Nine to Five (1980)

February 15, 2019 6:36 PM

Lily Tomlin, Jane Fonda, and Dolly Parton work in a corporate office. Their boss is a pig. When they manage to trap him in his own house they assume control of his department and productivity leaps, but just how long can they keep him tied up?
posted by Emmy Rae (17 comments total)

As Louis Virtel said, this is my favorite superhero team-up movie.
posted by Monochrome at 6:48 PM on February 15, 2019 [10 favorites]

I have been searching various platforms for this movie for probably years now. Like since I started watching Grace & Frankie. So excited when it finally popped up!

Lily Tomlin was magnetic. I felt a strong kinship with her from my days as an office manager, giving new people a tour and saying sassy asides about the other employees so the new person would know what goes down for real.

It was funny to me how Lily and Jane's style in this movie are sort of predictive of what their style is in G&F - Lily's character putting on the flowy kimono-ish sweater thing and Jane's character being 100% put together and cute at all times.

I was not expecting it to be so relevant! The ideas they implement that boost productivity are basic things companies could do NOW, and don't because it's so impossible to do anything mildly interesting or non-basic.

LOL at the end when they had a post script for each character and Dolly's character becomes a country singer, something she has not indicated any interest in during the entire movie. My hunch is that they wrote something more sensible and she was like "no. her dream is to be a country singer. make her that."
posted by Emmy Rae at 7:00 PM on February 15, 2019 [9 favorites]

I really hope Ms Parton gets a guest spot on G&F - I want to see her character run up against Brianna.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 7:43 PM on February 15, 2019 [3 favorites]

I haven't seen this movie in a few years, but I think I still have it memorized. I really love how quickly they shift from dislike (disdain for Dolly Parton's character, contempt for Jane Fonda's character, irritation with Lily Tomlin's character) to genuine sisterhood. Nine to Five is hilarious and holds up very well. The only thing that feels awkward is the boss who ultimately gets abducted or whatever by natives in darkest Brazil? But seriously: this is a 40-year-old movie that is still funny and relevant. (Your call as to how depressing that is.)
posted by grandiloquiet at 8:24 PM on February 15, 2019 [3 favorites]

Parton is great here. Tomlin and Fonda, too, but I didn't expect Dolly Parton to be this sharp. The theme song is fantastic, and it's always a treat to see Dabney Coleman be an asshole.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:19 PM on February 15, 2019 [4 favorites]

I would love to see a "Steel Magnolias, Part 2" with Judy and Violet driving through town and stopping by Truvy's beauty salon (she's a chain!) and commenting about how she must be related to their best friend back in the city....
posted by TrishaU at 9:43 PM on February 15, 2019

I first saw this when I was far, far too young to get most of it, yet I remembered a lot of it, including the then-baffling-to-me S&M stuff.

I had a hunch it would still be relevant, particularly in the Trump Epoch, yet what surprised me was how bold it is—and not just socially. I mean it's a bold film comedy in a way that just doesn't seem to happen anymore. Like the dream sequences: such wacky, yet welcome, tonal shifts.
posted by CheesesOfBrazil at 4:31 AM on February 16, 2019 [4 favorites]

"Sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical, bigot" is a beautifully satisfying phrase. Really rolls off the tongue.
posted by wabbittwax at 5:50 AM on February 16, 2019 [8 favorites]

This movie is a delight.

I always love the fantasy sequences, particularly the Snow White one with all the twittering animals and secret poison. And locking him up with all the chains.

We still don't have any of those improvements at jobs decades later, do we?
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:10 AM on February 16, 2019 [3 favorites]

Well now you'd harass administrative assistants, not secretaries. "Secretary" is dismissive.
posted by grandiloquiet at 9:03 AM on February 16, 2019 [1 favorite]

What everyone else said. And Dabney Coleman, an actor who seemed like he was in /everything/ back then, from 9 to 5 to WarGames with Matthew Broderick to Cloak & Dagger with Henry Thomas. From '77 to '84, he was in at least two movies a year (and five in 1980) six times.
posted by Fukiyama at 9:17 AM on February 16, 2019 [1 favorite]

He and Barry Corbin have a great dynamic in WarGames.
posted by Chrysostom at 12:41 PM on February 16, 2019

A year earler Fonda played a TV reporter eager to report meaty pieces--who still gets smacked on the ass by her freelance cameraman colleague Michael Douglas--in The China Syndrome.
posted by brujita at 6:07 PM on February 16, 2019 [2 favorites]

Huh, I guess it makes sense this was a movie before it became a musical. Probably not a lot of point in watching a version without all the singing and dancing, though, even if they were added in later.
posted by one for the books at 7:33 PM on February 17, 2019

I guess the point would be that it's a really good movie.
posted by Chrysostom at 4:55 PM on February 18, 2019 [6 favorites]

The scarf in this movie was truly the most useless gag. Dabney Coleman's character could have easily spit out at any time. Why wouldn't you tie it around his head or something? Anyway that part was so stupid it kind of made me laugh.

Which is not to say that it detracted in any way from the movie!
posted by Emmy Rae at 7:37 PM on February 21, 2019

Relevant tweet

For those who can't or don't wish to use twitter: it is a picture of a man and woman sitting side by side. The man is copying off of the woman's paper. The woman is labeled "Dolly Parton 9 to 5" and the man copying her is labeled "Karl Marx the Communist Manifesto" The poster commented "finally someone was brave enough to say it".
posted by Emmy Rae at 10:56 AM on February 22, 2019