RSS

Category Archives: Drama

Goin’ Down the Road (1970)

01 Mar

90m; Canada

Director: Donald Shebib

Cast: Doug McGrath, Paul Bradley and Jayne Eastwood

Synopsis (IMDB): Story of desolation as two friends travel from Nova Scotia to Toronto in hope of finding a better life. Drifting from job to job: bottling plant, car wash, bowling alley, newspaper delivery, and in between enjoying the night life of the big city. Their previous life is looking better all the time. This movie is a time capsule of Toronto’s Yonge Street – record stores (defunct A&A’s), bars, and old neighbourhood side streets.

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on March 1, 2012 in Drama, Working Class

 

God’s Little Acre (1958)

01 Mar

118m; U.S.

Director: Anthony Mann

Cast: Robert Ryan, Tina Louise and Aldo Ray

Synopsis (IMDB): A poor farmer is obsessed with finding gold on his land supposedly buried by his grandfather. To find it he conveniently moves a marker out of his way that designates the land on which it rests as as God’s Little Acre, where anything that comes from the ground will go to God’s work. Eventually he abducts an albino to help him find the gold. Meanwhile, his daughter-in-law is suspected of fooling around with a labor activist out of work since the mill closed, and a local political hopeful actively seeks his daughter’s hand in marriage.

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on March 1, 2012 in Drama, Romance, Working Class

 

Frozen River (2008)

01 Mar

97m; U.S.

Director: Courtney Hunt

Cast:  Melissa Leo, Misty Upham and Charlie McDermott

Synopsis (IMDB): Takes place in the days before Christmas near a little-known border crossing on the Mohawk reservation between New York State and Quebec. Here, the lure of fast money from smuggling presents a daily challenge to single moms who would otherwise be earning minimum wage. Two women – one white, one Mohawk, both single mothers faced with desperate circumstances – are drawn into the world of border smuggling across the frozen water of the St. Lawrence River. Ray and Lila – and a New York State Trooper as opponent in an evolving cat-and-mouse game

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on March 1, 2012 in Drama, Immigrants/Immigration, Women, Working Class

 

From Wharf Rats to Lords of the Docks (2006)

01 Mar

U.S.

Director: Haskell Wexler

Synopsis: A filmed version of a Ian Ruskin’s one man-play covering the life of International Longshoreman and Warehouse Union founder and labor radical Harry Bridges.

Contact: Ian Ruskin, theharrybridgesproject@comcast.net; http://www.theharrybridgesproject.org

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on March 1, 2012 in Drama, Global Economy, Organizing, Politics, Strikes-Strikebreaking-Lockouts, Transportation, Working Class

 

Great Expectations (Grosse Erwartungen) [2007]

01 Mar

7m; Germany

Director: Pascal Leister

Synopsis: Think you’re having a bad day? Try being trapped in your apartment on the day of your big job interview.

Contact: Found on 2007 Palms Springs Shorts Film Festival: http://www.psfilmfest.org/festival/film/detail.aspx?id=19323&FID=31

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on March 1, 2012 in Drama

 

The Great White Hope (1970)

01 Mar

103m; U.S.

Director: Martin Ritt

Cast: James Earl Jones, Jane Alexander and Lou Gilbert

Synopsis: Jack Jefferson (James Earl Jones) as a boxer, dealing with the racism and hatred of early-20th century white America.

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on March 1, 2012 in Blacks, Drama, Working Class

 

Greed (1924)

01 Mar

124m; U.S.

Director: Erich von Stroheim

Synopsis: Story of miner-turned-dentist and obsession with money.

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on March 1, 2012 in Drama, Working Class

 

Gung Ho (1986)

01 Mar

112m; U.S.

Director: Ron Howard

Cast: Michael Keaton, Gedde Watanabe and George Wendt

Synopsis (IMDB): When a Japanese car company buys an American plant, the American liason must mediate the clash of work attitudes between the foreign management and native labor.

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on March 1, 2012 in Comedy, Drama, Industrial/Mine/Manufacturing, Working Class

 

Half Slave, Half Free (1984)

01 Mar

113m; U.S.

Director: Gordon Parks, Sr.

Synopsis (WorldCat): Based on the true story of Solomon Northup, a free black man living in New York, who was kidnapped and sold into slavery.

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on March 1, 2012 in Blacks, Drama, Slavery

 

Hallelujah! (1928)

01 Mar

109m; U.S.

Director: King Vidor

Synopsis: Portrayal of rural black milieu. The film seems stereotypical now, but was originally banned in many areas for “frank” portrayal of black life.

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on March 1, 2012 in Blacks, Drama, Farm & Food

 
← Older posts
Newer posts →