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Waterfront moves so quickly that the film is half over by the time all the characters have been introduced. Dockworker Jim Dolan (Dennis Morgan) keeps landing in jail because he can't keep his fists to himself. He mends his ways with the help of waterfront priest Father Dunn (Aldrich Bowker), but goes back to his old bad habits when his brother is murdered. Attempting to outguess the cops, Dolan tries to hunt down the murderer by himself, much to the dismay of Jim's wife level-headed wife Ann (Gloria Dickson). Basically a Jimmy Cagney film without Cagney, Waterfront is fascinating in that Dennis Morgan, whom Warners was then building up as a star, plays a character with practically no sympathetic qualities whatsoever-at least until the climax.