Drama | THE LABOR FILM DATABASE

Happy Times (2000)

102m; China

Director: Yimou Zhang

Cast: Lifan Dong, Benshan Zhao and Jie Dong

Synopsis (IMDB): Zhao is an old laid-off worker who’s dreaming of getting married. After trying unsuccessful proposals, he finally pair off with a gargantuan divorcée with two children. She, however, demands a lavish wedding and that Zhao finds a job and another place to stay for her blind step-daughter. Pretending he’s the General Manager of a non-existent posh hotel “Happy Times”, Zhao had to find ways and means of keeping both mother and stepdaughter happy.

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Posted by Metro Council on March 1, 2012 in Comedy, Drama, Service Workers, Working Class

The Harder They Come (1972)

01 Mar

120m; Jamaica

Director: Perry Henzell

Cast: Jimmy Cliff, Janet Bartley and Carl Bradshaw

Synopsis (IMDB): Wishing to become a successful Reggae singer, a young Jamaican man finds himself tied to corrupt record producers and drug pushers.

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Posted by Metro Council on March 1, 2012 in Drama, Entertainment Industry, Working Class

Harlan County War (2000)

01 Mar

104m; U.S.

Director: Tony Bill

Cast: Holly Hunter, Stellan Skarsgård and Ted Levine

Synopsis (IMDB): A Kentucky woman whose mine-worker husband is nearly killed in a cave-in, and whose father is slowly dying of black lung disease, joins the picket lines for a long, violent strike.

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Posted by Metro Council on March 1, 2012 in Drama, Organizing, Strikes-Strikebreaking-Lockouts, Women, Working Class

Tags: Mining

La Haine (Hate) [1995]

01 Mar

98m; France

Director: Mathieu Kassovitz

Cast: Vincent Cassel, Hubert Koundé and Saïd Taghmaoui

Synopsis: Abdel, a local hoodlum, is hospitalized after a riot, where a policeman lost his gun. His friend Vinz finds it and claims he will kill a cop if Abdel dies. 3 young emigres in Paris, a Jew, and African & a Middle-Easterner.

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

Hay que matar a B.

01 Mar

97m

Director: José Luis Borau

Cast: Darren McGavin, Stéphane Audran and Patricia Neal

Synopsis (IMDB): In a fictitious South American country there’s lots of political tension, the labor-unions have all their members on strike. The public demands the return of politician B. from exile. However private trucker Pal can’t afford to strike — so he’s beaten up and his truck burned. In the headlines he’s described as strike-breaker. This is only part of an intrigue which shall get him to murder B.

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Posted by Metro Council on March 1, 2012 in Drama, Strikes-Strikebreaking-Lockouts, Working Class

Heroes for Sale (1933)

01 Mar

76m; U.S.

Director: William Wellman

Cast: Loretta Young, Richard Barthelmess and Aline MacMahon

Synopsis: One of the most thrilling pre-code melodramas, Heroes for Sale follows working class hero Richard Barthelmess as he survives serious injury in WWI, overcomes a morphine addiction, faces unemployment, finds love (with Loretta Young) and a steady job, and tries to stop a vicious strike mob — and that¹s just in the first half! – Rochester Labor Film Series

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Posted by Metro Council on March 1, 2012 in Drama, Industrial/Mine/Manufacturing, Strikes-Strikebreaking-Lockouts, War, Working Class

Hester Street (1975)

01 Mar

90m; U.S.

Director: Joan Micklin Silver

Cast: Steven Keats, Carol Kane and Mel Howard

Synopsis: It’s 1896. Yankel Bogovnik, a Russian Jew, emigrated to the United States three years earlier and has settled where many of his background have, namely on Hester Street on the Lower East Side of New York City. He has assimilated to American life, having learned English, anglicized his name to Jake, and shaved off his beard. He is working at a $12/week job as a seamster, the money earned to be able to bring his wife Gitl and his son Yossele to America from Russia. Regardless, he has fallen in love with another woman, a dancer named Mamie Fein. Nonetheless, he is excited when he learns that Gitl and Yossele are indeed coming to America. His happiness at their arrival is dampened when he sees that Gitl is not “American” looking like Mamie and has troubles assimilating as quickly as he would like. Except to Mamie, he tries to show a public façade that everything is fine at home with Gitl. But can their marriage survive these differences, and if not, will Gitl be able to manage in this new land where she has few supports?

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

High Hopes (1988)

01 Mar

112m

Director: Mike Leigh

Synopsis (WorldCat): Cyril and Shirley are a young, working-class couple who, in their struggle to make ends meet, have become absorbed in socialism. Cyril’s sister Valerie and her husband aspire to a more privileged class. The only glue holding the siblings together is their withdrawn and wistful old mother.

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Posted by Metro Council on March 1, 2012 in Drama, Politics, Working Class