Ambição de Mulher

Jerome Weidman's novel is the basis for the film of the same name. This film was a curiosity piece. Shown on a cable channel, it proved to be worth a look because of the general good adaptation of the book and the direction of Michael Gordon.

The movie takes a look at the "rag trade", or garment industry of New York in the fifties. We are presented with a trio of ambitious people who want to make it on their own. There's Harriet Boyd, the show room model who has had it and wants to show her talents as a designer. Harriet and Cooper, the man in charge of the production need a great salesman who knows how to sell the affordable dress line to the big department stores, so they entice Teddy Sherman to join their team.

Things go smoothly, but Harriet is a woman with a vision that would be her worst enemy. Harriet Boyd feels flattered by Mr. Noble, a man who is influential in what women of a certain status would like to buy, and decides to start an expensive line, neglecting the orders placed with the firm. All this backfires when Teddy finds out the deception and wants out. In the end, Harriet sees the light and what Noble has been trying to do with her and goes back to the partners she left behind and Teddy, who is obviously much in love with her.

The film offers glimpses of what 7th Avenue looked like in that era and what goes on behind the production of the fashions that America wore before that industry was exported overseas by the same people that created it. The "Made in USA" label was soon a thing of the past as this industry is not the shadow of what it was.

Susan Hayward's portrayal of the ambitious Harriet is what makes this movie worth seeing. George Sanders is perfect as Noble, the man who recognizes Harriet's talents and wants her to come work for him. Dan Dailey is also excellent as the salesman with a lot of flair. Sam Jaffe is Cooper, the decent man who gambles all his savings in the business he knows well.

The film will not disappoint, as it keeps the viewer interested at all times.

Susan plays Harriet Boyd, a ruthless model-turned-fashion designer determined to claw her way to the top on Seventh Avenue. It's a Joan Crawford-ish role, but Hayward acts the role with a real vulnerability that Crawford lacks. Part of the film is shot on location in the Garment District and it's an interesting look at postwar Manhattan and an industry that's long gone. Boyd is forced to choose romantically between scrappy salesman Teddy Sherman (Dan Daily) or the suave garment mogul J.B. Noble (George Sanders). Interestingly, considering the fact the film was made in 1951, all the women's clothing in the film seems a little dated. Hayward has a floppy (but charming) forties' hairdo. Dior introduced his New Look in 1947, but you'd never know it here. Even Boyd's role as a determined career woman was starting to look passé as women in the fifties were pressured to leave the workforce to open up jobs for unemployed veterans. I Can Get It For You Wholesale is a great period-piece and a well-acted and engrossing film.

Susan Hayward is a determined, talented and ambitious woman in "I Can Get it for You Wholesale," a 1951 film which also stars George Sanders, Dan Dailey and Sam Jaffe. The title comes from the novel but the actual plot is only very loosely taken from the book.

The beautiful Hayward plays Harriet Boyd, a dress model in a small business in New York's Garment District. She talks the owner (Sam Jaffe) into putting up some money and going into business with her so that she can launch her own line. She gets the top salesman (Dan Dailey) to do the same, and she manipulates her own sister into offering insurance money for Harriet's share in the business. Harriet's ability and drive get the business going, and she's all work. Though Danny Sherman (Dailey) is in love with her, she gives him the brush-off. The two eventually stop speaking when Danny catches having dinner with a wolf-like buyer (Harry von Zell). One night, at a big buyer's dinner, she meets J.F. Noble, the head of Noble's Department Store, probably comparable to Saks Fifth Avenue. She wants to launch a line of gowns, which will mean getting out of her contract with her partners. Noble wants more than Harriet's gowns; he wants Harriet as well.

This is a very good drama with fine performances from everyone involved. Hayward, of course, carries the film as a driven woman who ends up having to question not only what she really wants but her own ethics and sense of responsibility. Sanders is great as the elegant Noble, representing, in a way, the devil, who knows Harriet's heart but wants her to sell her soul. Sam Jaffe is perfect as the grandfatherly boss, and Dan Dailey steps out of his dancing shoes and proves himself a good leading man.

Highly recommended and a must for Hayward fans.

During much of her career, Susan Hayward played dames...hard-bitten, conniving and power-hungry dames. Because of this, her role in "I Can Get It For You Wholesale" is very familiar. Once again, she's playing a tough woman who is as tough a man as anyone in the film. The only real question is how many folks she'll need to talk on along her path to the top in the fashion designer business.

Her partner near the beginning of the film is played by Dan Dailey. Dailey's character is tough but soon wants no part of the sexless and determined Hayward. It doesn't matter anyway, as he's 'small potatoes' and soon sets her sights on a bigger fish (George Sanders).

Overall, this is an enjoyable soap opera-like film--the sort of glossy trash at which Ms. Hayward excelled. It's not particularly deep nor groundbreaking but it is enjoyable in a sleazy sort of way.

I Can Get It For You Wholesale is the story about how dress designer/model Susan Hayward, salesman Dan Dailey, and dressmaker Sam Jaffe pool their talents to form their own company to be just one more in the center of the fashion industry on Seventh Avenue in Manhattan. This film came out in 1951 and over 60 years later it's one of the few things about New York City that hasn't changed.

Other than the automobiles that part of New York City also has the same look to it as well and this is a film that could be done today. Only the garment workers will change, they'll be black and Hispanic and Asian women on those sewing machines now.

Dailey and Hayward are an unlikely pair. He's in love with her, but he's a chauvinistic lunkhead. Hayward steps into a part that a decade earlier Barbara Stanwyck would have been cast in. She's a model who knows she can design and models have a short shelf life for careers. She's ambitious and thinks of her partnership as a stepping stone. Further up the food chain is department store owner George Sanders fresh off his Oscar win in All About Eve. If she can only become the exclusive designer for his stores.

The plot of the story is somewhat unreal especially when the better angels of Hayward's nature come out in the end. But soon to be blacklisted writer Abraham Polonsky is best at capturing the mood and feel of the garment industry at the time. The industry was a huge employer of women, but it was controlled by men. Something that young Edythe Marrener of Brooklyn would have grown up with before she became Susan Hayward. Girls in high school in New York City looked for employment there upon graduation and new job aspirants were coming out every year.

I Can Get It For You Wholesale is a look at New York in the middle of the last century. Real kudos should also go to Sam Jaffe who is the wise old father figure for both Dailey and Hayward and to Marvin B. Kaplan whose deadpan delivery of their office boy gave him a breakthrough role in a stage and screen career.

A must for Susan Hayward fans like me.