The Garment Jungle

Cut from familiar noir cloth - all eerie ceiling fans and empty elevator shafts expressionistically shot and lit - The Garment Jungle's off-the-peg plot concerns a coming-home Korean war veteran's discovery of foul play in the family firm and political gangsterism on either side. It's a sort of 'pro-labour' (Aldrich's term) On the Fashion Front, a radical retort to On the Waterfront's anti-union allegory three years earlier (both films were Columbia releases, both were set in New York, and both cast Cobb as a proto-capitalist patriarch). Uncredited director Robert Aldrich was replaced by Sherman only one week before shooting ended for his refusal to tone down a tough screenplay. In spite of Sherman's efforts, though, The Garment Jungle makes latter-day labour films like F.I.S.T., Norma Rae and Blue Collar look comparatively unstarched.