Norma Rae

We celebrated Labor Day last Monday by watching one of the most famous labor movies made. Sally Field stars as Norma Rae Webster a textile mill worker in North Carolina. Norma Rae has two kids by two different men, has been married once and is not shy in anyway.

When we first see her in the textile mill in a gritty t shirt and hair up, sweat on her brow and sass on her lips it becomes quite a contrast to how she looks eight hours later when she answers the door to Sonny Webster and goes out with him. Field is stupendous in this role, she is Norma Rae in accent,tone, and bearing.

As she starts dating Sonny ( Beau Bridges) one day when he comes to pick her up for a date she presents her two children to join them. Nonplussed he returns to his house and picks up his young daughter to join them. He is, unbeknownst to Norma, a single father. After an earnest proposal expressing his desire for a good life, a shared life, Norma is married. As she says " it has been a long time between offers."

While Norma's relationship with her future husband is developing she has made friends with a union organizer from New York named Rueben Warshowsky. Rueben, played by Ron Leibman, who also is brilliant, is a fish out of water, a New York Jew in a Carolina mill town, but he believes in the union and is steadfast.

Norma is tired of the working conditions at the mill that have affected her, her friends and loved ones. Of course the bosses are portrayed as typical good old Southern boys who use all the methods available to keep the union from organizing.


The climatic scene in the movie is well known, Norma's silent vigil holding her union sign is one most of us have at least heard of.

It is said that Burt Reynolds, Field's live in at the time of the filming, read the script and said as he handed the script back to field " Ladies and Gentlemen the Oscar goes to Sally Field" He was prescient in this statement and it was well deserved.

This is not a pretty movie. It is grey and gritty with real characters struggling to maintain their dignity. It could be compared to The Grapes of Wrath in how well it portrays it's story of the downtrodden low skill worker in America.

A fantastic movie.

Smokey and the Bandit

For all my affectations of trying to read many of the classic novels, historical and biographical books, enjoying a wide range of all music and of course classic movies I was raised a country kid.

I grew up in a small town, we went to the car races all summer long, and when I was a 12 year old boy and went with a friends family to the drive in ( another thing long gone from the landscape) to see this movie it was a highlight.

I loved this movie. As a twelve year old it had a cool star, fast cars, a Trans Am no less and enough cursing to be be considered cool. Later we would watch Porky's and feel the same but for now the Trans Am was a huge star, one that young boys would fall in love with.

Now I should admit that I also in this time frame or soon thereafter found The Dukes of Hazzard to be a great show too. That show too featured cars and racing as well as those Daisy Dukes.

With the Dukes still on CMT I got a chance to watch this the other day. It does not age well. I do not feel any affection for it. It is awful to watch.

However catching Smokey and the Bandit on cable a week or so ago I have to admit a stunning fact. I love this movie. It is a good story. It is not illuminating in any way. It does not teach or moralize. But it is funny.

Perhaps the best thing about the movie is Jackie Gleason. He was an underrated actor and in this role as Sheriff Buford T Pusser he lays it on thick. It works. Burt Reynolds underrated in many of his roles plays his part well and certainly not in an understated way. Sally Fields and Jerry Lee Lewis were also good.

Some movies just work. This movie is a snapshot of redneck culture in the mid seventies. Good, bad or indifferent it works. It still does.