Cult Cinema: 9 to 5 (1980) - Reviewed

Courtesy of 20th Century Fox

Everyone who has worked for anyone else in their life has at least one or two horror stories about how awful their bosses are.  Whether it’s the result of bigotry or sexism or abusing the workplace rules, everyone has had an instance at some point or another where they clashed with their superior or were even preyed upon.  

In 1980 however Harold and Maude screenwriter Colin Higgins in his second feature with the help of Patricia Resnick based on her own story sought to give back to the little people with the screwball office workplace comedy 9 to 5, a film that lives out many a number of employees’ fantasies about finally getting back at their domineering or piggish bosses.  Considered to be influential on such current film directors as Judd Apatow, Wes Anderson and Paul Feig, Colin Higgins’ follow up to Foul Play is as much of a blue-collar comedy as it is a vehicle to further advance the film career of country singer Dolly Parton.

 
Uptight housewife Judy Bernly (Jane Fonda) after splitting with her husband lands a job as a secretary under the Consolidated Companies firm under the supervision of cranky quick-witted Violet Newstead (Lily Tomlin), herself a veteran employee of the company.  Both Judy and Violet work under a sleazy Vice President Franklin Hart (Dabney Coleman in delightfully piggish form), a domineering chauvinist who hands over promotions to male employees when he isn’t sexually harassing his secretary Doralee Rhodes (a spunky Dolly Parton).  After a hard day, the newly-united trio of women, after a night of drinking and smoking pot, decide to get revenge in the most satisfactory way, an endeavor that results in all sorts of slapstick and screwball comedy antics that get sillier as they go on. 

 
Originating from an idea by the film’s main star Jane Fonda who had then formed her own company IPC Films, the film was meant to be an homage to 1940s pictures led by three main female actresses before it was reworked from a drama to a comedy.  While Fonda’s baby, 9 to 5 also proved to be singer Dolly Parton’s screen debut and to say she is simply electric in the role when she isn’t contributing original songs to it is putting it mildly.  

Always a wonderful presence onscreen is Lily Tomlin as the crabby battered hardworking employee who keeps seeing younger male coworkers getting opportunities continually denied to her.  Dabney Coleman, the hero of Cloak and Dagger, completely sinks his fangs into this dirtbag boss role, making his eventual comeuppance all the more hilarious.  Last but not least, look for a sneak cameo by the legendary Sterling Hayden, fresh off of his role as the drunken novelist in Robert Altman's The Long Goodbye.

 
Visually the film is handsomely lensed by otherwise dramatic cinematographer Reynaldo Villalobos and Monday Night Football composer Charles Fox lends a dependably slapstick and upbeat comedy score.  Mostly though despite the creative latitude given to Colin Higgins by producer/star Jane Fonda, this is mostly Fonda’s ship being steered with a startling amount of confidence and even anger directed through the comedy onscreen.  

Considered to be a comedy benchmark of the 1980s, listed at number 74 in the American Film Institute’s 100 Funniest Movies, Colin Higgins’ 9 to 5 went on to become a smash hit at the box office, raking in some $100 million against a $10 million budget.  So successful was the film, in 1982 and again in 1986 the film spawned two seasons of the television show 9 to 5 and all the way to 2009 Dolly Parton unveiled her very own musical adaptation of the same.  While the three main actresses formed a reunion in 2022 on the Netflix special Grace and Frankie, there is yet to be an official sequel to the hit 1980 comedy and perhaps it should stay that way. 
 
One of the first movies to take on sexual harassment in the workplace with a comical bent to it, 9 to 5 forecasted such genre fare as Working Girl, Office Space and even Horrible Bosses by switching the genders around while presenting the same basic dilemma.  One of the funniest and most beloved comedies of the 1980s still able to generate laughs in this day and age, 9 to 5 is a gem of a movie that tickles the ribs while also blasting at abuses of power in the workplace and how to hit back. 

Sadly the career of Colin Higgins was cut short after delivering his second Dolly Parton musical venture The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas when he died of AIDS in 1988.  Nevertheless, the late writer-director’s legacy lives on in the hearts and minds of filmgoers eager for a little escapism with just enough real world drama in it to make it relatable.  If nothing else, watch for the infectious comedic power of Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin and Dolly Parton!

--Andrew Kotwicki