Norma Rae **** (1979, Sally Field, Beau Bridges, Ron Leibman, Pat Hingle, Barbara Baxley) – Classic Movie Review 5127

Producer-director Martin Ritt’s double Oscar-winning 1979 drama Norma Rae was a triumph for him and his plucky star Sally Field, who deservedly, though unexpectedly, won her first Academy Award as Norma Rae, the underpaid young American Southern single mother and textile worker turned union organiser who upsets the textile mill bosses by rallying her fellow workers to unionise.

Director Ritt’s drama is commendably warm, concerned and cheering. Ron Leibman is outstanding in support as the New Yorker labour activist Reuben, who wins her over to the union cause, while also effective are Beau Bridges as her fiancé Sonny, and Pat Hingle as her dad Vernon.

There is typically strong acting all round in a spunky, rousing, impeccably liberal-minded film from Ritt, working again with writers Irving Ravetch and Harriet Frank Jr, his collaborators on Hud and Stanley and Iris). It is pretty much the kind of concerned film they don’t make any more.

It won a second Oscar for Best Original Song ‘It Goes Like It Goes’ for David Shire (music) and Norman Gimbel (lyrics), sung by Jennifer Warnes, and there were two other nominations for Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay for Irving Ravetch and Harriet Frank Jr.

Also in the cast are Barbara Baxley, Grace Zabriskie, Lonny Chapman, Gayle Strickland, Noble Willingham, Morgan Paull, Robert Broyles, John Calvin, Booth Colman, Lee de Broux, James Luisi, Vernon Weddle, Gilbert Green, Bob Minor, Mary Munday, Jack Stryker, Gregory Walcott, Bert Freed, Bob Hannah and Edith Ivey.

Norma Rae is shot in widescreen by John A Alonzo, produced by Martin Ritt, Alex Rose and Tamara Asseyev, scored by David Shire and designed by Walter Scott Herndon.

Field won her second Oscar for Places in the Heart (1984).

RIP Oscar and Grammy-winning lyricist Norman Gimbel, who died on 19 December 2018 in Santa Barbara, California.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 5127

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