Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
Release Date: September 23rd, 2008
MSRP: $19.94

Director: Vincent Sherman (Director of credit, though Robert Aldrich filmed the majority og the film before being fired).
Stars: Lee J. Cobb, Kerwin Mathews, Gia Scala, Richard Boone, Valerie French

I get the impression that The Garment Jungle might have been aspiring to be the next On The Waterfront, but could not quite get there. While not bad, it simply lacks the power (both in story and in performances) of that classic.


The Garment Jungle, set in the New York garment industry, finds Alan (Kerwin Mathews ) returning to the city to work for his father Walker (Lee J. Cobb) whose company makes dresses.

Walter is trying to keep his workers from unionizing and hires Artie, a local thug, to prevent it from happening, while Alan is sympatric with the workers plight and sides with the union organizer (Robert Loggia) and his wife (Gia Scala).

Obviously this causes conflict between father and son. Before long, Walter realizes that Artie is going too far and must be stopped. When Walter attempts to fire him. Artie makes his move and tries to take over the company.

Sadly, TGJ seems to simplify things, giving us an obvious villain when it could have played up the logical desires of each side in this conflict. Instead of shades of grey, we get black and white.

The conflict between factory workers and the owners was often brutal and complex, but this film takes the easy way out, with the result being a wishy-washy film.

Visually, The Garment Jungle is quite nice, certainly better than one might expect from a minor film of the era.

Extras:
We get a couple of promos for other movies in the Martini movies series, as well as the orignal trailer for The Garment Jungle.

Order The Garment Jungle from Amazon.

Jeremy Lynch
For more reviews from myself, and the rest of the Crimespree crew, check out the index of reviews.