Synopsis
A newly promoted plant supervisor finds himself in the position of having to announce a layoff of his fellow workers.
The Whistle at Eaton Falls
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Theatrical
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USA
02 Aug 1951
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One of the sad ironies of American film history is that, despite being a union town, Hollywood has turned out very few really good movies about organized labor. There are certainly reasons why that’s so: most of the studio heads were anti-union and unlikely to green-light projects that dealt honestly with the conflict between labor and capital, agitators were blacklisted during the Red Scare, etc. By a pretty wide margin, the best such film before the 1970s is 1954’s Salt Of The Earth, which was made on the industry’s extreme margins by several blacklistees. Although it would be a distant second, 1951’s The Whistle At Eaton Falls may be the next best.
Lloyd Bridges plays the president of his local…
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Pro-union picture directed by famed Robert Siodmak and starring Lloyd Bridges. They even dusted off Dorothy Gish for her only feature film of the 1950s. So there was some prestige attached to The Whistle at Eaton Falls (1951). Produced by newsreel king (The March of Time) Louis De Rochemont, it took someone outside of the establishment to do this kind of project. And it does a good job of telling that it's important to stand together and fight the tough battles in a capitalist world. It's not just about the union. It's about staying with the times shaping the world around you in a cooperative effort to stay competitive. So teamwork and not ego driven moral to the story. Doesn't have the production qualities of a big production, but the snappy pace made up for it.
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A film that's got a lot going for it: It was never officially released on home video, was directed by noir-master Robert Siodmak, features Ernest Borgnine in his first feature role, and a rare speaking part from silent star Dorothy Gish. There's even the tantalizing promise that it has been kept in a vault because it was about unionization, and Big Hollywood didn't want the proletariat to see it...
Sadly, it's a movie about how bosses have it hard too.
And you can't know how hard they have it till you spend a day in their shoes.
And that hucksters can easily fool unions into working against their interests.
Goddammit.
There's even a scene where a Union Worker commits manslaughter.…
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Fascinating to see a major studio movie from the early 50s dealing so fully and multi-dimensionally with union and labor issues. This begins with the same 'docu-drama with heavy emphasis on the docu', just-the-facts approach as producer Louis de Rochemont's other releases, quickly becoming something much more character-driven and warmly human in tone. Siodmak employs his usual noir touches and framing as the story darkens, but the small-town setting also lets him channel his inner Clarence Brown, so to speak, and it makes you wish he'd gotten a few more opportunities to do so. It's good to see Bridges get a real leading man role, plus the rarely glimpsed-in-sound Dorothy Gish. A shame that her later appearances were as rare as her sister's were prolific. Also, without giving anything away, it's genuinely surprising to see something from 1951 treating The Great Enemy, television, as a positive plot point.
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If I were being completely objective, I'd probably remove half a star from the rating, but I'm far more forgiving of a movie that tries something we don't really see on the screen, and fails, then something that's mildly successful at doing nothing.
We're taken to a small company town in New Hampshire that's seen the shoe factory close some years earlier and is about to have labor unrest in the plastics factory. Old Daniel Doubleday (Donald McKee), owner of the company, has called in Union head Brad Adams (Lloyd Bridges) to tell him that the factory's going to be installing new machines and plan to lay off half of the workforce in order to stay competitive, but allows Brad…
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A mainstream political drama about the American industrial system at the start of the fifties, The Whistle at Eaton Falls is a rather remarkable, groundbreaking work, even as it blurs the lines between management and labor to the point of cozy, small town Americana fantasy, with a sleepy New England setting and happy ending for all the unemployed workers, right out of It's a Wonderful Life.
Noir maestro, Robert Siodmak confidently lays out a series of complicated, conflict of interest tensions, and if the eventual evenhandedness makes it feel less like the stuff of compelling drama and more like the jumping off point for classroom debate, its depiction of union negotiations is enough of a statement on its own for…
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A window into another era of widespread union membership by American labor. The conflict between labor and management is a little too clean, with a lack of greed and exploitation. Not as real as Pajama Game.
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The drama of a small plastics factory in Eaton New Hampshire plays out as a microcosm of the whole U.S. economy. DoubleDay Plastics is in trouble and on the verge of going out of business unless they can lower their costs, but doing so would likely mean laying off part of their workforce and the head of the local union (Lloyd Bridges) doesn’t like it. But that’s just the setup and where it goes and the way it tells the details and dominoes that have to line up for things to work out is anxiety inducing but fascinating. Supporting cast includes Murray Hamilton, Dorothy Gish, Ernest Borgnine & Anne Francis. Directed by film noir stalwart Robert Siodmak who does a fine job. The restoration on the new Flicker Alley Blu-ray is gorgeous and it includes an informative commentary from Alan K. Rode. Definitely recommended. A 2022 discovery for me as I had never heard of it before this release.
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The Whistle At Eaton Falls makes me very uncomfortable. Oh, don't get me wrong, it's a wonderful movie that was considered a "lost film" for a very long time and is only just now surfacing again thanks to a new restoration. But the film itself is so full of relatable, complicated adult problems that I found myself watching with an increased heart rate and gritted teeth. Most horror films don't affect me this way, but give me a rich, well-realized story with problems that have no easy solutions and villains that look just like those that I see in my news feed every day and you'll see me squirm.
The film was released in 1951, but it might as well…
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The union drama you didn't know you needed. Bridges is fantastic, human, compelling. This is a bit of programmer, but holds up beautifully - true of many Siodmak pictures I suppose.
The new Flicker Alley restoration is *razor* sharp - deep blacks and sparking highlights.
TCM Film Fest 2021
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A rare Fifties film that shows an interest in deflating a celebratory take on the postwar boom by showing the impact of downsizing and workforce cuts in a small town which structures itself around the local plastic factory. This isn't typical material for Siodmak and the resolution is too clean, but this is an interesting diversion from the standard executive/business film. The restoration is sublime.
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Good, largely-overlooked piece from the Siodmak filmography, with Lloyd Bridges as union man turned manager who pulls out all the stops to keep the town’s main employer (and possessor of the whistle in the title) from going under. Often described as “semi-documentary”, I don’t see that as accurate; has some bookend narration, yes, but mostly it’s a tight and exciting drama. Nice support, including from Dorothy Gish, such a fave of mine in the silent era.