest in the world.

This book shows America and New York at the pivotal time when shipping ruled the world. Back then, "money was more important than life itself." It still is sometimes and some places. Corruption and violence on the waterfront were commonplace, as they were on the street of New York ('The West Side Story'). Pictures are interspersed throughout the book; one of them is of the Hudson River, showing the West Side piers at their peak in the '30s.

Haynes Johnson also won a Pulitzer Prize for his journalism. He wrote THE BEST OF TIMES: AMERICA IN THE CLINTON YEARS, which I already reviewed.

I ordered the actual set of articles written by Malcolm Johnson, on which the film is based. For some reason, when I clicked on "Paperback" this is the book I got. I have no idea if it's good or not, since I have no plans to read it as it's not what I wanted. Poor form, Amazon!