The Garment Jungle

Alan Mitchell comes back to New York to work at his father's garment company. To keep the shop non-union, his father Walter has hired a man named Artie Ravidge, who keeps the workers in line with threats and beatings. The further Alan gets inside, the more he sees of how the workrooms actually run, who owes what to whom, and what his father has made himself part of. Robert Aldrich was directing the film to begin with; he was removed partway through, and Vincent Sherman rewrote the script and reshot a large share of it. Most listings now carry both names. The result is a hard production that ties a union fight to a noir thriller. It is unusually direct for a 1957 picture: it says out loud where the violence comes from and who is making money from it.