The subject matter of On the Waterfront is alienation at the lowest social level…. Terry Malloy, the hero of On the Waterfront, is alienated at the instinctive level of the adolescent and the bum, and the drama, as those who made the film see it, is in his development of consciousness and responsibility, his taking his place as a man.

The attempt to create a hero for the mass audience is a challenge and a great big trap. On the Waterfront meets the challenge, falls into the trap. (p. 47)

On the Waterfront succeeds brilliantly in creating a figure out of the American lower depths, a figure simple in reasoning power but complicated in motivation and meaning; it fails to win complete assent when it attempts to make this figure into a social and symbolic hero—by fiat. (p. 48)

On the Waterfront is [an] ambitious film, though its moral...