'On the Waterfront'

If you want a pretty nice companion piece for Elia Kazan's "On the Waterfront," watch season 2 of "The Wire."

In the HBO crime drama, the series moves to the Baltimore docks where we discover how the drugs are reaching the gangs on the streets -- through the unionized longshoremen, who are too poor to really care and don't consider bring crates full of drugs or guns into the country because they're going to someone else's neighborhood.

White dock workers, black drug dealers, Greek drug lords. Quite the melting pot.

"On the Waterfront" is a brilliant account of the corruption and violence that plagued the docks, unions and the people running both.

I've never understand this slanted solidarity. These union guys keep their mouths shut and their eyes closes most of the time. Create any trouble and you don't get work. After a while, a group of these guys get together to maybe change things by going to the authorities.

It wasn't a fair lifestyle. And we only get one. Why waste it hoping you'll get a shitty job that doesn't play anything. Actually, it prob is OK if you don't have a mortgage, wife or kids. Still, most live in poverty working their asses off so the union can take their cut along with the American government.

However, someone stands up on his own, gets the crap beat out of him (remember, Terry wasn't a very good boxer. Just a contender.) While the rest of the union just stands there letting him take the whipping. Great guys. Unions sound awesome. Seem like they always have the group in mind when they make decisions. Yeah.