The Film Depictions of Corruption and Organized Crime in Labor

507), claimed that the image would "exemplify the elbow room self-appointed tyrants could be defeated by right-thinking people in a vital democracy." The mob bosses, and not the lawyers and politicians heading the wickedness commission, are not-so-subtly equated with Senator Joseph McCarthy in a reversal of roles that Wakeman (1988) characterizes as reflecting Kazan's birth attitude toward the McCarthy hearings.

Neve (1995) argued that Kazan's spud is, to a large degree, representative of the truly real violence and corruption that characterized unionized labor on the docks in New York and New Jersey in the late(a) forties and early fifties. Schrecker (2000), in a discussion of McCarthyism and organise labor, makes the point that the unions in the McCarthy era were often characterized as flyspeck more that commie ship's company fronts; indeed, Wakeman (1988) noted that when On the Waterfront was released, some critics asserted that Kazan would have been more honest if he had do it clear that the dockworkers' union was just that - a front for the Communist Party, and as such prone to violence and other forms of corruption.

However, Malloy's finality to become an informer, working against the union and its bosses, is not so a lot the result of political conviction as it is of the desire for own(prenominal) revenge against the mod bosses who are responsible for his brother's murder (Neve, 1995). Lopate (2002) says that the film is notorious as Kazan's apologia for informing on hi

The Devil and Miss Jones was a 1941 film directed by Sam Wood, produced by Frank Ross, and write by Norman Krasna (Rogin, 2002). The film is a light and pubescent tale of the richest man in the world (played by Charles Coburn) whose segment store clerks agitate to form a union. John P. Merrick, the store's proprietor, is ruin in effigy outside his Manhattan department store. He becomes a clerk, working incognito in his own business to nab the culprits and ends up on the committee of the local union to manage with himself. In the meantime, he discovers love and union solidarity and even rents an nautical liner to take all of his employees on his own holiday (Review: The Devil and Miss Jones, 2003).

Taken together, it could be argued that these two movies do tend to trivialize the conflict that exists between labor and capitalism. However, it must be recognized that both films, though produced at different points in the history of American labor, present a enactment of union workers who are committed equally to their unions and to their jobs. Both films likewise ultimately present management as the representative of capitalism as capable of responding to labor's concerns. With the exception of Merrick, as he is introduced in The Devil and Miss Jones, management in these films does not fit the stereotypical cigar-smoking capitalist factory or business owner who shares little with his employees.

s own former Communist Party comrades and an attempt to justify informing as the act of a patriot. The problem is that Malloy's informing is not political; it is related to exposing vicious activity, and McCarthy's hearings were less about real criminality than about guardianship of Communism (Lopate, 2002; Schrecker, 2000).

Canby, V. (2003). Movie review: Blue Collar. The New York Times.

old age of lost opportunities. Working USA, 3(5), 93-101.

Wakeman, J. (Ed.). (1988). World Film Directors. New York:

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