Labor Films
On the Waterfront (1954)
- Elia Kazan's drama about the investigation of the New York Crime Commission of the dock strikes in New York in the 1940s.
Edge of the City (1957)
- Martin Ritt's first film after being blacklisted from TV in 1952, with John Cassevetes as ex-con Axel North seeking work on the docks befriended by Sidney Poitier as the family-man Tommy Tyler who becomes a victim of racism by the foreman Jack Warden as Charles Malik.
Molly Maguires (1970)
- a drama of Irish immigrant coal miners in 1876 Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, filmed by James Wong Howe in Eckley PA, directed by Martin Ritt with Sean Connery as Jack Kehoe, leader of the Mollies, and Richard Harris as turncoat Jamie McKenna, based on the Pinkerton detective James McParlan who infiltrated the leadership of the Mollies, and caused the arrest of 20 leaders, although none of them, including Kehoe, were members of the real miners' union, the Workingmen's Benevolent Association.
Blue Collar (1978)
- a drama set in Detroit in the 1970s about 3 friends Zeke (Richard Pryor) and Smokey (Yaphet Kotto) and Jerry (Harvey Keitel) struggling with a corrupt union.
F.I.S.T. (1978)
- a drama of Jimmy Hoffa (Johnny Kovac in the film, played by Sylvester Stallone) and his leaderhip of the Kroger strike in the 1930s
Norma Rae (1979)
- a drama based on the real-life story of textile union activist Crystal Lee Sutton in her fight against the J.P. Stevens Co. in Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina, directed by Martin Ritt, with Sally Field winning an Oscar for Best Actress, and Ron Leibman as the northern union organizer Reuben Warshovsky, resulting in a 1980 labor contract between the Stevens Co. and the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union.
Act of Vengeance (1986)
- This HBO-Canadian film is based on the true story of Jock Yablonski and his attempt to unseat corrupt Tony Boyle as leader of the United Mine Workers in 1969.
Matewan (1987)
- a drama about the violent coal miners' strike in 1920 West Virginia, directed by John Sayles, with Chris Cooper playing the fictional UMW organizer Joe Kenehan, and Will Oldham playing a fictional narrator/miner Danny Radnor, and James Earl Jones playing black miner Few Clothes Johnson; the film is good at showing the world of the miners in West Virginia, especially the cooperation of blacks and whites that led the UAW to become the most racially integrated union in the AF of L., but the film does not show the coal mine owners and their control of government, nor does it show women as labor activists such as the famed Mother Jones.
Last Exit to Brooklyn (1989)
- The violent and stark drama filmed in West Germany is based on the novel of Hubert Selby Jr. that deals with union corruption and working class life in 1950s Brooklyn, with Stephen Lang as the homosexual union leader Harry Black and Jennifer Jason Leigh as the prostitute Tralala.
Hoffa (1992)
- a drama about the rise of Teamsters president Jimmy Hoffa, played by Jack Nicholson, with Danny DeVito directing the David Malmet screenplay and also playing Hoffa's friend Bobby Ciaro, set during a fictional 6-hour wait in a roadside cafe in 1975 that ends with Hoffa gunned down; the film downplays Hoffa's ties to organized crime and portrays him as a heroic leader of the workingman.
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