The Rag Jungle

Episode 2 in the Paul Newman Trilogy

This one a pleasant surprise! I never envisioned Paul Newman for a mafia story, nor for the role of a Sicilian American. Of course, blond and blue eyes exist in Italy, but the ones who possess those traits are usually from Lombardy, or Piedmont, not so much from Sicily. It does happen, of course, even if it’s not a majority. Yet I think, based on the sponsorship of Kaiser aluminum foil, the producers of this episode were chiefly motivated to cast the starring role according to what might appeal to the housewives of America, their sponsor being Kaiser aluminum foil, after all! (They were also trying to sell some television sets.) In that light, Newman seems like a fairly good choice. Moreover, it’s a mafia story that is calculated to appeal to American patriotism. Newman plays Charlie Correlli, a first-generation American whose father, Vito, worked hard as a clothing manufacturer in New York’s garment industry. Vito tried to run his business with minimal interference from the mafia—not an easy task when the mafia controls the labor unions and the truckers. Nevertheless, we see Vito as an old, tired man, on the brink of retirement, and looking forward to passing on the business to Charlie. Vito is disturbed that Charlie is willing to make a big contract where they will need certain guarantees when it comes to shipment. Charlie defends the decision by insisting that the deal will enable him and his wife, Dottie, to capitalize on the American Dream more quickly than Vito was able to do. “I’m not gonna spend 30 years in this business before I’m able to afford a six-week trip to Italy,” he tells his Pop. Vito wants Charlie to keep the business clean by keeping it small, and prevent it from becoming a mafia-run sweatshop, or “rag jungle.” Vito and Charlie, therefore, represent the ideal American immigrant, coming to America to leave behind Old World corruption and embrace rugged individualism. Charlie is also an Army veteran, complimenting the always pleasing rags to riches story. Charlie expresses disbelief that the garment industry is still run by the old tough-man ethos, where truckers get beat up if they don’t deliver goods in time and their bosses don’t pay the tithe. He associates that with his father’s generation and believes that, today, in his day, things are better. He gets a rude awakening when a shady character named Sam follows him into the washroom. Sam is the collector for the mafia who wants to talk Charlie into letting his boss take care of all the shipping. Charlie refuses; he already has a shipper. Sam amends the offer: Pay the mafia every week and nobody will bother the Correlli shipper. Charlie is silenced. He turns his back, ostensibly to dry his hands, but when Sam needles him, Charlie swings a punch at him. Sam runs back to his boss, Leonard “Len” Brill, and tells him what Charlie did, but Len is more than a little preoccupied. In the mafia boss Len, we see another version of the immigrant story. Len is obviously a criminal, but he’s done very well for himself and his family—well enough to keep the criminality under the surface, to an extent. I can’t help thinking of Tony Soprano, with his dirty business far from his affluent New Jersey suburb. Len’s boy is about to enroll at an Ivy League university. Len jokes about getting a crew cut (like an Army man) because “you can’t get on one of these Ivy League campuses without one.” (The Korean War vets have come home and are using their GI Bills.) Len is far more concerned with plans for his trip to see his boy off to college than he is with Sam’s wounded pride or the Correlli business. We have two immigrant fathers in this story—both have raised their sons to aspire to the American Dream, in different ways, and both, in varying ways, wish to be somehow free of the hassle of illegitimate life. The meeting between Len and Vito is fascinating for what it reveals—how things have changed, but only on the surface. In Vito’s younger days, as well as Len’s, we get the sense that things were less obscured. Len says that times have changed, but Vito does not believe it. Things now only have the veneer of legitimacy, respectability, and patriotism. Vito hints at the underbelly, which his son scoffs at and which Len denies.

Charlie’s wife echoes the concerns of Vito, and Charlie refuses to hear it even from her. We learn that Dottie, the wife, also grew up in the garment district, her father running his own clothing business much like the one her husband now runs. Her father refused to do business with the mafia and was, in consequence, put out of business three times. They poured acid on the clothing, she tells Charlie, afraid that it might be happening again. But Charlie dismisses these fears: “Honey, that was a long time ago.”

There is intrigue about who I’m calling the Top Boss; in the film, he’s called Trainer. We never see Trainer, but he has a lot to do with the plot. Sam, the collector/fixer, goes around Len on two occasions, causing all the trouble, but ultimately effecting the desired result as far as the mafia is concerned. The intrigue shows us that no one is united and there is no security anywhere. You could be running your business quietly like Vito did during his tenure: paying the Top Boss once a week, just to keep him off your back. It’s small potatoes, but you make enough to feed your family and keep them alive, and if you’re lucky, put some aside to make a trip to Sicily when you retire. But when you change the management or pass the reins to your son, the waters have to be tested. Sam lurks around, just to see what he can get away with. He wants a piece of that big contract you just clinched. Len, on the other hand—he’s ready to retire himself. Even the Tony Sopranos in the world get fed up. Michael Corleone spent his entire career as the Don plotting his out.

Len tells Sam, “There are no saints, Sam. Just people, strong ones and weak ones. You never know how strong the weak can be when they’re angry.” We never do find out how strong Charlie’s anger makes him. What we do see is pretty discouraging. I wouldn’t recommend watching the film. It’s not exactly a rotten tomato, but then again, it really doesn’t do anything that other mafia films haven’t done—and truthfully, it does far less. With The Godfather trilogy, we have powerful emotional connections to the characters. Here, there is almost nothing. I have more curiosity to know how many television sets or how much aluminum foil the sponsors were able to sell. The audio (dissonant, jolting noise) is the only thing that is horrific about the film.

Credits

Written by: Steven Gethers

Audio: Neil Smith

Lighting: Alan Posage

Associate Director: Dominick Dunne

Makeup: Robert Philippe

Technical Director: Dan Zampino

Production Assistant: Bette Laws

Costumes by: John Boxer

Unit Manager: Douglas Lutz

Musical Director: Alfredo Antonini

Casting Director: James Merrick

Story Editor: Earl Booth

Settings by: Jan Scott

Associate Producer: Joseph Dackow

Produced & Directed by: Franklin Schaffner

Cast

Starring Paul Newman (Charlie Correlli)

Co-starring Nehemiah Persoff (Leonard “Len” Brill)

Edmon Ryan (Lt. Barrett)

Don Gordon (Sam)

Monica Lovett (Dorothy, called Dottie, Charlie’s wife)

Silvio Minciotti (Vito Correlli)

Frank Campanella (Bones)

Frank Marth (Porter)

Woodrow Palfrey (Frank)

Laurence Haddon (Walters)

Ben Hammer (Willie)

Fred Scollay (Davis)