On the Waterfront Page #21

EDIE:

(to Father Barry)

They're waiting for him to walk in.

FATHER BARRY:

You hear that, Terry?

(as Terry fails to respond)

Terry, did you hear that?

(trying to penetrate Terry's batteredmind)

You lost the battle but you have a chance to win

the war. All you gotta do is walk.

TERRY:

(slowly coming to)

...walk?

FATHER BARRY:

Johnny Friendly is layin' odds

that you won't get up.

JOHNNY:

(in B.G., shouts)

Come on, you guys!

Friendly's voice acts as a prod on Terry.

TERRY:

(dazed)

Get me on my feet.

They make an effort to pick him up. He can barely stand. He looks

around unseeingly.

TERRY:

Am I on my feet...?

EDIE:

Terry...?

FATHER BARRY:

You're on your feet. You can finish

what you started.

Blood oozing from his wounds, Terry sways, uncomprehendingly.

FATHER BARRY:

You can!

TERRY:

(mutters through bloody lips)

I can? Okay. Okay...

EDIE:

(screams at Father Barry)

What are you trying to do?

ANGLE—ON RAMP

As the groggy Terry starts up the ramp, Edie reaches out to him. Father

Barry holds her back.

FATHER BARRY:

Leave him alone. Take your hands off him—

Leave him alone.

Staggering, moving painfully forward, Terry starts up the ramp. Edie's

instinct is to help him but Father Barry, knowing the stakes of this

symbolic act, holds her back. Terry stumbles, but steadies himself and

moves forward as if driven on by Father Barry's will.

TERRY APPROACHING PIER ENTRANCE

As he staggers forward as if blinded, the longshoremen form a line on

either side of him, awed by his courage, waiting to see if he'll make

it. Terry keeps going.

REVERSE ANGLE—BOSS STEVEDORE—TERRY'S POV

Waiting at pier entrance as Terry approaches. Shot out of focus as

Terry would see him

through bloody haze.

TERRY:

As the men who have formed a path for him watch intently, Terry

staggers up until he is face to face with the Stevedore. He gathers

himself as if to say, "I'm ready. Let's go."

STEVEDORE:

(calls officially)

All right— let's go to work!

As Terry goes past him into the pier, the men with a sense of

inevitability fall in behind him.

JOHNNY FRIENDLY:

Hurrying forward in a last desperate effort to stop the men from

following Terry in.

JOHNNY:

(screams)

Where you guys goin'? Wait a minute!

As they stream past him.

JOHNNY:

I'll be back! I'll be back! And I'll remember every

last one of ya!

He points at them accusingly. But they keep following Terry into the

pier.

WIDER ANGLE—PIER ENTRANCE

As Father Barry and Edie look on, Stevedore blows his whistle for work

to begin. Longshoremen

by the hundreds march into the pier behind Terry like a conquering

army. In the B.G. a frenzied Johnny Friendly is still screaming, "I'll

be back! I'll be back!" The threat, real as it is, is lost in the

forward progress of Terry and the ragtail army of dock workers he now

leads.

FADE OUT:

THE END:

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