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.

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.

**SOILERS** With a steel-like grip on the New York City garment industry mobster Artie Ravidge, Richard Boone,has been running a protection racket taking in as much as $2,000.00 a month from clothes manufactures. That's to make sure that their business don't end up being burned by his hoods.The last thing that Ravidge wants is that the garment workers unionize thus putting him and his hoods out of business. It's when Ravidge has the president of Roxton Fashions Walter Mitchell's, Lee J. Cobb, partner and good friend Fred Kenner, (Robert Ellestein), who's in favor of unionizing the workers, killed in an elevator accident that Mitchell starts to have doubts about his relationship with him. Things get even more strained for Mitchell when his son Allan, Kerwin Mathews, shows up-after being away for some time in Europe-to help in running his garment business.Seeing what Ravidge has been doing in strong-arming the workers in preventing them from forming a union Allan decides to throw his lot in with firebrand union organizer Tulio Renata, Robert Loggia. It's when Tulio is later murdered by Ravidge's, with the help of a number of turncoats union members, thugs that even the wimpy Walter Mitchell decides that enough is enough in his having Ravidge, as a silent partner, run his garment business. But by then it's too late for Mitchell to turn evidence in his secret logs that he's been keeping, recoding all he shady deals he's had with Ravidge over the years, without him implicating himself!This is all ironed out by Ravidge himself in him having Mitchell murdered when he started shooting off his mouth in him unionizing his work force. This also had Allan together with the late Tulio's wife Theresa, Gia Scala, get their hands on Mitchel's logs and then try to get them into the hands of the city's District Attorneys office. That's if Ravidge who has everything to lose, including his freedom, allows them to do it!***SPOILERS*** Even though he was killed off early in the movie Tulio Renata was undoubtedly the one person who ended up putting the Ravidge mob behind bars. The fact that Tulio put his life on the line, and ended up losing it, gave the mostly intimidated workers the push that they needed to not only organize but throw Ravidge and his boys out of the garment industry. As for Allan he soon took up the torch that Tulio dropped and, by risking his life, got the goods-his father's secret logs-that not only exposed Ravidge's murderous protection racket but had him arrested indited and finally convicted for the many crimes that he committed.

I was lucky enough to see a VHS-transfer copy of this, and despite the poor quality, I can recommend this as a top-notch Crime/Mob/Racket thriller. Not exactly noir, but shares many many similar qualities - fast pace, seedy NY locations, opening voice-over etc. Think 'Phenix City Story' and you won't go far wrong - though this is actually even better than that. As usual, Lee J. Cobb is outstanding. And it seems strange to see Cobb here, in such an unashamedly 'leftish' film, after the trouble he had with HUAC earlier in the decade. There's not one mention of the 'C' word, though "anti-communism" would undoubtedly have been the cover for the Mob's anti-union activities... This is only one of very few films I can think of from Hollywood with a pro-Union message - and I doubt if it could even have been made during the height of the McCarthyite witch-hunt. Find it, watch it, enjoy it. And then join your local trade union, organise to keep the mobsters and agitators out.