So I rewatched Mr. Roberts and it boggles my mind how a film about the merchant marine could be a smash hit. Coming from a time of the merchant marine being within the public conscious where many people would pay to watch a mo ie about it to now where to tell people what you do they think “you’re a deadliest catch guy”.
1 Like
The change came when ocean liners stopped being the only method of travel across oceans.
Ocean liners introduced people to life at sea. Even if you yourself didn’t travel overseas you would have gone down to the working waterfront to meet someone arriving, or see off someone departing. Ocean travel was integral to modern life.
The working waterfront employed a much larger percentage of the populace than it does now, and the waterfront formed what had been the core of many cities.
You were more likely to work on, or know someone who worked on, ships or the waterfront in 1925 than in 2025. And if you lived in a port city you could see ships loading and unloading just on the edge of downtown.
Container operations relocated out of city cores in the 1960s-1970s. The working waterfront is now a place apart, and mariners and dockers far fewer because operations are far more efficient.
The same thing happened to railroads. Movies featuring rail travel and trains were a mainstay of entertainment until the mid-1950s, when people stopped traveling by train.
Prior to that you could say the majority of movies mentioned trains, showed trains, or featured trains. After the mid-1950s the presence of trains in movies, and in popular culture, rapidly dwindled.
There are plenty of movies about air travel because plenty of people fly. But once Star Trek transporters become a thing movies involving air travel will be a thing of the past.
9 Likes
An old friend used to play stickball with his childhood pals on the Moore-McCormack piers in Brooklyn, right alongside the ships as they worked cargo. It inspired him to join the NMU and see the exotic places the crew would talk to them about. In an era where you had to pick up a Britannica for a glimpse of the exotic, or a Nat Geo, the thrill and romance of adventure on the high seas was grander than today— the age of proposed three day work weeks and working remotely. I’ve been called a sucker for shipping out and working 7 days a week for months on end.
A different time.
6 Likes
Not really sure Mister Roberts would qualify as being about the merchant marine though since it was a “USS” vessel as written. Yeah, it was a cargo ship, but it was most of all a Navy ship. A better example would probably be “The Long Voyage Home” (which did not garner the same “smash hit” status, even though it was nominated for several Oscars).
The draw for Mr Roberts was likely mostly due to the cast. Henry Fonda, James Cagney, and Jack Lemmon were all pretty big names in the 50’s when it came out.
3 Likes
Are you suggesting that Contraband wasn’t a smash hit?! Sarcasm of course…. But Captain Phillips cleared $200 million at the box office, though to @jbtam99 ‘s point, the story might have been topical but Hanks is a draw no matter what.
Now you can go down to the same waterfront and marvel at the waterfront condominiums without a second of thought as to where all the furnishings came from or how they were transported to the US.
3 Likes
For those of you who like old movies there is a merchant marine movie you might have missed: The Ghost Ship - Wikipedia
This is a 1943 movie, not the schlock horror movie from the 2000s.
it’s a psychological thriller about a captain who may or may not be going mad.
There was a thread on here recently going on about chain lockers. The chain locker plays a pivotal part in the movie.
2 Likes
I see how people get into the tug side of things, and a lot of people are coming over from fishing. As a matter of fact, years ago, people would ask me how was the fishing when I came back from Alaska. Maybe if there was any recruiting done at the high schools like the military does, the younger people would know about it
I’ll add the following: The war on terror, port security nonsense, and everybody’s favorite, the TWIC card have all helped to obscure our business behind the fence of national security.
7 Likes
When there were no fences or security on the docks, and kids were “wharf rats” playing on the working waterfront, people grew up watching the merchant marine in action. Now it’s a secret industry at a distance behind the fence. Nobody knows about it.
7 Likes
Used to see that in Japanese ports. Whole families sitting on the dock fishing. The waterfront used to be part of the “village” even in Kobe or Yokohama.
2 Likes
How would the public know if a ship was made and crewed all USA or all foreign?
A ship brings foreign goods, safe to assume its all 100% foreign
Why would the public think otherwise?
Much less people work in the industry now. What used to be 40 people crew is now 18 or so.
2 Likes
A much larger portion of coastwise and river freight is now by truck, instead of by sea.
Trains have lost freight to trucks too.
1 Like
Over the last 50 years there has also been a very strong anti-union bias across media. There has been a corresponding steady decline in union membership, the understanding of the importance of unions, and interest in union jobs.
Once upon a time more than 1 in 3 non agricultural private sector workers across the country were unionized.
A certain side of the political spectrum has been very pro-business and has done everything they can to consistently paint unions in a bad light. Having a vibrant and sustainable maritime economy with careers afloat that pay living wages requires unions, especially in a globalized transport economy where ships and mariners from other countries can often operate at reduced costs.
Much of the public unfortunately views union workers derisively; as people who work as little as possible, get tons of cushy benefits, and generally get paid more money than they deserve.
3 Likes
Unions have earned their poor reputation.
The absurdly low productivity and high cost of longshoremen have killed short sea shipping in the US.
when shipping by barge, the cost of the longshoremen often exceeds the cost of the tug and barge service.
6 Likes
The trouble occurs with unions when the pendulum swings too far in their favour. Things are just as bad when it swings the other way.
As a young lad there were no gates on our wharves and no cargo work on the weekends past mid day Saturday.
Hotels shut at 18:00 and ship’s were party central and the source of exotic stuff like Levi jeans. The newspapers had a shipping correspondent and shipping movements were published.
With the rise of containerization, 24 hour work and the growth in the drug trade and illegal immigration old wharves fell into disuse and the new complexes were fenced off under tight security.
In Los Angeles in particular the film industry used the derelict wharves to film all kinds of imagined mayhem and shootings that along with the clean and futuristic aircraft industry image portrayed turned the public off.
4 Likes
There is one peculiar factor about a mariner’s life that makes it uniquely boring for portrayals in movies: the lack of women.
Movie producers want a romance in their productions. A movie with just men in it is unappealing to half the public.
Until relatively recently the MM was almost exclusively filled with men. A very hard sell for movie makers. No chance for romance.
The only part of commercial shipping where women outnumber men, and romance is actively encouraged, is the cruise ship segment. There have been plenty of movies and entire TV series taking place on cruise ships.
Air travel is a perfect industry for movie-making: a couple of alpha males leading a squad of nubile females: the movie plots are endless.
But a merchant marine movie would have more in common with prison movies. With the exception that in prison the drama comes from the inmates trying to escape, while on a ship the men are perfectly contented to serve out their time, and the only hint of a riot comes when the wi-fi signal is lost.
8 Likes
The U.S. is a big diverse country. Maritime culture exists in various pockets. Many of the coastal towns in Maine for example and coastal New England in general.
When you go to pick up your luggage at BWI airport in Baltimore there’s that big mural with sailing ships. The S/V Pride of Baltimore, the inner harbor downtown is a big tourist attraction.
Don’t know about Ballard now but at one time it was fishing community within the larger city of Seattle which was associated with Boeing and tech (Microsoft, etc)
4 Likes
The Seattle fishing fleet has shrunk to just a shadow of the old days due to “rationalization,” limited entry, individual quotas, quota leasing, etc.
Economic pressures have also made Seattle less affordable, and smaller fishing towns more attractive for the off season.
Ballard still has a lot of fishing boats, but less than half of what it had in the old days. Across the channel, Seattle’s Fisherman’s Terminal has empty berths and an increasing number of yachts.
Yuppification and rapid growth has transformed Ballard. It’s flooded with Google and Amazon workers. A lot of single family homes near downtown Ballard have been replaced with big boxes of condos and apartments
Ballard isn’t a Norwegian neighborhood anymore. You won’t hear a word of Norwegian on the street or in the bars. Scandies (the Norwegian restaurant) has been replaced by an Indian restaurant. The Smoke Shop is now smokeless. Lots of upscale restaurants and shops.
Seattle and Ballard have fewer maritime support services.
Fishing definitely has a much smaller footprint
6 Likes
Yeah, so I’d think what happened in Ballard is a microcosm of both other coastal towns and the country as a whole. The underlying economy in an area, what people do for a living, is going to drive the culture.
2 Likes