A "Sony Screen Classics by Request" title on DVD-R format, Rumble on the Docks is given a crisp, 16:9 enhanced widescreen transfer that looks great, though there are no extra features.

On the Brooklyn docks Della (Laurie Carroll) and her kid brother, Poochie (Barry Froner), are assaulted by members of the Stompers, a gang trying to muscle in on the Diggers' turf. The Diggers, led by Jimmy Smigelski (James Darren), drive the Stompers off, but later at a dance at the Settlement House the gang returns to rumble.

Elsewhere, Jimmy's Polish-immigrant father, Pete (Edgar Barrier), a former longshoremen who opened a modest printing shop after racketeers broke his back, is approached by the man responsible for his injury, gangster Joe Brindo (Michael Granger). He offers Pete a $3,000 bribe to stifle criticism of Brindo's union-busting but Pete refuses. This appalls Jimmy - the family needs the money - and an angry Pete tries to knock some sense into his boy, hitting him with his cane while Pete's mother (Celia Lovsky) helplessly looks on.

As Pete and other community leaders try to establish a new local free from Brindo's influence, Brindo begins wooing Jimmy with quick and easy cash, hoping to use the boy as leverage against his father.

Based on a novel by Frank Paley, Rumble on the Docks was adapted by Lou Morheim, later a prolific story editor-producer for television, and Jack DeWitt, best known for his screenplay to A Man Called Horse. DeWitt may be slightly more responsible for Rumble's attributes considering that he wrote the very similar and quite good Portland Exposé (1957) a short time later, and without Morheim's help. (Though Devil's Advocate Sergei Hasenecz suggests, "Maybe it was similar because he got it all from Morheim the first time?")

In any case Rumble on the Docks integrates its union battle and teenage angst stories fairly well. Morheim and DeWitt wisely fashion Pete as a pillar of the community but not a very good father, making Jimmy's attraction to pock-faced Brindo's glamorous world more logical than it would be otherwise. The writing leans on some obvious but nevertheless effective devices. Jimmy has a telescope that he keeps on the roof of his building, gazing at better neighborhoods in the distance, a metaphor for his yearning for a way out. (In one scene the bad guys attempt to steal the telescope, figuratively blinding him of his life's goals.) There's also an attempt to make the other members of the gang individuals. Chuck (Robert Blake, wasted in a small role) is slightly more responsible, while Wimpy (Don Devlin, father of writer-producer Dean Devlin) is mentally unbalanced, first bringing a knife to one fight then upping the stakes by recklessly packing heat later on.

The struggles of the longshoreman have a political edge rare for Columbia's B-picture unit, exemplified in one organizer's explanation of why kids like Jimmy are drawn to thugs like Brindo:

"While we're breaking our necks trying to make a living, the goons and the racketeers have all the power and the money. They walk around nice and clean, smelling of cologne. We don't smell so good to our kids."

At 82 minutes and featuring better than usual production values for a Sam Katzman movie, Rumble on the Docks is a bit classier than the usual Columbia "B," though it's still fairly cheap and budget conscious, with a limited number of set-ups and rear-screen process shots in lieu of location filming in New York. (The dock scenes were filmed in nearby San Pedro.) Instead of advertising it along the lines of Best Picture-winner On the Waterfront or even Rebel Without a Cause, the U.S. poster art is more along the exploitative lines of films made in the wake of Blackboard Jungle (1955). The struggles of the longshoremen aren't even hinted at.

Though Edgar Barrier is a bit hammy as the father, James Darren is quite good as his son - very natural, sometimes intense, and always appealing, though Laurie Carroll and Barry Froner are a bit too homogenized to make much impression as Jimmy's girl and her admiring brother. However, Michael Granger is good in a difficult part: smooth-talking Jimmy into breaking the law and "treating him like a son" one minute, but ready to dump him like yesterday's newspapers whenever the need arises. Timothy Carey makes the most of his role as Brindo's lieutenant.

Video & Audio

Filmed in black and white for 1.85:1 projection, Rumble on the Docks looks very good, with a solid video transfer and decent mono audio (with no alternate language or subtitle options). There are no menu screens or other options on this region-free DVD-R. There are the usual chapter stops every ten minutes but no Extra Features at all.

Parting Thoughts

Modest but effective with a genuinely tense and exciting climax, Rumble on the Docks is a good little movie worth checking out. Recommended.

Stuart Galbraith IV's audio commentary for AnimEigo's Tora-san, a DVD boxed set, is on sale now.