Le Long des quais...

I Cover The Waterfront stars Ben Lyons and Claudette Colbert and it concerns reporter Lyons trying to uncover a smuggling racket by Colbert's father Ernest Torrance. When all else fails, Lyons goes on a romantic campaign to win Colbert and maybe get a line on what her father is doing. If it was liquor and this film was made at the tail end of Prohibition that might be one thing. But he's smuggling illegal Chinese immigrants and has no compunctions about throwing them overboard should the Coast Guard get too close.

Torrance who is best known for playing Saint Peter in Cecil B. DeMille's King Of Kings makes his farewell performance in this in a role 180 degrees polar opposite of Peter. He's a man who's totally lost his moral compass and regards the Chinese as cargo to be jettisoned. His attitude is quite typical of the West Coast which was flooded with Chinese and Japanese immigrants starting with the California Gold Rush and the opening of Japan. The Oriental was regarded as cheap labor and nothing more. So Torrance takes his money and jettisons his human cargo when the heat is on. As it is he's got quite the gimmick for concealing the cargo you have to see the film for.

Of course Claudette just thinks Torrance making a good living as a fisherman. And Lyons while putting on the moves to get information falls in love with her. The inevitable consequences follow.

Hobart Cavanaugh plays one his best drunks, a milquetoast when sober and a guy who gets real aggressive as long as Lyons is around to fight his battles. Given the ever raging battle over illegal immigration, I Cover The Waterfront has a relevancy for today as well.

Ben Lyon and a thirty year old Claudette Colbert star in this "newspaper reporter stumbles into something big" deal. Lyon is reporter Joe Miller, who bumps into Julie Kirk.. she just HAPPENS to be the daughter of smuggler Eli Kirk, but Miller wants the chance to investigate. This one moves a bit slow, and we spend a lot of time following the fishing antics of Julie's father. Miller discovers quite a bit about the father, but will have to follow it through. Based on the book by Max Miller. Miller also wrote "Hell and High Water", but Turner Classics must not have that one, since there are no rating votes on that. There IS quite a bit of bio information at the Online Archive of California, apparently from his collection of papers at U.C. San Diego. Interesting to note that the lead is a reporter named "Miller", in a story written by a reporter named "Miller"... Film directed by James Cruze, who had started as an actor in the wee days of silent films, but crossed over to directing in the 1920s. Lyon had been in silent films for YEARS, but Colbert had only been in the biz a couple years. It's pretty good. Drags in some places. Story itself is pretty solid... just moves kind of slow.

Ben Lyons is a reporter assigned to cover the San Diego waterfront. Someone has been smuggling Chinese people in, and Lyons thinks it's Ernest Torrence in his last role. He also tries to seduce Torrence's daughter, Claudette Colbert.. but she's interested in love, not just sex.

The copy I looked at was the result of a recent restoration. While the sound was perfect, the visuals were a bit off.

Which pretty much covers how I feel about the movie. There's potentially interestingly written characters, like Hobart Cavanaugh's "One Punch McCoy", but they never seem to affect Ben Lyon's mood. He hates his job, he wants the story, he desires Colbert, and nothing anyone does -- including him -- seems to change that. Miss Colbert swimming naked in the sea, indicated S&M overtones in a torture chamber from Spanish days, even Miss Colbert cleaning the windows of his place so he can actually sea the waterfront doesn't affect him, even with a mandatory happy ending to the script, and that's why I think this movie isn't a pre-code classic.

On the San Diego coast, hard-nosed reporter Ben Lyon (H. Joseph "Joe" Miller) suspects nasty seafaring Captain Ernest Torrence (as Eli Kirk) is part of a smuggling racket. Indeed, Mr. Torrence is cleverly shipping illegal Chinese immigrants to California. But, neither Mr. Lyon nor the local Coast Guard can catch him in the act. And, Lyon's editor wants him to cover stories like the report of a nude woman swimming in the ocean. Wearing only a bathing cap, but conveniently posed behind a large rock, the naked woman turns out to be beautiful Claudette Colbert (as Julie). When Lyon learns Ms. Colbert is Torrence's daughter, he decides a quick romance with the attractive Colbert might net him the proof he needs to bag the crook.

This story, while flawed in a couple of important ways, is full of clever touches. The opening credits are noticeably well-done, in a "newspaper" style, they explain "I Cover the Waterfront" will be about, "The unique and personal experiences of a newspaper reporter covering a Pacific waterfront." Lyons and Torrence contribute fine, dependable characterizations. Colbert isn't entirely believable as Torrence's salty daughter; but, this could have been fixed with some slight script revisions. For example, Colbert could have been reconnecting with her father, after a long absence. Still, Colbert looks great from any angle.

Director James Cruze handles his players marvelously, with the most delightful scene occurring when Lyon takes Colbert on a date to the torture chamber of the "Prison Ship Santa Madre" and engages in her some bondage. "I can take it!" says a satisfied Colbert. Not so successful is the moment when Lyon slits a shark open to reveal an immigrant inside, which defies credulity. Sly innuendo is provided by "One Punch" Hobart Cavanaugh (as McCoy), Lyon's drunken companion. When Lyon pokes him in bed, Mr. Cavanaugh sheepishly catchphrases, "Not tonight, Josephine!" (remember, Lyon's character is named "Joseph"). "Women are all alike," he says later, "When you need them most, they are conspicuous by their absence." Credit writers Max Miller, Wells Root, and Jack Jevne.

******* I Cover the Waterfront (5/19/33) James Cruze ~ Ben Lyon, Claudette Colbert, Ernest Torrence, Hobart Cavanaugh

Some good stuff from Ernest Torrance in his penultimate performance as a sea captain adrift in corruption and dissipation. I also liked Colbert in an early, sexy, right profile turn. And a lot of Wells Root's dialogue from Max Miller's novel is properly cynical and funny, as befits a 1930s newspaper movie. But there is way too much of Ben Lyon, kind of a half ass Lee Tracy, and the dull as desalinated water romance between him and Claudette. And while I know I should put my 2023, anti MAGA viewfinder aside when watching this 1933 offering I confess I was fairly appalled to see Root and director James Cruze lavish so much sympathy upon Torrance's exploiter and murderer of Asians trying to enter the United States while regarding his victims as little more than supercargo. Give it a C plus.