"If you don't want to be nervous, do yourself a great big service. Stay away as far from Seventh Avenue".
So sings Barbra Streisand in the 1961 Broadway musical "I Can Get It For You Wholesale". "The Garment Jungle", made four years before, is an expansion of those lyrics, and shows how scary that industry is. From the very beginning, where one of the partners of a garment making industry is brutally murdered, to the gripping ending that features a memorable roof-top chase sequence, "The Garment Jungle" is to the unions of the garment industry what "On the Waterfront" was to longshoremen. While it probably lessens the impact with the passage of time between the two films (three years can make a big difference), "The Garment Jungle" is still pertinent today because of the prevalence of major fashion houses and top models in that industry. Lee J. Cobb, a character actor I've come to respect more recently by seeing some of his less known films, gives a performance that is filled with small nuances of humanity thanks to the relationships he has with his son (Kerwin Matthews) and girlfriend (Valarie French). Gia Scala and Robert Loggia are good as union workers fighting Cobb and crime boss Richard Boone while getting Matthews on their side. This leads to conflicts between father and son, and a very brutal murder. Boone is wonderfully despicable (and grotesque), and stage and TV actor Wesley Addy (whom "Loving" viewers will recognize as kindly powerful patriarch Cabot Alden) is unforgettable from the moment you see him. How someone so seemingly civilized as Addy could end up being so deadly is a great twist. Quodos to the casting directors for their ingenuity in really putting some great people who rarely got their due in this film.
I really liked the interaction between the models preparing for a fashion show. (One of them is Joanna Barnes of "Auntie Mame" and "The Parent Trap" fame). The script is non-stop excitement. My only complaint was that there seems to be an important element deleted from the final print of how Scala made it from her mother-in-law's house to the D.A. with evidence. This is not a great film by any means; It seems very TV anthology series in concept, expanded for theatrical release, but somehow it all comes together and is quite satisfying. Columbia's late 50's film noirs were the best; They seemed to keep the genre going a few years longer than other studios output.
So sings Barbra Streisand in the 1961 Broadway musical "I Can Get It For You Wholesale". "The Garment Jungle", made four years before, is an expansion of those lyrics, and shows how scary that industry is. From the very beginning, where one of the partners of a garment making industry is brutally murdered, to the gripping ending that features a memorable roof-top chase sequence, "The Garment Jungle" is to the unions of the garment industry what "On the Waterfront" was to longshoremen. While it probably lessens the impact with the passage of time between the two films (three years can make a big difference), "The Garment Jungle" is still pertinent today because of the prevalence of major fashion houses and top models in that industry. Lee J. Cobb, a character actor I've come to respect more recently by seeing some of his less known films, gives a performance that is filled with small nuances of humanity thanks to the relationships he has with his son (Kerwin Matthews) and girlfriend (Valarie French). Gia Scala and Robert Loggia are good as union workers fighting Cobb and crime boss Richard Boone while getting Matthews on their side. This leads to conflicts between father and son, and a very brutal murder. Boone is wonderfully despicable (and grotesque), and stage and TV actor Wesley Addy (whom "Loving" viewers will recognize as kindly powerful patriarch Cabot Alden) is unforgettable from the moment you see him. How someone so seemingly civilized as Addy could end up being so deadly is a great twist. Quodos to the casting directors for their ingenuity in really putting some great people who rarely got their due in this film.
I really liked the interaction between the models preparing for a fashion show. (One of them is Joanna Barnes of "Auntie Mame" and "The Parent Trap" fame). The script is non-stop excitement. My only complaint was that there seems to be an important element deleted from the final print of how Scala made it from her mother-in-law's house to the D.A. with evidence. This is not a great film by any means; It seems very TV anthology series in concept, expanded for theatrical release, but somehow it all comes together and is quite satisfying. Columbia's late 50's film noirs were the best; They seemed to keep the genre going a few years longer than other studios output.