Nine to Five (1980)

Nine to Five

Strangely enough, I just realized after seeing this film again today that Teaching Mrs. Tingle is a crude rip-off of this movie (three women take boss hostage at his own home to teach him a lesson). Who’d a thunk!?

Of course, Nine to Five has become an American archetype of filmmaking, combining good old-fashioned hatred of the workplace with a level of surrealism that would have stymied Buñuel. The story is pretty straight up forward. Three secretaries work under a draconian boss (Dabney Coleman, in the role that would define his career). Violet (Lily Tomlin) is gunning for a promotion, but doesn’t get it. Doralee (Dolly Parton) is having an affair with the man, but he won’t leave his wife. And Judy (Jane Fonda, in the worst hairdo and wardrobe of her career) is the new girl In trouble for stupid mistakes and general incompetence.

Over “mowie wowie,” the girls conspire to rid themselves of evil Franklin M. Hart Jr. with Doralee imagining a wild west scenario and Violet seeing herself as a vengeful Snow White, complete with animated creatures but it’s all just talk, right? Well, soon enough Hart is tied up in Judy’s home, and, well, they try to figure out what to do next.

Director Colin Higgins (Foul Play) has a real knack for this material, playing up felonies as fodder for comedy. Tomlin, Parton, and Coleman all arguably turn in the most memorable roles of their careers. And then there’s the script, which is sharp, jaded, and nihilistic, unusual for films form this era, which were typically dripping with sentimentality.

Nine to Five is fun stuff, hardly classic material, but the final act starts to wallow in absurdity and slips away from its nasty underpinnings and into a can-do attitude that simply makes the film less of a thrill than it ought to be.

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• Nashville (1975)
• Nosferatu – A Symphony of Terror (1922)
• Narc (2002)
• Nói albinói (2003)
• No Such Thing (2001)