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Category Archives: Drama

Wall Street (1987)

13 Jun

124m; U.S.

Director: Oliver Stone

Cast: Michael Douglas, Charlie Sheen, Martin Sheen, Daryl Hannah, Hal Holbrook

Synopsis (IMDB): Bud Fox is a Wall Street stockbroker in early 1980’s New York with a strong desire to get to the top. Working for his firm during the day, he spends his spare time working an on angle with the high-powered, extremely successful (but ruthless and greedy) broker Gordon Gekko. Fox finally meets with Gekko, who takes the youth under his wing and explains his philosophy that “Greed is Good”. Taking the advice and working closely with Gekko, Fox soon finds himself swept into a world of “yuppies”, shady business deals, the “good life”, fast money, and fast women; something which is at odds with his family including his estranged father (a good union man) and the blue-collared way Fox was brought up.

 
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Posted by on June 13, 2012 in Big Business/Corporations, Drama, Finance

 

Waterfront (1984)

13 Jun

284m; Australia

Director: Chris Thomson

Cast:  Jack Thompson, Greta Scacchi and Frank Gallacher

Synopsis (IMDB): Australian dockyard workers go on strike. Immigrant Italian workers are brought in as scab labour. In the midst of all this, an Italian woman meets & falls in love with one of the Australians.

 
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Posted by on June 13, 2012 in Drama, Immigrants/Immigration, Strikes-Strikebreaking-Lockouts

 

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The Way We Laughed (Così ridevano) [1998]

13 Jun

124m; Italy

Director: Gianni Amelio

Cast: Francesco Giuffrida, Enrico Lo Verso and Rosaria Danzè

Synopsis (IMDB): Turin at the end of the fifties: two brothers have emigrated there from Sicily and the older works very hard to let the younger study and free himself from poverty through culture. The boy however is not keen on school and would like to begin to work. When after some time he gets his degree however things take a violent and dramatic turn

 
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Posted by on June 13, 2012 in Children, Drama, Education, Working Class

 

When Tomorrow Comes (1939)

13 Jun

90m; U.S.

Director: John M. Stahl

Cast: Irene Dunne, Charles Boyer and Barbara O’Neil

Synopsis: Washington Post columnist and American Prospect editor Harold Meyerson is one of the most incisive political commentators in the United States. Harold has also written about movies and entertainment (He is author of the book “Who Put the Rainbow in the Wizard of Oz?” about the lyricist Yip Harburg) so I asked him to write about anything he wanted to related to movies and politics. Harold can write authoritatively about almost anything. His fascinating review of the 1930s movie When Tomorrow Comes – a film he calls the “Lefty-est Thirties studio movie you’ve never heard of,” can be found at http://www.politicsfilm.blogspot.com/ Hope you enjoy this look back in film history which is an implicit critique of the state of filmmaking today. Kelly Candaele

 
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Posted by on June 13, 2012 in Drama, Romance, Service Workers, Strikes-Strikebreaking-Lockouts, Women

 

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The Whistle at Eaton Falls (1951)

13 Jun

96m; U.S.

Director: Robert Siodmak

Cast: Lloyd Bridges, Dorothy Gish and Carleton Carpenter

Synopsis (IMDB): Lloyd Bridges stars as a union man at a small plastics plant in New Hampshire who is suddenly thrust into a management position when the owner is killed in a car accident. The film examines the tenuous relationship between management and labor and the effects on outside agitators.

The plant is the lifeblood of this small town, but the owner has fallen behind in bank payments and has outdated machinery. He’s losing contracts. Once Bridges takes over he decides to totally shut down while they try to land some contracts. He also tries to come up with an automatic cutter so that the plastic parts can be produced faster and cleaner. But an outsider (Murray Hamilton) keeps stirring up workers against Bridges and the widowed owner (Dorothy Gish). What ensues is a race against time as the workers become more and more disgruntled.

In a rare starring role, Bridges is excellent. Despite star billing, Gish has a smallish part. Other notable actors include Ernest Borgnine, Anne Francis, Arthur O’Connell, Anne Seymour, Carleton Carpenter, Parker Fennelly, Russell Hardie, Doro Merande, and James Westerfield.

 
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Posted by on June 13, 2012 in Collective Bargaining, Drama, Manufacturing, Organizing

 

The Wide Blue Road (1957)

13 Jun

103m; Italy

Director: Gillo Pontecorvo

Cast: Yves Montand, Alida Valli and Francisco Rabal

Synopsis (IMDB): Squarciò, a fisherman, lives with his family on a small island off the Dalmatian coast of Italy. Like his fellow villagers, Squarciò struggles against harsh living conditions, a scarcity of fish in nearby waters and exploitation by the local wholesaler. But while the other fishermen continue to use nets, he goes out to the open sea to fish illegally with bombs. But Squarciò borrows money, loses his boat, and in a moment of supreme desperation, has to bomb directly off-shore, causing the hatred and rejection of his fellow fishermen. Trying to save his family, Squarciò and his young sons sail their new boat out beyond the local waters and bomb-fish again. But this time, the sea exacts a terrible toll

 
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Posted by on June 13, 2012 in Drama

 

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Wild Boys of the Road (1933)

13 Jun

68m; U.S.

Director: William A. Wellman

Synopsis: Presents a picture of hobo towns of jobless youth springing up during the depression in the US

 
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Posted by on June 13, 2012 in Drama, Unemployment-Wages, Working Class

 

Wild River (1960)

13 Jun

110m; U.S.

Director: Elia Kazan

Cast: Montgomery Clift, Lee Remick and Jo Van Fleet

Synopsis (IMDB): A young field administrator for the TVA comes to rural Tennessee to oversee the building of a dam on the Tennessee River. He encounters opposition from the local people, in particular a farmer who objects to his employment (with pay) of local black laborers. Much of the plot revolves around the eviction of an elderly woman from her home on an island in the River, and the young man’s love affair with that woman’s widowed granddaughter.

 
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Posted by on June 13, 2012 in Blacks, Drama, Organizing, Public Sector

 

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Winstanley (1975)

13 Jun

95m; U.K.

Director: Kevin Brownlow and Andrew Mollo

Cast: Miles Halliwell, Jerome Willis and Terry Higgins

Synopsis: Dramatized history of a Reformation-era religious sect called the Diggers. A nonviolent aggregation, the Diggers are devoted to tilling the soil that has been neglected by the British bluebloods. It isn’t long before the landowners send their minions to burn out and kill the Diggers.

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

 

With These Hands (1950)

13 Jun

40m; U.S.

Director: Jack Arnold

Cast: Sam Levene, Arlene Francis and Joseph Wiseman

Synopsis (IMDB): Film produced by the International Ladies Garment Workers Union — featuring several well-known Broadway actors — recreates Triangle Fire of 1913 and compares working conditions of the 1910’s with the 1950’s.

 
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Posted by on June 13, 2012 in Drama, Labor History, Textile Industry, Women

 
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