VIDEO : Watching the Working Class

Workers of the world--at least those who own a VCR--unite. Celebrate Labor Day this year with an appropriate home video.

Plenty of films touch on the life and times of the American labor movement. A good place to start is with two dynamic portrayals of two hard-working stiffs as different as night and day: Marlon Brando’s poor waterfront roustabout and Sally Field’s poor Southern textile worker.

“On the Waterfront” (1954, 108 minutes, RCA/Columbia Pictures tape and laser video disc) is Budd Schulberg’s brutally raw account of New York harbor unions.

This Academy Award-winning film (eight Oscars including best picture) boasts one of the most impressive casts ever assembled for a motion picture: the unforgettable Marlon Brando as the average Joe who finally takes on a corrupt labor boss (Lee J. Cobb in one of his nastiest portrayals); Rod Steiger as Brando’s brother (to whom ex-boxer Brando moans in one of the film’s most lampooned scenes, “Charlie, oh Charlie, you don’t understand. I coulda had class. I coulda been a contenduh”); Eva Marie Saint as his innocent girlfriend and Karl Malden as the frustrated priest. They were directed by Elia Kazan in his prime, with powerful music by Leonard Bernstein and stunning black-and-white cinematography by Boris Kaufman.

“Norma Rae” (1979, 113 minutes, CBS/Fox Home Video tape and laser video disc) makes any viewer want to stand up and shout for workers’ rights. Ron Leibman offers a realistic portrait of a New York labor organizer who cares more about the cause than the people in that cause, who recruits Sally Field and shepherds her into the fight against management.

Field offers a sympathetic portrait of a woman fighting for what she believes is right against almost impossible odds, both in the factory and at home.

Both this Martin Ritt film and the Kazan film are perfect for the small screen because they focus on human relationships.

“Blue Collar” (1978, 114 minutes, MCA tape and laser video disc) is a blunt look at assembly-line worker oppression. Integrated into a muckraking melodrama involving three car factory workers who finally resort to robbery, “Blue Collar” is a gutsy look at union and management, each ripping off the union worker who is caught in the middle. Paul Schrader overdirected this ripe melodrama. Richard Pryor, Harvey Keitel and Yaphet Kotto give first-rate performances.

“F.I.S.T.” (1978, 145 minutes, CBS-Fox tape and laser video disc) is Norman Jewison’s well-intentioned, well-produced story of the rise and fall of a union boss. But this ambitious portrait of a Jimmy Hoffa-like labor leader isn’t helped much by Sylvester Stallone’s one-dimensional performance. Peter Boyle shows what the film could have been in his role as a Teamster boss.

“Black Fury” (1935, 92 minutes, Key Video tape) is a dated yet still effective picture about strikes, with Paul Muni as a coal miner who champions safe working conditions as he goes up against union corruption.

If all of this is too serious for you on a day of rest, then try the lighter side of the working class. “9 to 5” (1980, 11O minutes, CBS-Fox tape and laser video disc) is the working woman’s revenge on an insufferably pompous male boss. Lily Tomlin, Dolly Parton and Jane Fonda are the three office women who plot to get rid of Dabney Coleman. Director Colin Higgins mixes a rich blend of fantasy and reality, throwing in some sage office politics and morality.

“The Pajama Game” (1964, 85 minutes, Warner tape and laser video disc) is the dazzling 1957 Broadway musical screen version of workers in a pajama factory who demand a pay raise. Doris Day and John Raitt are symbols of labor and management, and their love-hate relationship seems appropriate. But it’s the songs that make the film memorable, including “Hey, There” and “Steam Heat.”

“I’m All Right, Jack” (1960, 104 minutes, British, HBO tape) is the classic 1959 British satire on labor-management relations in England. Peter Sellers’ labor leader will be a familiar figure to anyone working on either side of the Atlantic. The cast is in top form: Terry-Thomas, Richard Attenborough, Ian Carmichael and Margaret Rutherford.

Two more films, each more than a half-century old, are so funny they just might remind you that things may not have changed that much after all. Rene Clair’s 1931 “A Nous la Liberte” (87 minutes, Hollywood Home Theater tape) is a classic satire on industrialization and the machine age. It was one of the inspirations for Charlie Chaplin’s “Modern Times” (1936, 89 minutes, Playhouse tape and disc) in which an assembly line worker goes berserk. This was actually Chaplin’s last silent film with music and sound effects added. It’s an attack on the machine age many workers still will appreciate.