WATERFRONT (1939)

This tepid B-melodrama begins on the New York docks as Jimmy (Dennis Morgan), head of the Waterfront Club, a social club for dock workers, gets into a fistfight with hotheaded Mart Hendler (Ward Bond) who thinks Jimmy lords his position over everyone else. But it's innocent Frankie who winds up in the hospital, getting an accidental punch in the jaw from a very contrite Jimmy. Jimmy's gal Ann (Gloria Dickson), concerned with Jimmy's anger issues which were passed onto him from his late father, has Father Dunn talk to him. The talk works for a while and Jimmy agrees to marry Ann, leave the docks, and take up ranching out west. But at a Waterfront Club party, a drunken Hendler starts another fight and accidentally kills Jimmy's kid brother Danny. Hendler goes on the run, chased by both Jimmy and the cops. When Jimmy finds out where Hendler's hiding, he forgets his promises, takes a gun, and goes to mete out his own justice. Like most Warner Bros. B-films of the classic era, this is fairly well produced and has a decent cast—it's Dennis Morgan's first starring role and he's handsome and charismatic enough, though the character as written is predicable and not all that sympathetic. Dickson (pictured with Morgan) is about average, but Bond is very good as the villain. Frank Faylen and Marie Wilson are enjoyable as another waterfront couple. OK if not a standout. [TCM]