Racket dans la couture

Vincent Sherman was always a good director of melodramas, particularly if he had a strong leading lady. He made "The Garment Jungle" in 1957 after the original director, Robert Aldrich, was taken off the picture. You could hardly call it a problem picture but it did deal with the issue of Trade Unions and, in its way, it did find Sherman out of his comfort zone, (Aldrich was much better suited to the material). Nevertheless, it's a good example of its kind with a strong cast headed by Lee J. Cobb and featuring the likes of Robert Loggia, Richard Boone, Wesley Addy and Joseph Wiseman in supporting roles. However it's let down somewhat by its handsome, wooden lead, Kerwin Mathews, who always looked better shirtless, in baggy pants and with a scimitar in his hand. It was also lacking in a strong female lead; Gia Scala and Valerie French are as good as we get here and while both are very pretty neither was ever likely to be Oscar-bait. No "On the Waterfront" then but still worth seeing.

In New York City's garment district, women's dress manufacturer Lee J. Cobb (as Walter Mitchell) argues against allowing employees to join a union. His longtime business partner supports the union and is rewarded with an unfortunate accident. Garment workers who join unions are threatened with a shortened life expediency. This is why Mr. Cobb tells his handsome young son Kerwin Mathews (as Alan Mitchell), back in the US after several years overseas, to look at other employment opportunities. Formerly estranged, Mr. Mathews insists on joining the family business. Mathews soon discovers "Roxton Fashions" is tied up in deadly "protection" from mobster terrorist Richard Boone (as Artie Ravidge) and his goons...

Writer-producer Harry Kleiner reportedly changed directors, from Robert Aldrich, to Vincent Sherman, which may be why this interesting drama doesn't live up to its potential. He does get great black-and-white photography (by Joseph Biroc) and a fine cast. Cobb starts out strong, but confusingly becomes a supporting player. In his best moments, Cobb channels his "On the Waterfront" (1954) role. His character otherwise wavers between indistinct and naive. Consequently, girlfriend Valerie French (as Lee Hackett) gets very little to do. Leading man Matthews receives lackluster introductory scenes, upstaged by Cobb and women who are stripped to their underwear. Mathews gets stronger, but seems left to his own devices...

The real female lead is Gia Scala (as Theresa), as the wife of union organizer Robert Loggia (as Tulio Renata). While also good, she loses spontaneity. One of Mathews and Scala's most memorable scenes is a good example. On a pivotal evening, Matthews, Ms. Scala and her baby stop at a bar. She unbuttons her shirt to breast-feed the baby, but moves to another booth for privacy. After however many rehearsals and retakes, you still have to move around the booths like it's the first time. It's a fine scene, but could have been better. There are also jagged moments; a man enters a room too suddenly, for example, and a banister shakes like it's a prop. While the flaws stand out, much of "The Garment Jungle" fits nicely.

****** The Garment Jungle (1957-04-25) Vincent Sherman ~ Kerwin Mathews, Lee J. Cobb, Gia Scala, Richard Boone

The struggle for the worker to get a decent living wage with a few benefits has been removed from the consciousness of the proletariat since Ronald Reagan broke the ATC union in the eighties. Since then the populace has been persuaded into believing that the worker is best left to the trickle down generosity of the employer.

This film is a throwback to that struggle and has a message packed with a powerhouse persona of greed, violence, and suppression. It utilizes realistic on location street photography to give a hard boiled and bitter verisimilitude. There are other flashes of "realism" not usually found in typical Hollywood films.

Some very slick indoor photography and gripping performances throughout deliver this expose in a package marked "stay out of it, or its your baby's legs next". Tough stuff for the conservative, establishment, 1950's.

In 1956, in broad daylight in midtown Manhattan, labor columnist Victor Riesel, who had written an expose of corruption in a Long Island union, was blinded by a bottle of acid flung into his face. This was the brutal New York battleground in which the aptly named The Garment Jungle took place the following year, a tough and absorbing drama about the fight to unionize the rag trade.

Lee J. Cobb runs a women's-dresses firm; his ardently pro-labor partner, in the opening moments of the film, plummets to his death down a freight elevator shaft. It was no accident. Proud entrepreneur Cobb, though shaken, persists in his campaign to keep unions out of his shop by paying protection to a ruthless mobster (Richard Boone). Cobb's son (Kerwin Matthews) returns from a stay in Europe and, sympathizing with the piece-work jobbers, starts poking his nose into his father's business arrangements. He befriends a union organizer (Robert Loggia) who meets with a knife in an alley. Ultimately even Cobb comes to realize he's been dancing with the devil and tries to break off his alliance with Boone, who in turn unleashes his standard retaliation. But Matthews discovers the location of ledgers recording the history pay-offs....

Vincent Sherman, a veteran of both Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, directed, with some measure of assistance from Robert Aldrich. But here no divas reign; both Gia Scala and Valerie French take subsidiary roles, if not small ones. Hard guys dominate the movie, as they did in On The Waterfront, another look at New York City's labor relations (while nowhere near as mythic as that epic, The Garment Jungle matches it in brutality and in an unapologetically leftist point of view).

The movie boasts clarity and pace; there's even some nicely observed detail. Early scenes in the factory cleave into an upstairs/downstairs dichotomy: the jobbers sweat and toil for a pittance while the fashion models step into and out of elegant frocks (but, in malicious asides, the models grouse about being exploited as `escorts' for out-of-town buyers looking for a big night in the Big Apple).

With the exception of the merely serviceable Matthews (whose young career stumbled after this movie and never regained its footing), the cast is notably fine. Cobb reins in his basso-profundo growl and curmudgeonly shtik, while Boone, Loggia (in his credited debut) and Joseph Wiseman (as a union stoolie) give restrained, convincing performances. Moments when the script threatens to go treacly are swiftly undercut by violence, and the movie never wavers from its plea on behalf of men and women risking their very lives to fight for a living wage. It's a stance that will strike many as hopelessly dated, in an era when Americans aspire to the status of stockholders; maybe that accounts for the obscurity of a bold and unsentimental film from late in the noir cycle that is brazen enough to make an overt political statement.

Lee J. Cobb, Kerwin Mathews, Robert Loggia, Richard Boone, Gia Scala, Valerie French, and Wesley Addy are part of "The Garment Jungle," a 1957 film directed initially by Robert Aldrich, who was fired, and finished by Vincent Sherman.

Cobb plays Walter Mitchell, who owns a fashion house, Roxton Fashions, that sells to the trade in New York's garment district. Thanks to a partnership with mobster Artie Ravidge (Boone), he has managed to keep the union, ILGWU, out of his shop. The union has been gaining ground in the industry. One union worker, Tulio Renata (Loggia) is determined to unionize the sweat shop.

When Walter's partner wants to unionize, he is murdered, and though it's made to look like an accident, no one is fooled.

When Alan (Mathews), Walter's son, returns to New York after being away for several years, he's shocked by what is going on and that his father seems to be condoning violence to keep the union out.

Some of this is quite good showing the problems that the union had breaking into the garment industry, as well as the brutality some of the unionists faced.

Viewed today, some of the film is over the top. I found Loggia and Gia Scala, as a passionate Italian couple, too exaggerated. In fact, theirs and Cobb's performances were too theatrical. Compared to them, in fact, Kerwin Mathews seemed bland until the end of the movie. Mathews found success in costumers later on.

Boone and the actor playing his enforcer, Wesley Addy, gave restrained performances, playing against gangster personalities. The beautiful Valerie French had a smaller role as Cobb's girlfriend, a major buyer.

One thing that was a little out there was a funeral scene - footage from something else was used - maybe Valentino's funeral? It didn't seem plausible for the character who passed away.

All in all, a good film, though it doesn't stand up against a film like Waterfront.