Yes, it’s a day — today — that we here in the U. S. honor Labor.
It lacks the ideological component of May Day in Europe, the May 1 fete toasting workers of the world. But the idea is basically the same, to pay tribute to working stiffs of all persuasions.
What better way to spend Labor Day than to watch a classic film or two which celebrate the labor movement and the plight of those who toil for a living? Here are a few suggested Hollywood titles of all ages augmented by a most interesting — and largely unheralded — choice from overseas:
Why not try 1980’s Nine To Five, a comedy about three secretaries (Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin and Dolly Parton) dealing with dimwitted bosses. Another comedy is the more recent Gung Ho, the 1986 social comedy starring Michael Keaton as a corporate minion who invites Japanese industrialists to revive his hometown manufacturing plant only to find himself mired in social and cultural misunderstandings.
One of our favorite comedies about the labor movement is The Devil and Miss Jones. That 1941 comedy with Jean Arthur, Charles Coburn and Robert Cummings about young employees in a department store who are trying to form a union is the perfect combination of entertainment and social messaging.
But perhaps you prefer drama. The obvious choices include the 1940 classic The Grapes of Wrath, 1979’s Norma Rae and 1982’s Silkwood. All are first class films with first class performances and solid direction.
Norma Rae stars Sally Field in another Oscar-winning performance as a poor Southern textile mill worker who embraces the union movement. Silkwood directed by Mike Nichols stars Meryl Streep as a real life whistle blower who spills the beans about working in a plutonium processing plant, and pays a steep price. And let’s not forget Nichols’ terrific 1988 office satire, Working Girl, co-starring Melanie Griffith and Harrison Ford. One of the director’s best.
Frank’s pick as the most cutting Labor Day movie ever is writer/director Mike Judge’s often overlooked 1999 comedy, Office Space, starring Ron Livingston. It’s about a group of frustrated computer specialists locked in their cubicles and tormented by a nightmarish corporate boss played with superb realism by Gary Cole. The movie’s official tagline? “Work Sucks.”
We are saving the best for last: Italian director Mario Monicelli’s 1963 beauty, I Compagni (The Organizer), starring Marcello Mastroianni (shown in the photo above) as a professorial union organizer who flourishes both personally and professionally by inspiring put-upon workers at a turn-of-the-twentieth century textile factory in Turin to band together for workers rights.
The ideological slant here is softened by inventive comic and romantic elements. Enjoy Mastroianni’s character transformation from shy, bumbling professor to inspiring and forceful leader. Wonderful acting. A bonus is Giuseppe Rotunno’s striking B&W cinematography.
And one more thing: Comedy, or drama, see a classic film this Labor Day. Watch John Raitt and Doris Day in 1957’s The Pajama Game. Threatened employees at the troubled Village Voice alternative newspaper in Manhattan recently screened this very picture at an theatrical event designed to raise money for a strike fund.
Hooray for The Pajama Game. Every Labour Day the song 7 and a half cents pops into my head.
You could add ON THE WATERFRONT, SATURDAY NIGHT AND SUNDAY MORNING and so many other working class movies to the watch list, but when you come right down to it there’s not too much to celebrate, or to honor on Labor Day anymore.
Whether it’s in the United States or anywhere else, we all know things are not the same. With true unemployment and consumer debt at record levels, it would be more accurate and much more honest to call it Slave Labor Day – a recognition of just how things have changed!
In the early 1960’s, 40% of the US labor force was unionized with good paying jobs, today it’s only 6%. Outsourced jobs, cheap labor, shoddy products you name it… It makes all those HOLLYWOOD “feel good” movies listed look like old fairy stories.
Of course HOLLYWOOD itself, that is the executive side, with multi, multi million dollar salaries, compensation, unlimited expense accounts is so much richer, more corporate than ever.
With Warner Bros. about to become just another division of AT&T, the picture looks pretty grim for all us with an ever shrinking handful of conglomerates owning all those movies, TV shows, musical records, books, magazines and newspapers, not to mention cable, internet streaming and satellite systems.
So on this 2017 Labor Day, don’t just think of it as just another holiday… Give some thought to a time when you didn’t need three low paying, non-benefit, part-time jobs to survive… And didn’t need to get into debt to buy a ticket to see a movie!