Waterfront

I have to admit I was rather looking forward to this one. A near forgotten gem perhaps? A not altogether un-interesting cast perhaps? Long John Silver aka Robert Newton himself, yes, he of the squinting rolling eye, causes much trouble in this sordid tale set in working-class Scouseland.

Add to that an early role for a terribly young Richard Burton and Kathleen Harrison in the part of the proverbial ‘tea lady’ and you’d think the story might possibly have something going for it. The ingredients appear to be there, so what went wrong?

Newton is cast as Peter McCabe, a no-good wastrel of a seaman (no doubt an in-joke nod to his famed pirate character) who has already fathered two girls and now does a bunk back to sea – not being much of a family man. Not only abandoning his daughters but also leaving his hapless wife (Kathleen Harrison) to cope with financial and domestic burdens, he has no idea that his wife is in fact pregnant with their third child.

Fourteen years later, during which time the two daughters have merged into impossibly glamorous, well-spoken and well-mannered young ladies (this being the slums of the Liverpool Docks!) and the young boy has won a scholarship, McCabe returns to the dismay of his family and soon lands himself in a whole heap of trouble… in this case, he finds himself in a prison cell charged with murder.

It would be nice to say this slice of 1950’s working class realism was charged with the necessary grit but I failed to spot it in most scenes. Quite where writer John Brophy (himself a Liverpudlian) and director Michael Anderson (a Londoner born to an acting family) thought where they were going here “one quate simply hasn’t got the foggiest”. It certainly wasn’t Liverpool! Susan Shaw as older daughter Connie and Avis Scott as younger daughter Nora are somewhat of a joke as a pair of young working class Liverpudlian girls. Shaw in particular whose character is supposedly in her mid-twenties – despite her abysmal attempt at a working class accent – is hopelessly wrong and she comes across as an assured upper middle class mature woman, and Scott only slightly less so.

Newton is Long John Silver all over again albeit in 50’s garb and sans parrot, though all the mannerisms are there. He even refers to someone as a ‘landlubber’. Catherine Harrison was always, as mentioned earlier, THE Cockney char-lady par excellence and always appeared old though was in fact pushing sixty at the time. Despite the fact that Harrison was born in Blackburn she doesn’t actually sound northern either except for the occasional ‘oop’ for ‘up’. As for Richard ‘the voice’ Burton, he is cast in the rather boring role of Ben Satterthwaite, a thoroughly decent egg and the would-be husband of Connie McCabe. On this performance, however, it is hard to see what lay ahead for the golden but sadly flawed Welsh boy. Kenneth Griffith, another Welsh actor, stole the show as Maurice Bruno, a shady and lascivious entrepreneur with his flash motorcar. He also lacks morals as Nora McCabe finds out the hard way, namely when he dumps her when he finds out her dad is up on a murder charge.
Admittedly there were one or two shots of the old slum tenement blocks that were not totally lacking in atmosphere. The score based on music by Liszt only highlights the film’s pretentiousness.

This Blu-ray release – part of The British Film Collection – offers Instant Play Facility, Image Gallery and Original Press Booklet (in PDF format) as bonus material.