I COVER THE WATERFRONT (1933) Ben Lyon & Claudette Colbert | Crime, Drama, Romance | B&W

I Cover the Waterfront is a 1933 American Pre-Code romantic drama film directed by James Cruze and starring Ben Lyon, Claudette Colbert, Ernest Torrence, and Hobart Cavanaugh.

Based on the book, by Max Miller, a reporter for the San Diego Sun,[9] the film is about a reporter who investigates a waterfront smuggling operation, and becomes romantically involved with the daughter of the man he is investigating.

SYNOPSIS
An investigative reporter romances a suspected smuggler's daughter.

San Diego Standard reporter H. Joseph Miller (Ben Lyon) has been covering the city's waterfront for the past five years and is fed up with the work. He longs to escape the waterfront life and land a newspaper job back East so he can marry his Vermont sweetheart. Miller is frustrated by the lack of progress of his current assignment investigating the smuggling of Chinese into the country by a fisherman named Eli Kirk (Ernest Torrence). One morning after wasting a night tracking down bad leads, his editor at the Standard orders him to investigate a report of a girl swimming naked at the beach. There he meets Julie Kirk (Claudette Colbert), the daughter of the man he's been investigating.

Meanwhile, Eli Kirk and his crew are returning to San Diego with a Chinese passenger when the Coast Guard approaches. Not wanting to be caught with evidence of his smuggling operation, Kirk orders his men to weigh down the Chinese man and lower him overboard to his death. The Coast Guard, accompanied by Miller, board the boat but find nothing. The next day, Miller discovers the man's body which was carried in with the tide, and takes it as evidence to his editor, who still remains skeptical of Kirk's guilt. To get conclusive evidence, Miller tells him he plans to romance Kirk's daughter Julie in order to break the smuggling operation.

When Kirk returns, he informs Julie that they will need to move on soon—maybe to Singapore—as soon as he can put together enough money for the voyage. One night, Julie discovers her father drunk at a boarding house. Miller, who was there investigating Kirk, helps Julie take her father home. Julie does not discourage Miller's flirtations, and during the next few weeks they fall in love. She is able to help Miller see the beauty of the waterfront, and inspires him to improve the novel he's been working for the past five years. While visiting an old Spanish galleon on a date, he playfully restrains her in a torture rack and kisses her passionately—and she returns his passion.

The next morning, Miller's breaking story is published on the Standard's front page. When a wounded Kirk makes his way back home, Julie learns that it was Miller who helped the Coast Guard uncover her father's smuggling operation (of which she was unaware), and that she unknowingly revealed to him his landing location. Soon after, Miller, feeling guilty over the story's impact to Julie's life, arrives at her home and apologizes for the hurt he's caused her, and announces that he loves her. Feeling used by his actions, an angry Julie sends him away. Later that night, Miller locates Kirk, who shoots him in the arm. Julie arrives to help her father escape, and seeing Miller wounded, she tells her father she cannot leave Miller to die. Seeing that she loves him, Kirk helps her take Miller to safety, after which Kirk dies. Later from his hospital bed, Miller acknowledges in his newspaper column that Kirk saved his life before he died. Sometime later, Miller returns to his apartment, where Julie is waiting to greet him.

CAST & CREW
Ben Lyon as H. Joseph Miller
Claudette Colbert as Julie Kirk
Ernest Torrence as Eli Kirk, Julie's father
Hobart Cavanaugh as McCoy
Maurice Black as Ortegus, Kirk's first mate
Purnell Pratt as John Phelps, Miller's editor
Harry Beresford as Old Chris, the salvage man
Wilfred Lucas as Randall, the Coast Guard officer

Directed by James Cruze
Written by Jack Jevne (additional dialogue), Screenplay by Wells Root, Based on I Cover the Waterfront by Max Miller
Produced by Edward Small, Joseph M. Schenck
Cinematography Ray June
Edited by Grant Whytock
Music by Alfred Newman
Production companies Reliance Pictures/Joseph M. Schenck Productions
Distributed by United Artists
Release date May 17, 1933 (US)
Running time 75 minutes (8 reels)
Country United States
Language English

NOTES
Rights to the novel were bought by Edward Small and his partner Harry Goets in 1932. They made it through the Reliance Picture Corporation as the first of a six-film deal with United Artists.[10] Reliance co-produced the film with Joseph Schenck's Art Cinema Corporation.

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