Budd Schulberg based his screenplay on a series of articles that appeared in the New York Sun. Schulberg took a rather unorthodox approach to the material, "applying not a month or two, but years of my life to absorbing everything I could about the New York waterfront, becoming an habitu¿of the West Side Manhattan and Jersey bars, interviewing longshore union leaders and getting to know the fearless and outspoken labor priests for St. Xavier's in New York's Hell's Kitchen."

It was in 1951 that director Elia Kazan suggested to Budd Schulberg that they should collaborate on a movie about the New York waterfront since they both were already in development on the same idea for a film.

Because he owed Elia Kazan a movie, 20th-Century-Fox mogul Darryl F. Zanuck initially agreed to produce On the Waterfront, as a prestige project, one that he felt would earn his studio the same acclaim and respect that The Grapes of Wrath (1940) had given it fourteen years earlier. But Zanuck eventually backed out, stating that he felt it was an unworthy subject for the Technicolor canvas of the CinemaScope screen. Zanuck admitted his real thoughts about the project, however, to Budd Schulberg and Elia Kazan when he complained, "Who's going to care about a bunch of sweaty longshoremen?"

After being turned down by almost every studio in town, Budd Schulberg and Elia Kazan eventually took their screenplay to Sam Spiegel. The tough, veteran producer was looking for a high profile film project like On the Waterfront so he jumped at the chance to produce it.

Sam Spiegel secured distribution through Columbia Studios. Writer Budd Schulberg had earlier refused to work for Columbia at all, because of his intense dislike of Harry Cohn, the studio's chief of production. However, Spiegel finagled a deal that guaranteed no interference from Cohn during the production of On the Waterfront.

Budd Schulberg and Elia Kazan based the character of Terry Malloy on an actual longshoreman named Tony Mike deVincenzo, who gave up his reputation, his job, and security from the Mob's violent reprisals in order to testify before the Waterfront Crime Commission.

by Scott McGee