Nine to Five

Three secretaries kidnap the boss who humiliates them, steals their ideas and blocks their promotions. Then they keep him at his house and start running the company themselves: flexible hours, a crèche, equal pay, job sharing. Productivity goes up. That is where its politics live: the arrangement the women imagine begins in fantasy sequences, and when it is implemented it actually works. Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin and Dolly Parton lead. It is Parton's first film. The title song is hers too. She wrote it on set and found the rhythm by clicking her acrylic nails together; it went to number one and was nominated for an Oscar. The idea came from Fonda; the script was written after interviews with real secretaries, and most of the complaints in the film come straight out of those conversations. It was one of the biggest earners of 1980. A genre classic for anyone who likes workplace comedy and early 1980s American cinema. Parts of it are very light now, and its solution ultimately rests on removing one bad boss.