Schulberg, Budd, (What Makes Sammy Run? [originally published in 1941, hc, Random House, 2002] 978-0375508318 [pb, Vintage, 1993] 978-0679734222 [The novel highlights plagiarism, intellectual property theft, corporate fraud, and labor exploitation. It follows Sammy Glick, a ferocious, fast-talking Jewish kid from New York’s Lower East Side who claws his way up to become a Hollywood studio mogul. Sammy does not commit violent street crimes; instead, he relies on white-collar theft. He steals scripts from struggling writers, takes credit for other people’s work, illegally breaks labor unions, and commits corporate sabotage against his colleagues. Sammy runs directly away from his traditional Jewish roots and impoverished past. The book explores how the frantic push for assimilation can strip an individual of their ethical compass, turning the immigrant hustle into outright corporate criminality. Like Jerome Weidman’s work, it caused a massive stir in the Jewish community for portraying a Jewish man as a predatory opportunist.
United States · Fiction author
Budd Schulberg
Budd Schulberg (1914–2009, born in New York City) - He was the son of B.P. Schulberg, the head of production at Paramount Pictures and grew up immersed in early Hollywood culture. He was an acclaimed novelist and screenwriter (Academy Award for On the Waterfront in 1954). In 1951, he was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee. He voluntarily testified about his brief time in the Communist Party and named other members. He founded the Watts Writers Workshop in Los Angeles in 1965 to support diverse artistic voices after the Watts riots. He later co-founded the Frederick Douglass Creative Arts Center in New York. He was also a passionate boxing reporter who frequently wrote for Sports Illustrated and was named a living legend by the World Boxing Association. Schulberg’s crime narratives focus heavily on institutionalized racketeering, showing how ambition drives Jewish antiheroes to adopt criminal methods. [See also the listings for Albert Halper and Jerome Weidman in this bibliography.]
Schulberg, Budd, (The Harder They Fall [hc, Random House, 1947] B000NUSSPG [pb, Ivan R. Dee, 2007] 978-1566631075 [This novel highlights sports racketeering, fight-fixing, wire fraud, extortion, and mob collusion. This hard-boiled exposé of the boxing industry centers around Nick Latka, a powerful, ruthless Jewish mobster and racketeer who controls the fight game. Latka hires a cynical press agent to hype up a massive but utterly untalented giant of a boxer. Latka orchestrates a series of highly illegal, fixed boxing matches, defrauding the betting public and pocketing the massive payouts. When the broken, exploited boxer is no longer profitable, Latka cold-bloodedly discards him with pennies. Schulberg uses Latka to look at the dark reality of Jewish involvement in mid-century syndicated crime, portraying a character who has fully integrated into the violent, multi-ethnic American underworld. - Google/AI]