Nine to Five

Nine to Five
December 19, 1980
Fox
Comedy
DVD
A-

I vaguely remember seeing The Nude Bomb at the time.  I definitely saw Popeye.  And I was among many who saw this movie, which was a smash hit that remains popular.  Changes in the office (technologically and otherwise) aside, this is still a joy to watch, from the sassy title theme by Dolly Parton, where even the metronomes bounce along, to the cheeky Where Are They Nows after the red-white-and-blue garbed heroines toast their success.

It's hard to know where to begin, so let's start with costumes.  When we first see mousy Judy Bernly (Jane Fonda), it's emerging from a crowd, looking not unlike Dustin Hoffman would in a similar scene in Tootsie a couple years later.  Lily Tomlin as no-nonsense Violet Newstead ad-libs a little later that they'll need a special locker for that hat.  The costumes, including hair and make-up, help tell the story, including Judy's dramatic evolution (with a fantasy sequence of her as a big-game hunter), but also, more subtly the ways that Parton, as the based-on-Dolly Doralee Rhodes, also becomes more assertive.  The supporting characters also look just right, like Elizabeth Wilson (Benjamin's mother in The Graduate) with her straight gray hair in the role of the spying Roz Keith, one of the many exaggerated but believable office types.  The best costume of all is of course the Snow-White fantasy dress for Violet (with its Skinny & Sweet/ Rid-o-Rat color-schemed skirt).

Those fantasies (and Doralee's "sexual harassment" revenge) work as humor but also are examples of how carefully crafted the script by director Colin Higgins and 27-year-old Patricia Resnick is.  Details resonate throughout the film.  The scarf that boss Franklin Hart (Dabney Coleman in the first of what would become his signature roles as likable assholes) makes Violet buy on her lunch hour, supposedly for his naive wife, is the gift that he gives to Doralee in his long failing attempt to seduce her (while spreading rumors in the office that she's his mistress), and Doralee rejects, only to have it be, well, a running gag that the women use to silence him more than once.  The film is full of Chekhov's guns turned into a shooting gallery, and it definitely works on later viewings.

Another thing to watch if you've seen it before is the reactions of those who aren't speaking.  Tomlin has the least cartoony role (despite her fantasy) so you may miss some of the subtle acting she does in this, one of her earliest big-screen roles.  There are moments when she's dealing with Hart and Roz where you know what she's thinking, but she's able to hide it from them.  Parton, in her very first movie, is just adorable, sweet but tough (the "wranglers" line and of course her infamous "rooster to a hen" line), and whimsical enough to throw in a Groucho impression.  Hart says that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, which in this case is Jane Fonda, but when your weakest link is a two-time Oscar-winner, then you've got a very strong movie.  The three women have wonderful chemistry together (and remain good friends in real life), balancing each other so well.  If I have to pick one moment, it's the way Doralee calmly asks "Judy" and "Violet honey" to come take a look at the "wrong" corpse in the car trunk.

The humor ranges from verbal humor (like Violet's "murderess" line) to, no pun intended, broad physical humor, like Hart swinging from the ceiling not once, but twice.  It's actually funnier the second time, because Judy's helpfully named ex-husband Dick is downstairs, hoping to reconcile with her, until he finds out about the kinky "M & Ms" she practices.  The music plays up the comedy, and I could see that annoying people, but you just have to go with this movie.

You don't have to be a feminist and/or a woman and/or an office worker to enjoy this film.  The theme of taking down The Man is something that almost anyone can relate to.  I like the touch that Hart isn't just a jerk to these three; he's a jerk to everyone, from other employees (including men) to his doting wife to the male doctor who looks at his concussion.  And yet, there's a moment very late in the movie when Violet says she "almost felt sorry for him."  Coleman gets the character just right, so that you like seeing him punished but you do feel a smidgen of sympathy for him.  It's also cool how, although he's not as smart as the trio, he's sneakier and he does come close to outsmarting them.  My favorite moment with him is when he tells Judy, after she's untied him, "I lied," and he picks up the phone to call the police, forgetting that Doralee has unplugged the phone.  The way the cord swings adds to the humor.

Higgins does a fine job of directing here, probably his best work, as the script is also his best.  Sadly, he would die of AIDS in '88, at age 47.  I'm thankful that he lived long enough to make this as well as Harold and Maude  and Foul Play.  I don't know if his being gay helped him relate to women better, but he certainly helped to bring such topics as sexual harassment and equal pay further into the mainstream, in a non-didactic way.  Progressive companies now offer on-site child care, flex time, substance abuse counseling*, and some of the other then utopian innovations that Violet, Judy, and Doralee manage (in six weeks!), but back in 1980, and throughout the decade, this film seemed awfully optimistic.

Helen Heigh gets a special Longevity Award, since she was the Hat Shop Owner in Easter Parade 32 years before playing Charlotte here.  A nice touch in casting is Henry Jones from Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? as Hart's immediate boss.  Extras Elisabeth Fraser and Berniece Janssen were "Second Lady" in The Graduate and "2nd Wife" in The Love God? respectively.  Richard Stahl has a small but recognizable role as Meade.  Man at St. Ambrose Hospital Raymond O'Keefe was Bronco in Rabbit Test.  Ray Vitte was DJ Bobby Speed in Thank God It's Friday and he's Eddie Smith here.

Policeman Terrence McNally would be a Soap Opera Doctor in Earth Girls Are Easy.  Doctor Peter Hobbs was Dr. Dean in Sleeper and would be a veterinarian in Hot to Trot.


*I should talk about the "pot party" scene a bit.  Pot here is presented as benignly, if not more so, as alcohol.  Lulu got Jack stoned in Can't Stop the Music, but it was just for the sake of a sight gag when the Policeman village person showed up.  Here pot fuels the women's fantasies and bonding.  It is a sequence that is integral to the film, and yet it would've been unimaginable three or four years later in a mainstream hit movie, with the "Just Say No" movement, as well as John Belushi's 1982 overdose that shook up Hollywood, including Robin Williams.

The Graduate

The Graduate
December 22, 1967
Embassy
Drama, Musical
DVD
B-

Thirty-six-year-old Anne Bancroft seduces 30-year-old Dustin Hoffman, who then pursues 27-year-old Katharine Ross in this generation-gap comedy that's actually a drama.  Confused?  I think this movie has confused a lot of people over the decades.  Is Hoffman's character Benjamin a hero or an antihero?  Neither?  Is he a stalker, and if so, why is Elaine encouraging him somewhat?  Is Mrs. Robinson sexy or deranged, or both?  Neither?

Watching it this time-- and I did buy the DVD specifically for this project, although I had it on VHS-- I was most struck by how joyless the three main characters are.  The only moments of delight are when Benjamin "carries Elaine off" from her wedding, and when Benjamin is amused by the details of Elaine's out-of-wedlock conception in a Ford.  (Honestly, they couldn't come up with a funnier car?)  Is the message that upper-class suburbia is unsatisfying?  If so, why are Ben's parents and most of the other characters generally content?

I review the 1963 book here:  http://rereadingeverybookiown.blogspot.com/2012/07/graduate.html.  I just want to add a few things.  One, I do consider the movie superior, although not great.  (I'd probably give it a B if not for the last half hour, when everyone goes off the rails.)  We do see more of the emotions of the characters, including Mr. Robinson's.  The soundtrack isn't as good as I remembered, mostly due to the songs being repeated too often, although they're integrated well, especially the way the beats and scatting of "Here's to You, Mrs. Robinson" are used for humor when Ben tries to find the church and his car runs out of gas.

Aside from its relatively explicit sexual themes for its time, and the way it shows alienated youth, I think the film is most remarkable for its cast.  Even if you're bored (which I don't think you will be), you can at least have fun spotting familiar faces.  Buck Henry cowrote the script and has a nice little cameo as the desk clerk in what's probably the funniest sequence, showing Ben's nervousness about checking into the hotel.  Later, that's director Mike Nichols's comedy partner Elaine May as the girl bringing Elaine's note to Benjamin.  Mike Farrell plays one bellhop, while little person Buddy Douglas plays another.  (Douglas would go on to Pufnstuf, the show and movie.)  Two Bewitched ladies appear in a reception line, Alice Ghostley (Esmeralda) and Marion Lorne (Aunt Clara).

Arthur Tovey was an onlooker at the soap factory in Boy, Did I Get a Wrong Number, is a hotel guest here, and would be a club patron in The Love God?  Another hotel guest, Frank Baker, was Bearded Gentleman in Bank in Mary Poppins.  Walter Brooke, who plugs plastics as Mr. McGuire, would be Haskell Wax in How Sweet It Is!  Brian Avery, who plays Elaine's WASPy groom Carl Smith, would be a more ethnic Herald Cohen in Sleeper.  Elizabeth Fraser, who plays Second Lady, would do 9 to 5.  Elizabeth Wilson, who plays Ben's mother, would still look young enough (at almost 60) to play Roz in that movie.  William Daniels, most famous for St. Elsewhere, I think doesn't show up in any of my other movies until The Blue Lagoon.  As Norman Fell would point out on It's Garry Shandling's Show a couple decades later, Fell was not only Jack & Janet's landlord but Dustin Hoffman's.  One of his other tenants, the one who suggests calling the cops, is 20-year-old Richard Dreyfuss, who would have a much larger and sillier role in Hello Down There.

Hoffman, Dreyfuss, Fell