NINE TO FIVE

US, 1980, 109 minutes, Colour.
Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, Dolly Parton, Dabney Coleman, Sterling Hayden, Elizabeth Wilson, Henry Jones, Lawrence Pressman, Marian Mercer, Ren Woods.
Directed by Colin Higgins.

Nine To Five is broad comedy, aiming at the widest audience rather than class and style. As such, it is a frequently funny blow in the cause of women's equality, a kind of fantasy about getting the chauvinist pig bosses (and Dabney Coleman deserves full marks for his performance and his courage in appearing so blatantly porcine). There are three humorous fantasies within the fantasy as well as numerous nods to cinema traditions and cliches: hospital bodysnatching, mad chases and the office women (definitely not 'girls') becoming 'collectors' with their kidnapped boss. It is Lily Tomlin's film. Dolly Parton is amply good-natured. Jane Fonda is rather overshadowed. Quite good ? might have easily been better. The direction is by Colin Higgins who wrote and directed Foul Play and wrote screenplays for such films as Harold and Maude and Silver Streak.

1. An entertaining comedy? Vehicle for the leading actresses? Satisfying vehicle for making points about women's equality, women's role in society? Women's liberation? For what audience was the film designed? Impact on men, women?

2. The tone of the film? the working title? The lyrics of the theme song? The collage during the credits of people going to work ? with humorous overtones?

3. Audiences identifying with office work? Violet's tour of the office, the various women at work, Maggie and her drinking, Doralee and her appearance, relationship with Hart? Hart and his being boss of the floor? Roz and her spying? The presentation of office work, conditions? Lunch breaks? Friendships? Hostilities? An authentic atmosphere of office work?

4. Hart, caricature or character? As embodying the male chauvinist pig? The lines given to him and his way of putting them across? The bait for hostile feminine reaction from the audience? His actions? His using of Vi and not promoting her? His being promoted to Brazil at the end (to audience applause)? Doralee and her techniques for warding him off? His relationship with his wife, packing her off on a tour? Her unforeseen return? His embezzling so much money? His reaction to being kidnapped? Imprisoned? The focus of attention for feminine reaction to a male dominated world?

5. Lily Tomlin's style as Vi? First meting her with Judy, her twelve years, her ability to smile and turn off the smile, her devices for coping, the encounters with Roz, her agreeing with Hart when promotion was in the air, introducing Judy to the office, to the Xerox machine, the encounters with Doralee and her suspicions of her, Doralee's receiving the scarf, her capacity for managing people e.g. her responding to so many phone calls at once, seeing her at home working on the garage door, her son and the marijuana, her reaction to not being promoted, her going off to get drunk, the party and the hilarity, her Snow White fantasy and the animation from Bambi etc., the fairy tale treatment of her poisoning Hart and tipping him out the window? The pseudo-mediaeval effect of the -finale of her fantasy? The irony of her giving him the rat poison the next day? The farce at the hospital with her panic, the taking of the corpse, the speedy car ride, the car breakdown and the discovery of the other corpse, being held up by the police? Her brains with the warehouse blackmail? The success of the imprisonment of Hart? The Chairman of the Board and his promoting Hart and relying on her? A genial picture of the office worker?

6. The contrast with Jane Fonda and her initial dowdy appearance, her being late for work, her clumsiness? Naive reactions? The background of her husband, his visits, the divorce, his attempt at reconciliation, discovery of Hart, his outburst and her outburst against him? Her prim reactions at the office especially about Doralee? Her disgust at Hart's conduct? Drinking with the girls, the pot party, her black and white aggressive fantasy of hunting Hart in his office (with his head on the wall)? Her help with the moving of the corpse? Her minding of Hart? Shooting the gun in his office? A successful portrait of somebody settling in to office work?

7. Dolly Parton's presence and style as Doralee? Audience judging her as did the women in the office? The comedy of her shrewd attempts to ward off Hart? Her talk with her husband about people not liking her? Her resenting Hart's implications? The drinking, the pot party and the humorous fantasy of lassoing Hart, treating him as secretary as he treated her? The parody on reversal of male, female behaviour? Her commonsense with the corpse? Her coping with Hart in his imprisonment? A pleasing and enjoyable good-natured character?

8. Roz and her appearance, manner of speaking, spying, her love for Hart? The humour of her going off to the language course? Maggie and her drinking, her support: of the defiance of the other women? Her reform because of the alcoholics programme? Other women in the office? especially the victim of Hart's harshness?

9. The devices the film used to capture the atmosphere of work, the attacks on Hart, the girls' party and their fantasies, the coffee and corpse sequences, the hospital sequences? The nods in the direction of old style films? e.g. Vi wheeling the corpse around the hospital and the music, the car chases, the satire on The Collector and the three women with Hart tied up in his house?

10. Hart and the way that he was used - victimised by the women? His place in their fantasies, his being tied up at home (and the satiric symbol for housewives tied up at home!), his relationship with his wife, his making good ? and not knowing what was going on, finishing in Brazil?

11. The sketch of the Chairman of the Board and his approval of what was going on and his insistence on Hart going to Brazil?

12. The humour of the ending with what happened to the ladies? A satisfying comedy about work, pressures in modern life, the battle of the sexes, social roles of men and women, equality? How persuasive the devices of comedy?