Themes: Labor Unions, Fighting the System, Work Ethics
Main Cast: Sally Field, Beau Bridges, Ron Leibman, Pat Hingle, Barbara Baxley, Gail Strickland
Release Year: 1979
Country: US
Run Time: 120 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG
Plot
Norma Rae finds Sally Field cast in the title role, a minimum-wage worker in a cotton mill. The factory has taken too much of a toll on the health of Norma Rae's family for her to ignore her Dickensian working conditions. After hearing a speech by New York union organizer Reuben (Ron Leibman), Norma Rae decides to join the effort to unionize her shop. This causes dissension at home when Norma Rae's husband, Sonny (Beau Bridges), assumes that her activism is a result of a romance between herself and Reuben. Despite the pressure brought to bear by management, Norma Rae successfully orchestrates a shutdown of the mill, resulting in victory for the union and capitulation to its demands. Based on a true story, Norma Rae is the film for which Sally Field won her first Oscar; an additional Oscar went to David Shire and Norman Gimbel for the film's theme song, "It Goes Like It Goes." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
Before her Oscar-winning, breakthrough role as a union organizer in Norma Rae, Sally Field was famous for being television's The Flying Nun and for her subsequent lightweight comic work, particularly with Burt Reynolds in Smokey and the Bandit. Casting Field in the lead role of a poor, uneducated worker who organizes a Southern mill proved to be a stroke of genius. She wasn't known for portraying assertive, powerful characters, and so her transformation in the film from mousy and helpless to an icon of resistance symbolized for many audiences similar psychic and social journeys. Norma Rae became an authentic portrait of empowerment because its heroine (and the actress portraying her) seemed so ordinary to begin with. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide
Lonny Chapman - Gardner; Morgan Paull - Wayne Billings; Charlie Briggs - Warren Lotting; Robert Broyles - Sam Bolen; John Calvin - Ellis Harper; Booth Colman - Dr. Watson; Lee de Broux - Lujan; Joe Dorsey - Woodrow Thompson; J. Don Ferguson - Peter Galiot; Bert Freed - Sam Dakin; Gilbert Green - Al London; Bob Hannah - Jed Buffum; Edith Ivey - Louise Pickens; Clayton Landey - Teddy Bob Keeler; James Luisi - George Benson; Frank McRae - James Brown; Mary Munday - Mrs. Johnson; George R. Robertson - Farmer; Henry Slate - Policeman; Roy Tatum - Woodrow Bowser; Gregory Walcott - Lamar Miller; Noble Willingham - Leroy Mason; Grace Zabriskie - Linette Odum; Bob Minor - Lucius White; Jack Stryker - J.J. Davis; Vernon Weddle - Rev. Hubbard; Fred Covington - Alston
Credit
Tracy Bousman - Art Director, Martin Ritt - Director, Sid Levin - Editor, David Shire - Composer (Music Score), Norman Gimbel - Songwriter, Tom Ellingwood - Makeup, William Turner - Makeup, Walter Scott Herndon - Production Designer, John A. Alonzo - Cinematographer, Tamara Asseyev - Producer, Alex Rose - Producer, Gregory Garrison - Set Designer, Bruce Bisenz - Sound/Sound Designer, Harriet Frank, Jr. - Screenwriter, Irving Ravetch - Screenwriter
Norma Rae Webster (Sally Field) is a minimum-wage worker in a cotton mill that has taken too much of a toll on the health of her family for her to ignore her Dickensian working conditions. After hearing a speech by New York union organizer Reuben Warshowsky (Ron Leibman), Norma Rae decides to join the effort to unionize her shop. This causes conflict at home when Norma Rae's husband Sonny (Beau Bridges) assumes that her activism is a result of a romance between herself and Reuben. Despite the pressure brought to bear by management, Norma Rae successfully orchestrates an election to unionize the factory, resulting in victory for the union and presumably capitulation for the demands. When Reuben first comes to the factory he tries to get all the workers to start a union, but is soon chased out of the small town. Days later, Norma Rae shuts down her machine and stands on top of her work table striking. Soon the whole factory is with her and a union starts.
