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Category Archives: Drama

Uncle Moses (1932)

13 Jun

88m; U.S.

Director: Sidney M. Goldin, Aubrey Scotto

Cast: Maurice Schwartz, Judith Abarbanel and Mark Schweid

Synopsis (IMDB): “Uncle” Moses is a wealthy garment store owner in the Lower East Side. He lords his wealth and its attendant power over the neighborhood, dispensing noblesse oblige and conducting casual affairs with numerous women. When he falls in love with the beautiful young daughter of one of his employees, he discovers what it is like to be beholden to another person. He convinces her to marry him, but she does so out of financial and social obligation, and Moses’ love remains distressingly unrequited. At the same time, the growing labor movement attacks him for his exploitative employment conditions, and Moses begins to doubt the truth of the American Dream he thought he had achieved.

 
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Posted by on June 13, 2012 in Cities-Urban, Drama, Immigrants/Immigration, Organizing, Textile Industry, Working Class

 

Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1987)

13 Jun

110m; U.S.

Director: Stan Lathan

Cast: Avery Brooks, Kate Burton, Bruce Dern, Samuel L. Jackson

Synopsis: Film version of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s abolitionist novel.

 
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Posted by on June 13, 2012 in Blacks, Drama, Slavery

 

Up In The Air (2010)

13 Jun

108m; U.S.

Director: Jason Reitman

Cast: George Clooney, Vera Farmiga, Anna Kendrick

Synopsis: With a job that has him traveling around the country firing people, Ryan Bingham leads an empty life out of a suitcase, until his company does the unexpected: ground him.

 
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Posted by on June 13, 2012 in Drama, Unemployment-Wages, White Collar

 

Up to a Certain Point (Hasta cierto punto) [1983]

13 Jun

68m; Cuba

Director: Tomás Gutiérrez Alea

Cast: Óscar Álvarez, Mirta Ibarra and Omar Valdés

Synopsis (IMDB): A theater director and script-writer falls for a female worker from the Havana docks, but his machismo, social and working conflicts, and the Cuban woman’s condition interfere with their relationship.

 
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Posted by on June 13, 2012 in Drama, Women, Working Class

 

The Valley of Decision (1945)

13 Jun

119m; U.S.

Director: Tay Garnett

Cast: Greer Garson, Gregory Peck and Donald Crisp

Synopsis (IMDB): Mary Rafferty comes from a poor family of steel mill workers in 19th Century Pittsburgh. Her family objects when she goes to work as a maid for the wealthy Scott family which controls the mill. Mary catches the attention of handsome scion Paul Scott, but their romance is complicated by Paul’s engagement to someone else and a bitter strike among the mill workers.

 
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Posted by on June 13, 2012 in Drama, Organizing, Romance, Strikes-Strikebreaking-Lockouts

 

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View from the Bridge (Vu du pont) [1962]

13 Jun

110m; France

Director: Sidney Lumet

Cast: Raf Vallone, Jean Sorel and Maureen Stapleton

Synopsis: Eddie Carbone, a Brooklyn longshoreman is unhappily married to Beatrice and unconsciously in love with Catherine, the niece that they have raised from childhood. Into his house come two brothers, illegal immigrants, Marco and Rodolpho. Catherine falls in love with Rudolpho; and Eddie, tormented but unable to admit even to himself his quasi-incestuous love, reports the illegal immigrants to the authorities.

 
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Posted by on June 13, 2012 in Drama, Immigrants/Immigration, Working Class

 

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Viva Zapata! (1952)

13 Jun

113m; U.S.

Director: Elia Kazan

Cast: Marlon Brando, Jean Peters and Anthony Quinn

Synopsis (IMDB): In 1909, Emiliano Zapata, a well-born but penniless Mexican Indian from a remote province, Morelos, comes to Mexico City to complain that their arable land has been enclosed, leaving them only in the barren hills. His expressed dissatisfaction with the response of the President Diaz puts him in danger, and when he rashly rescues a prisoner from the local militia he becomes an outlaw. Urged on by a strolling intellectual, Fernando, he supports the exiled Don Francisco Madero against Diaz, and becomes the leader of his forces in the South as Pancho Villa is in the North. Diaz flees, and Madero takes his place; but he is a puppet president, in the hands of the leader of the army, Huerta, who has him assassinated when he tries to express solidarity for the men who fought for him. Zapata and Villa return to arms, and, successful in victory, seek to find a leader for the country. Unwillingly, Zapata takes the job.

 
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Posted by on June 13, 2012 in Communism/Socialism, Drama, Farm & Food, Labor History, War

 

Wellness (2008)

13 Jun

90m; U.S.

Director: Jake Mahaffy

Cast: Jeff Clark and Paul Mahaffy

Synopsis: an independent feature about a man trying to succeed in a business that doesn’t exist.

 
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Posted by on June 13, 2012 in Drama, White Collar

 

The Wages of Fear (1953)

13 Jun


131m; France

Director: Henri-Georges Clouzot

Cast: Yves Montand, Charles Vanel and Peter van Eyck

Synopsis: In a remote part of Venezuela right after World War II various European emigres look for work in the oil fields.  When a giant fire erupts, several of these men are hired to transport large stocks of nitroglycerine, which involves traversing a long stretch of treacherous terrain.  Fantastic acting and a truly suspenseful film.

(NYT) Where to watch: Kanopy and the Criterion Channel; available for rental on Amazon and iTunes.

Few jobs are as harrowing as the one four desperate expatriates undertake in this thrilling film directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot.

Men too broke to escape a sweaty Latin American village leap at the chance to earn $2,000 apiece driving an emergency shipment of nitroglycerin 300 miles to extinguish an oil inferno for an American company. The company, circumventing its union drivers and rules, provides open-bed trucks that lack even rudimentary safety features like shock absorbers.

One driver is Yves Montand in a breakthrough role, cigarette hanging from his lip and kerchief rakishly tied around his neck, as he grips the juddering steering wheel along treacherous jungle roads through this relentless, heart-stopping journey of teamwork, cowardice and betrayal. HELEN T. VERONGOS

 
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Posted by on June 13, 2012 in Crime-Action, Drama, Migrant workers

 

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Waiting for Happiness (2002)

13 Jun

95m; Mauritania, Africa

Director: Abderrahmane Sissako

Cast: Khatra Ould Abder Kader, Maata Ould Mohamed Abeidand Mohamed Mahmoud Ould Mohamed

Synopsis (IMDB): On the seacoast of Mauritania, some wait to go to Europe. Khatra, a spirited boy, wants an electric light so he can read at night. A stoic older man, Maata, tries to wire the room. Abdallah, a youth on his way to Europe, says good-bye to his mother. Nana looks back on the death of her daughter and her trip to Europe to inform the father. A girl takes singing lessons. Rooms have small windows, looking out onto foot traffic; transistor radios provide some link beyond. Huge ships anchor in the distance. The train comes through, stopping briefly. Offering a cigarette is a gesture of hospitality. Sand dunes and the ocean dominate the landscape. Hope springs amidst small expectations.

 
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Posted by on June 13, 2012 in Drama, Migrant workers

 
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