Norma Rae (1979)
Director:
Martin Ritt
Tagline:
« The story of a woman with the courage to risk everything for what she believes is right. »
Actors:
Norma Rae
Sonny
Reuben
Vernon
Leona
Genre:
Drama
Rating:
(14’142 votes)
(14’142 votes)
Quotes:
« Norma Rae Webster: Forget it! I'm stayin' right where I am. It's gonna take you and the police department and the fire department and the National Guard to get me outta here!
»
« Norma Rae Webster: How long I been comin' to this church, Reverend?
»
« Reverend Hubbard: Since you were a little girl.
»
« Norma Rae Webster: That's right. I accepted Christ when I was six years old, didn't I? Well, would you call me a good Christian?
»
« Reverend Hubbard: With a lapse or two, I'd say so.
»
« Norma Rae Webster: 'With a lapse or two.' Would you call yourself a good Christian?
»
« Reverend Hubbard: That's for the Lord to say.
»
« Norma Rae Webster: I want this church for a union meetin' next Saturday. Blacks and whites sittin' together.
»
« Reverend Hubbard: This is a house of God.
»
« Norma Rae Webster: I'm waitin' to see whether it is or it isn't.
»
« Reverend Hubbard: You're comin' mighty close to blasphemy.
»
« Norma Rae Webster: I've come here and said I sinned and I'm sorry, and I asked for God to forgive me. I wanna see what this church stands for. I wanna see if you'll stand up and say there oughta be justice, a union, and if you're smitten, rise and the Lord'll be on your side. And if you don't, then I say there ain't nothin' good for me in that church, and I'm gonna leave it flat.
»
« Reverend Hubbard: We're gonna miss your voice in the choir, Norma.
»
« Norma Rae Webster: You're gonna hear it raised up someplace else.
»
« Reuben Warshowsky: On October 4, 1970, my grandfather, Isaac Abraham Warshowsky, aged eighty-seven, died in his sleep in New York City. On the following Friday morning, his funeral was held. My mother and father attended, my two uncles from Brooklyn attended, my Aunt Minnie came up from Florida. Also present were eight hundred and sixty-two members of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers and Cloth, Hat and Cap Makers' Union. Also members of his family. In death as in life, they stood at his side. They had fought battles with him, bound the wounds of battle with him, had earned bread together and had broken it together. When they spoke, they spoke in one voice, and they were heard. They were black, they were white, they were Irish, they were Polish, they were Catholic, they were Jews, they were one. That's what a union is: one… Ladies and gentlemen, the textile industry, in which you are spending your lives and your substance, and in which your children and their children will spend their lives and their substance, is the only industry in the whole length and breadth of the United States of America that is not unionized. Therefore, they are free to exploit you, to cheat you, to lie to you, and to take away what is rightfully yours – your health, a decent wage, a fit place to work. I would urge you to stop them by coming down to room 207 at the Golden Cherry Motel, to pick up a union card and to sign it… It comes from the Bible – according to the tribes of your fathers, ye shall inherit. It comes from Reuben Warshowsky – not unless you make it happen.
»
Trailer:
Official Trailer
Runtime:114 minutes
Plots:
A young single mother and textile worker agrees to help unionize her mill despite the problems and dangers involved.
Like a lot of her family before her, Norma Rae works at the local textile mill, where the pay is hardly commensurate with the long hours and lousy working conditions. But after hearing a rousing speech by labor activist Reuben, Norma is inspired to rally her fellow workers behind the cause of unionism. Her decision rankles her family, especially her fiancé, Sonny, and provokes no shortage of contempt from her employers.
Thirty-one year old widowed mother Norma Rae Wilson lives in the southern US town of Henleyville, which contains one major employer, O.P. Henley Textiles. Like most of her friends and family, she works in Henley’s mill – eight hundred on the line – those jobs on which the townsfolk rely to survive. Norma Rae is outspoken in her complaints about the working conditions at the mill, and will do most whatever to ensure a good wage for herself to support her two young children. She has a stable of casual sexual partners purely to relieve her boredom, she not having had a good history with men, with her one husband having died in a bar brawl, and the father of her younger child not having taken any responsibility at all after their sexual encounter. So she is surprised when she runs into a childhood mate, recently divorced Sonny Webster, the two who end up getting married. For Norma Rae, Sonny seems to be the kind of man who will make a good husband and father, the most important qualities in a man at this stage of her life. Like they do every few years, a Textile Workers Union of America representative, this time in the form of New York Jew Reuben Warshowsky, arrives in town, his goal to unionize the workers. They have been unable to do so as the workers fear losing their jobs, Norma Rae no exception. But as she begins to befriend Reuben and trust what he has to say is true, Norma Rae decides to work for him to unionize. As this union work takes over her life, her marriage is in jeopardy. But as the local face of the union, she may risk more in the form of her livelihood, her standing in the community and her family and friends, especially if they do not follow what she and Reuben are espousing.
Official website:
Official site
