This typical low-budget PRC Poverty Row feature with it's cheap sets was directed on the quick by Hungarian refugee director Steve Sekeley, born Istvan Szekely. As this film shows, he was not without talent. It is so cheaply made that PRC even cut down on the amount of fog used on the waterfront set. Most of the production budget must have gone to pay the two leads: John Carradine is, as to be expected, very good as his usual snarling self, but the best performance comes from that excellent character actor and dialectician, Irish-American J. Carol Naish, who as the Nazi ring leader sounds at times like Peter Lorre. (During the years this film was made, he was also the voice of the Italian Luigi on the long-time radio show Life with Luigi.) The rest of the cast is not very good. The romantic lead, Terry Frost, is wooden, particularly in a car scene shot against a background projection. One wonders what this now unknown director, who once made some decent films in Europe, might have done if he had the budget fellow Hungarian, Michael Curtiz, was given over at Warner Bros.
Review of Waterfront
