November/December 2003
By Si Wakesberg
A few years ago, I was invited to participate in a job fair at a high school in New York. The purpose was to give seniors an opportunity to learn about different fields. I was asked to talk about the recycling business.
So, on a nice fall day, I found myself with other executives at this high school, being directed to a classroom with a sign on the door that read: “Recycling.” My classroom attracted only six or seven students who had a modicum of interest in the recycling business. Next door, however, was a room marked “Entertainment,” and it was so crowded that the students spilled into the hallway. Given the ratio of successful entertainers to unsuccessful ones, the crowded room was an ironic commentary on American fantasies of Hollywood success.
Let’s face it, America is a nation of moviegoers. Kids grow up watching movies, being influenced by Holly-wood stars, wanting desperately to be part of the glamorous entertainment industry. This made me think of movies in general and, more specifically, of movies that feature the scrap industry as a theme or backdrop. In its March/April 2000 issue, Scrap listed more than 25 films with some scrap reference. Of these, only a handful were popular while others have faded into oblivion.
Still, three of the films on the list merit further mention. I must note, however, that they aren’t solely Ameri-can movies since the list includes a British film, a Canadian movie, as well as a Hollywood picture.
Ask moviegoers “What is your picture of a scrap yard?” and most would answer, “Like in Goldfinger.” In this James Bond fantasy, Auric Goldfinger’s Korean henchman Oddjob drives a 1964 Lincoln Continental with a body in the backseat into a scrap plant, where a baling press turns the car into a tidy bundle. A magnet then places the compressed car into a waiting pickup truck, and Oddjob drives away. It’s a memorable scene, one that gave viewers a rare peek inside a scrap yard.
Then there’s the Canadian picture The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, which starred a young Richard Dreyfuss. Early in this movie, Duddy is seen riding with his scrap-collecting grandfather on a horse and wagon along the urban streets of Canada. Later, Duddy—in one of his get-rich-quick schemes—enlists a scrap merchant named Farber (played by actor Joe Silver) as one of his first clients, agreeing to film the upcoming bar mitzvah of Farber’s son.
What if you then ask our ordinary moviegoers to think of a scrap dealer—who comes to mind? Probably the rough, tough, unpleasant character in the American-made Born Yesterday. Unfortunately, we never see this guy in his yard, hard at work, creating a product out of scrap, overseeing his employees, leaving his house before dawn and coming home late at night. We only see him as a tough, uneducated bad guy, a foil for Judy Holliday and William Holden, and an overall unsympathetic character.
To be honest, Scrap’s list of scrap-related movies contains few titles of lasting value. One of the films on the list—Nothing But Trouble—was so bad that one scrap executive called it “one of the worst movies of all time.” Where are the movies that capture the many facets and rich character of the scrap industry? Steeltown, for example, tells the story of steel, but where’s Scraptown? Aren’t there stories in the scrap trade that moviemakers could adapt?
Once, riding a bus to a regional industry meeting, I sat next to a scrap merchant who told me this fantastic but true story: After a series of hair-raising escapes from the Nazis, he and his mother emigrated from Europe to the United States, leaving his father behind. As a young man, he enlisted in the U.S. Army and became a corporal.
“At the close of World War II,” he told me, “our unit was assigned to liberate a concentration camp. We didn’t know much about the camps then. When we got there, what a shock. You’ve heard about it or seen the painful pictures, but even more of a shock was when I found my own father among all the prisoners.” It was an incredible meeting, a mixture of joy and pain. Certainly, there’s a dramatic tale that a movie could tie in with the life of an American scrap dealer in the Midwest.
Or how about a man who arrives in America as a penniless immigrant and who, with a pack on his back, travels throughout the South buying and selling scrap, stopping in towns whose names he’d never heard of, defying the elements, eventually building a successful company. What happens when his son graduates from Harvard and turns up his nose at what he calls the “junk” business?
In the 1970s, many of the children of successful scrap families opted to rebel, move to San Francisco or Denver, join communes, and leave their parents wondering what would happen to the business. Here’s a movie: When the old man has a heart attack—well, you can come up with your own story line, can’t you?
Perhaps you’d like a film with Julia Roberts as the daughter of a scrap dealer who always wanted a son to run the business. As time goes on, he realizes that a woman can do the job as well as a man. Should he turn over the reins to Julia?
I could go on, but why give all this to Hollywood for free? If the moviemakers, screenwriters, and directors are on their toes, they could mine hundreds of stories from the scrap world and, at the same time, accent some of the industry’s remarkable accomplishments.
In my lifetime, I have met and interviewed scores of people in the scrap business. I have heard remarkable, intense, and dramatic life stories, each of which could make a fascinating movie. Some of those I met were larger than life, some were just ordinary, nice people with incredibly generous hearts. I was fortunate to enter this business in time to shake the hands of some of the founders of scrap dynasties and individuals who broadened the horizons of the recycling industry. Some of these giants were Jake Feldman of Commercial Metals Co., Ralph and Carl Ablon of Luria Brothers and Company Inc., the remarkable Mike Bonomo of Schiavone-Bonomo Corp., Morrie Lipsett of Lipsett Inc., and Ludwig Jesselson of Philipp Bros. Inc.
It would take a modern O. Henry to write up every worthwhile scrap story, many of which would make memorable Hollywood movies. Not that the industry is perfect, mind you, but the bad eggs are the exception rather than the rule.
In my decades of experience, I can vouch that the scrap industry is a family-oriented business that’s quick to care for its fellow members, that honors its commitments, and that works hard to produce a quality product. Hollywood could find drama, emotion, richness of purpose, and much good in the scrap business. I, for one, am looking forward to the next scrap movie. •
—Si Wakesberg, New York bureau chief for Scrap
A few years ago, I was invited to participate in a job fair at a high school in New York. The purpose was to give seniors an opportunity to learn about different fields. I was asked to talk about the recycling business.