I Cover the Waterfront
Brief Synopsis
Cast & Crew
James Cruze
Ben Lyon
Claudette Colbert
Ernest Torrence
Hobart Cavanaugh
Maurice Black
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
Reporter H. Joseph Miller has spent five years covering the San Diego waterfront and intensely dislikes it. Hoping that he can get a job on a paper in the East and marry his Vermont sweetheart, Miller plans to break a story about the smuggling of Chinese into the country by fisherman Eli Kirk. When he is sent to investigate a girl swimming naked, Miller learns that the girl is Kirk's daughter Julie and decides to romance her to get the story. After Kirk drops a Chinese man overboard with chains around his ankles when Miller and the Coast Guard arrive to investigate, Kirk tells Julie that they will have to move on, maybe to Singapore, as soon as he gets enough money. Julie encourages Miller's flirting and, during the next two weeks, succeeds in making Miller see the beauty of the waterfront. As they fall in love, Julie inspires Miller to improve the novel he has been working on for five years. The night before Julie is to leave with her father, she sleeps over in Miller's room. At breakfast, after she announces that she is staying, Miller learns from her where Kirk is due to dock and notifies the Coast Guard. At the docks, after Miller rips open the belly of a large shark to reveal a Chinese man inside, Kirk is shot while escaping. Although Miller tells Julie that he really does love her, she sends him away. Miller locates Kirk, who shoots him in the arm. Julie arrives with a motorboat, but says she can't leave Miller to die. Although he is weak and dying, Kirk, seeing that Julie loves Miller, takes him to shore, at the risk of getting caught, so that Miller can get a doctor. Kirk then dies. When Miller recovers, he finds that Julie has moved into his room. He tells her the ending of his novel, "he marries the girl," and embraces her.
Director
James Cruze
Cast
Ben Lyon
Claudette Colbert
Ernest Torrence
Hobart Cavanaugh
Maurice Black
Purnell Pratt
Harry Beresford
Wilfred Lucas
George Humbert
Rosita Marstini
Claudia Coleman
Crew
Film Details
Technical Specs
Quotes
You wouldn't go for a kiss, would you?- Joe Miller
No. Not very far.- Julie Kirk
Men never know what the sea really looks like. Women know. When they've looked out there for years, waitin' for somebody to come back.- Julie Kirk
Trivia
Notes
According to Harrrison's Reports, the book that was the basis of this film was Max Miller's autobiography, which covered his life as a reporter on the San Diego waterfront. Harrrison's Reports commented that the original "sketchy" story was "not suitable for a picture" and did not have the love story that was at the center of the film. This was the last film of Ernest Torrence, who died before its release. The song "I Cover the Waterfront," written by John W. Green and Edward Heyman, while not in the film, was a big hit. A film based on the same source, entitled Secret of Deep Harbor, was made in 1961 by Harvard Film Corp. and released by United Artists Corp. (see AFI Catalog of Feature Films, 1961-70; F6.4321).
