- Directors
- Vincent Sherman
- Robert Aldrich(uncredited)
- Writers
- Lester Velie(articles Gangsters in the Dress Business)
- Harry Kleiner(story and screenplay)
- Stars
- Directors
- Vincent Sherman
- Robert Aldrich(uncredited)
- Writers
- Lester Velie(articles Gangsters in the Dress Business)
- Harry Kleiner(story and screenplay)
- Stars
Videos1
- Joanne
- (uncredited)
- Dance Class Patron
- (uncredited)
- Worker
- (uncredited)
- Bit Model
- (uncredited)
- Worker
- (uncredited)
- Directors
- Vincent Sherman
- Robert Aldrich(uncredited)
- Writers
- Lester Velie(articles Gangsters in the Dress Business)
- Harry Kleiner(story and screenplay)
- All cast & crew
- See more cast details at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaA good depiction of a "sweat shop" that used the "piece work" method of pay. An employee was paid a very low hourly wage in the "piece work" system that paid by the unit. If the worker made enough "pieces" at a certain rate, they would be paid the higher of the two: the hourly rate or the rate based on the number of pieces they produced. They system encouraged employees to work fast and to not take breaks. The "piece work" system was common across the manufacturing industry until unions put an end to it.
- GoofsThe baby that Robert Loggia is holding in the office and hallway of the Dress Union building is different when he enters another room. The first baby is younger with short blondish hair. The other baby is much bigger with longer, blackish hair.
- Quotes
Artie Ravidge: A real troublemaker, that one. But don't you worry; this stuff'll move, it'll move. When I get done with him, he won't bother us no more.
Alan Mitchell: What are you going to do?
Artie Ravidge: Never mind. I'm going to educate that Union real good to lay off us.
Alan Mitchell: Dad, are you going to let him...?
Walter Mitchell: What do you want me to do? Give in to them? Let the Union take over? That's what'll happen once they grab hold. With their hours, and benefits, and guarantees... three percent of the payroll for retirement, two percent for health, two percent for vacations... always with their hands stuck out for more. The only thing a boss can be sure of these days is an early heart attack. Who guarantees me anything?
Alan Mitchell: How do other manufacturers get along...?
Walter Mitchell: I don't care about the others. I built this place with my own hands and nobody's going to tell me how to run it. I wanna be my own boss. Do you understand? My own boss.
Alan Mitchell: That still doesn't give you the right to keep a hoodlum on the payroll.
Artie Ravidge: Oh, this boy, when he gives it to you... right under the belt. Mr "Junior Executive", when you learn the facts of life in this business...
Alan Mitchell: Oh, I learned enough already. But never once did I hear anything about right or wrong.
Walter Mitchell: [pause] There's no such thing in the garment business.
- ConnectionsReferenced in The Exiles (1961)
Lee J. Cobb runs a women's-dresses firm; his ardently pro-labor partner, in the opening moments of the film, plummets to his death down a freight elevator shaft. It was no accident. Proud entrepreneur Cobb, though shaken, persists in his campaign to keep unions out of his shop by paying protection to a ruthless mobster (Richard Boone). Cobb's son (Kerwin Matthews) returns from a stay in Europe and, sympathizing with the piece-work jobbers, starts poking his nose into his father's business arrangements. He befriends a union organizer (Robert Loggia) who meets with a knife in an alley. Ultimately even Cobb comes to realize he's been dancing with the devil and tries to break off his alliance with Boone, who in turn unleashes his standard retaliation. But Matthews discovers the location of ledgers recording the history pay-offs....
Vincent Sherman, a veteran of both Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, directed, with some measure of assistance from Robert Aldrich. But here no divas reign; both Gia Scala and Valerie French take subsidiary roles, if not small ones. Hard guys dominate the movie, as they did in On The Waterfront, another look at New York City's labor relations (while nowhere near as mythic as that epic, The Garment Jungle matches it in brutality and in an unapologetically leftist point of view).
The movie boasts clarity and pace; there's even some nicely observed detail. Early scenes in the factory cleave into an upstairs/downstairs dichotomy: the jobbers sweat and toil for a pittance while the fashion models step into and out of elegant frocks (but, in malicious asides, the models grouse about being exploited as `escorts' for out-of-town buyers looking for a big night in the Big Apple).
With the exception of the merely serviceable Matthews (whose young career stumbled after this movie and never regained its footing), the cast is notably fine. Cobb reins in his basso-profundo growl and curmudgeonly shtik, while Boone, Loggia (in his credited debut) and Joseph Wiseman (as a union stoolie) give restrained, convincing performances. Moments when the script threatens to go treacly are swiftly undercut by violence, and the movie never wavers from its plea on behalf of men and women risking their very lives to fight for a living wage. It's a stance that will strike many as hopelessly dated, in an era when Americans aspire to the status of stockholders; maybe that accounts for the obscurity of a bold and unsentimental film from late in the noir cycle that is brazen enough to make an overt political statement.
- bmacv
- Sep 21, 2002
Details
Box office
- Budget
- $1,050,000 (estimated)
- Runtime1 hour 28 minutes
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 1.85 : 1
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