I am asking of both Budd and you that you treat me fairly ...

After the screenplay of On the Waterfront (1954) was finished, director Elia Kazan and screenwriter Budd Schulberg went to see Darryl F. Zanuck, producer and studio boss at 20th Century-Fox, to offer him the script. The two were very confident that Zanuck would like it and would be willing to produce it. During their meeting, however, the producer was not interested in Waterfront at all but kept talking about Prince Valiant (1954) and how wonderful it would be in CinemaScope. CinemaScope was Fox's new widescreen process (with all films to be shot in colour) and it was all Zanuck could think and talk about. (He knew full well that Waterfront was to be shot in black-and-white and in standard format.) In a 2004 interview with William Baer, Schulberg recalled Zanuck's reaction when Kazan finally asked him about the Waterfront script: "I'm sorry, boys, but I don't like a single thing about it ... What have you got here, boys? All you've got is a lot of sweaty longshoremen. I think what you've written is exactly what the American people don't want to see." Having previously worked with Schulberg on the script himself, Zanuck had now completely turned against it.

Devastated by Zanuck's rejection, Kazan took the script to other studios but they turned him down as well. Then quite unexpectedly, when Kazan and Schulberg believed Waterfront would never be filmed, independent producer Sam Spiegel came along and agreed to take on their project. With Spiegel as producer and eventually released by Columbia Pictures, On the Waterfront became a huge critical and commercial success. The film also won eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture (Spiegel), Best Actor (Marlon Brando), Best Supporting Actress (Eve Marie Saint), Best Director (Kazan) and Best Story and Screenplay (Schulberg). 

Above: Sam Spiegel (second from left), Marlon Brando and Brando's parents visiting their son on the set of On the Waterfront.

Darryl Zanuck regretted his rejection of Waterfront even before the film was showered with accolades and awards. In the following letter to Elia Kazan ("Gadg") from 15 July 1954, Zanuck admitted that "the advent and debut of Cinemascope was responsible more than anything else for [his] final decision against the property". He resented the suggestion made by Schulberg in a New York Times article that he had rejected the film because "he lost his courage and ran out on a "touchy" subject." (In the 11 July 1954 article Schulberg had said: "The head of the studio had changed his mind, Waterfront wouldn't fit in with the program of costumed horse operas he was lining up ... The picture was still too controversial, we were told. Too grim, too shocking. And, would the people care about the struggle on the docks?".) 

Annoyed that Kazan and Schulberg didn't acknowledge his role in the making of Waterfront, Zanuck also reminded Kazan of the important contributions he had made to the script and of being the one who had first suggested Brando to them.

July 15, 1954
Mr. Elia Kazan 

Warner Bros. Studios
Burbank, California
Personal & Confidential 

Dear Gadg:

Thanks for your letter of June 28th. I just returned from Europe and only received it today ...

The only thing in your letter that disturbs me is when you say that I let Budd and you come out to California on the Waterfront story and then gave you a cold turn-down— and that a telegram would have served just as well.

You have a short memory, Gadg. Budd came to see me more than once. I spent many hours on many days working with him and trying to develop and alter the script. He accepted all but one of my major suggestions. You accepted them. Four of them are a part of your finished picture, or at least I have been told so by those who have seen the picture and who also had read the original treatment and script and had also read the conference notes.

I am not asking for screen credit but I am asking of both Budd and you that you treat me fairly and that you recognize the facts. I have just reread my conference notes and my various communications on this story. I think both Budd and you should read them again and think of them in the light of your finished picture. I think you should also remember that I am the one who insisted in writing that only Marlon Brando should play the role and that I first suggested him in a telegram to you.

I have just seen an article in last Sunday's New York Times written by Budd in which he does not mention me by name but in which he indicates that I lost my courage and ran out on a "touchy" subject.

I am really astonished that Budd should write anything such as this. Even more than this, he knows how I sweated and worked with him in a conscientious effort to improve the dramatic construction of the story, and particularly the love story, etc. etc. The last day I saw him he shook my hands and told me that no matter how it turned out he had received valuable assistance and that working with me had been a "unique and exhilarating experience."

Actually the advent and debut of CinemaScope was responsible more than anything else for my final decision against the property. At that time I felt that since we had overnight committed ourselves to a program of CinemaScope "spectacles" I had no alternative but to back away from intimate stories even though they were good stories. I have since changed my mind as one of our most successful CinemaScope pictures [Three Coins in the Fountain, 1954] is based on an intimate story. 

I understand your picture has turned out to be wonderful. I am happy because every great picture is helpful to the best interests of our industry.

I am taking the liberty of sending a copy of this letter to Budd. I just cannot accept the idea that I lost my courage or gave you a quick brush-off. I spent more time on your project than I do on some of the pictures that we actually produce. In addition to this I invested $40,000 in the property. If this is a brush-off then I have a wrong interpretation of the phrase.

You and I are due for a hit next time we get together ...

I look forward to seeing you. Come over when you finish [East of Eden (1955) at Warners].

Best always,

Darryl

Source: Memo from Darryl F. Zanuck: The Golden Years At Twentieth Century-Fox (1993); selected and edited by Rudy Behlmer.

Above: (l to r) Schulberg, Zanuck and Kazan. Below: Eve Marie Saint and Marlon Brando in a scene from On the Waterfront.