On the Waterfront / Midnight Cowboy

ON THE WATERFRONT, 1954, Sony Repertory, 108 min. Director Elia Kazan adapts Budd Schulberg’s grueling account of Hoboken dock-worker life, starring Marlon Brando in his most iconic performance as a washed-up prize fighter who falls in love with the sister (Eva Marie Saint) of the "stool pigeon" he set up for corrupt union organizer Lee J. Cobb. Rod Steiger delivers a wrenching performance as the older brother who helped betray Brando’s chances as a boxer.

MIDNIGHT COWBOY, 1969, MGM Repertory, 113 min. Director John Schlesinger tracks naïve male hustler Joe Buck (Jon Voight) on his sordid adventures from 42nd Street peepshows to upscale parties with the Warhol crowd in this trailblazing, alternately shocking and poignant study of being down-and-out in the Big Apple. Dustin Hoffman as homeless thief Ratso Rizzo supplies one of the touchstone performances of the burgeoning New Hollywood.