This hard-hitting exposé of union corruption in the garment biz never fit quite right. With but a few days of shooting left, director Aldrich took ill, and upon his return just days later he found Vincent Sherman at the helm. Based on investigative reporting from, of all things, Reader's Digest, this tough-as-nails feature was going to be Aldrich's On the Waterfront, trading the docks for sweatshops. But studio head Harry Cohn wanted “boy meets girl in a dress factory,” and so out went Aldrich's radical designs. Still, the “garment jungle” gets a dressing down with Lee J. Cobb as a beleaguered factory owner set upon by both syndicate thugs and corrupt unionists. When his son (Kerwin Mathews) sides with a zealous organizer (Robert Loggia) for the garment workers, Dad's decidely anti-labor stance begins to tumble. Joseph Biroc's brute cinematography captures midtown New York in the harsh black-and-white of classic noir, and rightfully so: the latter half of this tightly patterned provocation is more crime story than ready-to-wear report.