Vendeur pour dames

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.

In full Susan Hayward splendor, Susan stars as a coarse, ambitious, tough broad determined to get ahead. She starts out as a model, but her talent and passion lies in fashion designing instead, so she recruits producer Sam Jaffe and salesman Dan Dailey to join her in an entrepreneurial adventure. The film shows the backstage world of fashion design: the backroom deals, numbers and money and business side to things rather than just the fluffy beautiful fabrics.

How much is someone willing to sacrifice to achieve their dreams? Give up love, family, and ethics? Sell one's soul to the devil, fictionally represented by the ever-smooth George Sanders in the film. Susan Hayward is fantastic in her blind ambition; she's the perfect bad girl you hate to love. If you like Suzy, add this one to your list. I also really like the setting; countless Hollywood movies take place behind the scenes of a filmset, and not many showcase the same environment of the fashion world. It's really interesting, and groundbreaking to place a woman in such an ambitious role at that time.

This is an Abraham Polonsky film and a rare social documentary of the kind that was essentially out of business by the early 60's. The original novel had a male protagonist but was changed to suit 'women's picture' zeitgeist. But if you look carefully, the script is a very strong echo of "Force of Evil" by Polonsky.

In addition to some crucial taxicab courtship banter common to both films, designed to 'disarm' both John Garfield and Dan Dailey before their love interests (the car was even picked up in "On the Waterfront" to show actual desperation between the Brando and Steiger characters)you have tough males depicted as ambitious but morally uneducated instrumentalities; a background of "law of the jungle" capitalism governed by arcane insider rules (respectively bookmaking and garment manufacturing); industrial consolidation as an ominous force (neighborhood bookmaking subsumed under a legalized crime syndicate,dressmaking bought out by a big name)and industrialists with independent capitalist streaks (Thomas Gomez, Sam Jaffe).

It is amazing how Susan Hayward found films to echo some aspect of her life. She really was skilled in visual art, modeling, and had a family of Irish vaudeville types (echoed by Dailey).We were confused by the handling of the love interest. Could such an ambitious dame have found real love with anyone? And Teddy is not a lothario == just a penniless farceur who needed education and some control over his temper (a point almost entirely missed, but in real life such fisticuffs were a way to win Hayward's respect). Anyway, a rather juicy film to savor.

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.

This title at first sounded as though it might be a musical or at least a light comedy. But no, it's a quite potent drama, well scripted and engagingly played by a strong cast.

Susan Hayward offers a staunch heroine, torn between strata extremes of the fashion industry, anchored by two men--both of whom have romantic leanings toward her.

George Sanders is seen as the higher up of the two, and he's ideally cast. Few could bring off the cad type as well, and he plays it to the hilt here, as though relishing every moment.

The other suitor character showcases the dramatic ability of Dan Dailey, noted for lighter fare. Dailey is quite convincing as Hayward's other love interest.

That dependable character actor, Sam Jaffe, is just fine as Hayward's "conscious" and bridge between her callous ambition and fundamental simplicity.

Not available on vhs or dvd, this film is occasionally shown on cable or satellite networks.