Elia Kazan's 1954 film On the Waterfront was based on the world of Red Hook longshoremen. I just read that originally the film was going to be written by Arthur Miller and called The Hook, but the House Un-American Activities Commission pressured the studio to change Miller's script. Miller refused and dropped the project. With the new writer, Budd Schulberg, the title was changed. As I get ready to move, I know the proximity the the water is one of the things I'll miss most, hence my posting another picture of fishing and the piers. In the foreground is my old friend Elijah Miller. Elijah is a songwriter who works at B61, a bar on Red Hook's northern border with Carroll Gardens. In the background, that faint point on the horizon is the Statue of Liberty.
Beautiful picture. The Hasselblad is serving you well!
ReplyDeleteGreat photo Vern. I miss those piers. I'll miss your beautiful glimpses into the neighborhood.
ReplyDeleteActually, the Arthur Miller play was a separate endeavor though he was approached by Budd Schulberg who began the script that became "On the Waterfront" after Budd had written a few drafts. Also, despite the entrenched theory that the movie is an apologia for Schulberg+Kazan's HUAC testimony, Budd wrote the first drafts before he ever testified. "On the Waterfront" is also based more on the Manhattan westside docks than the Red Hook ones and hews closely to they life of, and advice from, a crusading Jesuit Priest Father Corridan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_M._Corridan). For full explanation, see the recent book by James Fisher "The Irish Waterfront" or his blog http://irishwaterfront.wordpress.com/
ReplyDeleteThanks for the correction Carolina. I had based my post on a review by Tim Dirks on filmsite.org. He writes, "Originally, Kazan had hired playwright Arthur Miller in 1950 to research the world of longshoremen in Brooklyn’s Red Hook area (and use material from Johnson's articles), and craft a script for a film to be titled The Hook. It had a similar plot to the 1954 film - the setting of a Brooklyn waterfront with a militant trade unionist hero struggling with mobsters in the dockworkers union. The film was never produced, due to HUAC pressure on Columbia Pictures' studio chief Harry Cohn, who told Miller to change the villains from corrupt and militant union officials and gangsters to evil communists, so it would have a “pro-American” feel -- but Miller refused and pulled out as screenwriter."
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