The Garment Jungle (1957)
The Garment Jungle (1957)
„The Garment Jungle“ is a 1957 film noir crime film directed by Vincent Sherman. The screenplay by Harry Kleiner is based on articles „Gangsters in the Dress Business“ by Lester Velie.
Alan Mitchell is a returning Korean War veteran who joins his father Walter’s garment company, Roxton Fashions. The firm has been paying protection money to gangsters led by Artie Ravidge to keep the union out.
Walter’s partner, Fred Kenner, sympathizes with the union’s goals. After he tells Walter to sever his ties with the hoodlum enforcers, Kenner is killed when the freight elevator he enters, which was just „fixed“ by one of the hoods disguised as a repairman, plunges 12 stories to the bottom of the shaft. Tulio Renata is a union organizer trying to organize the factory, who also later gets murdered by Ravidge’s men, and his wife Theresa Renata endures threats against herself and their child.
Mitchell comes to sympathize with the plight of the workers. When he finally convinces his father to fire the union-busting gangsters, Walter is killed and Ravidge attempts to take over the factory. Theresa Renata takes copies of Mitchell’s records to the police, who arrest Ravidge.
A 1957 American Black & White film-noir crime film directed by Vincent Sherman, produced by Harry Kleiner, screenplay by Kleiner, based on articles „Gangsters in the Dress Business“ by Lester Velie, cinematography by Joseph F. Biroc, starring Lee J. Cobb, Kerwin Mathews, Gia Scala, Richard Boone, Valerie French, Robert Loggia, Joseph Wiseman, Harold J. Stone, Adam Williams, Wesley Addy, Willis Bouchey, Robert Ellenstein, and Celia Lovsky. June Tolley and Joanna Barnes’ screen debut. Final screen appearances of Diane DeLaire and Peggy O’Connor. Sid Melton makes an uncredited appearance as a garment worker.
In July 1956 Robert Aldrich signed a two-picture deal with Columbia to make films through his own company, The Associates and Aldrich, and this was to be the first. Aldrich says he mostly agreed to do the film so Columbia would finance the second movie he wanted to make, „Until Proven Guilty.“ But by December, after several weeks of filming, with two weeks left before completion, Aldrich was replaced by director Vincent Sherman, who had made a number of films for Columbia. Sherman received sole screen credit. Sherman had been gray-listed and this was his first screen credit in five years.
Aldrich says „it was shaping up as a pretty good picture“ when Columbia „suddenly realized they had no intention of making that sort of document; they wanted to make ’boy meets girl in a dress factory’. I was pretty stubborn, and Harry Cohn, head of Columbia, was pretty stubborn, and they wanted to change the focus, the force, the direction of the picture. I wouldn’t do it and Cohn fired me.“ He said Cohn „became frightened how tough it was.“ Aldrich says he had become interested in the Lee J. Cobb character, the man „squeezed out by both big business and excessive labor demands and gangsterism … also fettered by being Jewish, of which he was proud but also sub consciously angry since it interfered with his complete freedom due to the survival of some brands of anti-Semitism.“
Aldrich added that Lee J Cobb „was one of the sore points on that film. He had an old, long standing relationship with Harry Cohn. Cobb and I did not get along. He’s a very strong willed actor. A wonderful actor but … That could have been a wonderful picture. It just ran out of guts in the middle.“ Aldrich said Cobb „didn’t want to be a rough father. He didn’t want to have people dislike him. And it was necessary for him to be a tough, miserable son of a bitch, not a good guy. So everyday someone or other would want me to soften the script.“ According to Sherman, „Aldrich and the producer were not getting along“ and „neither one of them were getting along with Harry Cohn“. Cohn asked Sherman to do „one or two scenes and I couldn’t turn him down.“ Sherman says Cohn then asked him to finish the picture. „I didn’t know what the hell was going on,“ said Sherman. „I re-shot, I would say, about seventy percent of the picture in about ten days time.“
“That was a strange experience,“ said Aldrich. „I don’t remember another occasion of a guy getting fired for wanting to shoot the picture he’d been assigned. Usually, if you’re fired, it’s for wanting to change the script.“ Aldrich says he never saw the final film but was told „about half or two thirds of it is mine“. He may have seen it later because he said Sherman made it „very quiet and very mild. It became a love story, also about a father who wanted give his business to his son, all that bullshit.“ Aldrich went on to sue Columbia for not financing Storm in the Sun, a film he wanted to make. The case settled out of court.
Despite the firing Aldrich admired Cohn. „I think he ran a marvellous studio … I think he did it as well as anybody could do it … He wasn’t in the money business he was in the movie business.“ Aldrich says he had a chance to do other work for Cohn before the latter died but didn’t go and „always regretted it.“
Cast:
- Lee J. Cobb – Walter Mitchell
- Kerwin Mathews – Alan Mitchell
- Gia Scala – Theresa Renata
- Richard Boone – Artie Ravidge
- Valerie French – Lee Hackett
- Robert Loggia – Tulio Renata
- Joseph Wiseman – George Kovan
- Harold J. Stone – Tony
- Adam Williams – Ox
- Wesley Addy – Mr. Paul
- Willis Bouchey – Dave Bronson
- Robert Ellenstein – Fred Kenner
- Celia Lovsky – Tulio’s Mother
„Ums nackte Leben“ ist ein Film Noir-Kriminalfilm von 1957 unter der Regie von Vincent Sherman. Das Drehbuch von Harry Kleiner basiert auf dem Artikel „Gangsters in the Dress Business“ von Lester Velie.
Alan Mitchell ist ein aus dem Koreakrieg zurückgekehrter Veteran, der in die Bekleidungsfirma seines Vaters Walter, Roxton Fashions, einsteigt. Die Firma zahlt Schutzgelder an Gangster unter der Führung von Artie Ravidge, um die Gewerkschaft fernzuhalten.
