Frank Hart is a pig. He takes advantage in the grossest manner of the women who work with him. When his three assistants manage to trap him in his own house they assume control of his department and productivity leaps, but just how long can they keep Hart tied up? Written by
&view=simple&sort=alpha"
>John Vogel <jlvogel@comcast.net>

Plot Synopsis:
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The film is centered on the friendship between three women who work in the business offices of a large corporation known as Consolidated, located in Chicago. Judy Bernly (Jane Fonda) is a naïve new employee, a recent divorcee whose husband left her for his secretary. On her first day, Judy meets Violet Newstead (Lily Tomlin), the supervisor of her department, and a longtime employee of Consolidated. Violet trains Judy and introduces her to the department executive, Franklin Hart, Jr. (Dabney Coleman), who immediately reveals himself to be arrogant and sexist. Judy soon learns that Violet, an employee for over 10 years, has been passed over consistently by those who could promote her, and in fact she has seniority over Hart.

The third woman in the trio is the buxom Southern belle Doralee Rhodes (Dolly Parton), Hart's personal secretary. Despite the fact that Doralee is happily married to a construction worker and part-time country-western singer, and Hart is also married to a sweet but oblivious woman named Missy, Hart continually makes inappropriate advances toward Doralee, pushing her patience and tolerance to the limit. Hart has also been lying to his colleagues that he's been sleeping with Doralee, causing office gossip to go wild. The women in the office treat her rudely as a result, and initially Judy shuns Doralee's attempts to be friendly.

Some time passes, and Violet is once again passed over for an important promotion, even though her ideas are good enough that Hart passes one off as his own and takes all the praise for it. When Violet protests to Hart that he passed her over for a promtion because she is a woman, Hart bluntly tells her that the company would rather have a man in the position, and Violet becomes enraged, storming off on her own, but not before she reveals to Doralee that her affair with Hart is common knowledge. Doralee, who has been confused and upset about the way she's treated by her coworkers, snaps and also rages at Hart, threatening to use her gun on him the next time he makes an indecent proposal. Judy witnesses a fellow secretary lose her job over a minor infraction and she, too, becomes enraged.

The three women converge at a local bar to drown their sorrows, when Violet discovers a marijuana cigarette that her son left in her purse as a gift. They return to Doralee's house and smoke it together, prompting each of them to have a detailed fantasy about how they would kill Hart if they had the chance. Judy imagines a scenario where she's a great white hunter who hunts down Hart in the office with a shotgun. Doralee's fantasy is of her as a cowgirl who turns the tables on Hart and sexually harasses him before roasting him alive on a spit. Violet envisions a fairy tale where she is a Snow White type character who poisons Hart's coffee and sends him falling to his death outside his office window, which suddenly releases scores of oppressed "prisoners" chained to their desks.

Things take a sudden bizarre turn the next day when each of the women's fantasies comes true in some odd way. Violet accidentally and absent-mindedly puts rat poison in Hart's coffee, mistaking it for an artificial sweetener. Before Hart can drink it, he falls from his unstable desk chair and knocks himself unconscious in his office. Doralee finds him and calls for an ambulance and accompanies him to the local hospital.

At first the women have no clue what happened to Mr. Hart, but then Violet finds the rat poison and realizes what she did, and they all assume the reason Hart blacked out was because he drank the poisoned coffee. They embark on a wild nighttime chase to cover up the crime, starting when Violet steals what she thinks is Mr. Hart's body out of the hospital and puts it in the truck of her car to dispose of it. Only after they get into a minor car accident do they discover that the corpse is not that of Mr. Hart. After shaking off a suspicious policeman, the three women dispose of the body by taking it back to the hosptial and leaving it in a wheelchair in a restroom.

The nexy day, they discover that Hart wasn't harmed at all, but their discussion about the incident is overheard by Hart's nosy personal assistant, Roz Keith (Elizabeth Wilson), and Hart tries to use the information to blackmail Doralee into having an affair with him after all. Doralee loses her temper and ropes Hart with telephone wires, and Judy fires on Hart with Doralee's pistol gun when he escapes his bonds.

With Hart's wife away on a lengthy cruise, the women decide to kidnap Hart and imprison him in his own home until they can somehow get him to cooperate and forget the whole incident. But the cold and impassive Hart refuses to listen to them and vows to kill them. Looking for a way to blackmail Hart to keep quiet, Violet discovers that Hart has been embezzling money from Consolidated by illegally selling inventory from a Consolidated-owned warehouse and keeping the profits for himself. The girls plan on using the information to blackmail Hart to keep quiet from calling the police.

After purchasing a series of items, including a skydiving harness, chains, dog collars, and a remote-controled hook and wire to keep Hart confided in his own house, the ladies return to work after the weekend as usual while Violet sends for an order of the warehouse inventories as proof of Hart's embezzlement scheme, but she soon learns from the head office in New York that, because of a computer system change, the office will not send them the invoices for between four to six weeks.

From this point on, a race is on to see if Hart can escape or if Violet's documented proof of the scam will arrive in time. The three women work together to make Hart's absence in the office as inconspicuous as possible, and they send Roz to Europe on a ruse to learn a foreign language to keep her away from the office. During the weeks of Hart's confinment, the three ladies take a number of liberties in improving the workplace in ways that they see fit.

One night, Hart almost escapes when he finds a nail file in the bathroom the ladies overlooked and tries cutting his restraints. Judy, who is staying nights in Hart's house, is surprised when her ex-husband shows up at the house after following her there after work and he asks to reconcile with her. But when Hart makes a noise, Judy is forced to restrain him and her ex-husband, seeing the captive Hart tied up, mistakenly assumes that Judy is having an affair of her own with her boss and leaves, claiming that they are now over and will never get back together.

Later, Hart is accidentally freed when Missy returns early from her cruise, and for three days, he quietly buys back all the items he sold and puts them back in the Consolidated warehouse. Doralee only learns about Hart's wife's return when Mrs. Hart calls her at her house to thank for her sending her flowers in Hart's name which is why Hart's wife, Missy, returned from her vacation earlier since Hart treats her badly. Doralee runs over to the house to find the freed Hart now holding Judy captive.

After taking them to the office to meet with Violet, Hart plays his final card boasting that women never can defeat him. Just when it appears as if he is going to send the girls to jail, a sudden visit from the reclusive and ruthless Chairman of the Board, Russell Tinsworthy (Sterling Hayden), interrupts him. To the cold and unfeeling Hart's chargrin, he finally sees that Violet, Judy, and Doralee have made some radical changes in the office while keeping him imprisoned, and it seems as if the sudden surge in productivity has caught the attention of Tinsworthy.

Since the women did all of it under the false approval of Hart, they can take no credit for it, but fate seems to be on their side: Tinsworthy "rewards" Hart for his good work by immediately removing him from his position and sending him to work on a special project in Brazil, much to the amusement and delight of Violet, Doralee, and Judy as now they are free from Hart who will never try to destroy them without destroying his own career.

In a postscript at the end, it is revealed that Violet took Hart's place as vice president of Consolidated, Judy married the Xerox repairman and quit the company, Doralee also quit the company and moved back to her Tennessee hometown where she became a country music singer (just like the actress that played her), and Hart was kidnapped by natives during a trip in the Amazon and was never seen or heard from again.

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misslv80
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"Nine To Five" is one of those classic 80s comedies which was what made the decade so fun as far as movies go. Jane Fonda plays Judy, a recently divorced housewife who lands a secretarial job at a corporate office. Lily Tomlin is Violet, the beleagured supervisor at the office who shows Judy the ropes on her disasterous first day. Dolly Parton is Doralee, a secretary whom everyone at the office thinks is using her - ahem - "assets" to get ahead by sleeping with the boss.

Soon these three become best friends and team up after they've gotten fed up with their chauvinistic and smarmy boss Mr. Hart, played to the hilt by Dabney Coleman. Sure, it does delve into zany corniness, such as the scene where they all get high on pot and share their fantasies about how each of them would like to knock off the boss (the funniest is Violet's "Snow White" coffee one, which uses cartoon animation and live action) or the scene where Violet thinks she accidentally poisoned Mr. Hart's coffee with rat poison and tries to steal his supposed dead corpse out of the hospital! This is the kind of movie where you check your brain at the door and take it for what it is.

There are some great one-liners like the one where Fonda tells her ex-husband, who thinks she's having a kinky S&M affair with Mr. Hart, something along the lines of, "If I want to do M&M's, that's fine with me!" The office they work in is reminiscent of the one in "The Apartment". Three very clever characters, great comedic acting from Parton as Doralee and Tomlin as Violet. Jane Fonda, who I never cared much for, was good as the naive Judy. Sterling Hayden has a great cameo at the end as the "Chairman of the Board". A funny revenge comedy about Every Office, U.S.A.. You gotta love the theme song, too. Most recommended!

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E. Catalan (ecatalan98@gmail.com) from Mexico
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I never saw 9 TO 5 when it played at the theaters but saw it soon after on video. I was like 14 years old back then and I remember enjoying the film very much, even if I didn't get all the misogynistic humor and women's lib stuff. Fast forward to 2006 and I decided to buy 9 TO 5 on DVD and see the fun again. After all, I haven't seen this one on TV in a LONG time and my local BLOCKBUSTER is sorely lacking a "classics" catalog. I knew in my mind that some of the movies you hold so dearly when you're a kid simply don't "cut it" when you see them all grown up. I am very pleased to say that 9 TO 5 has stood the test of time quite well and its "it's a corporate world" underpinnings couldn't be more appropriate now a days. The movie was cleverly written and directed and the humor develops naturally without looking forced or too acted out. It's the story of recently divorced Judy Bernly (Jane Fonda). Her ex husband ran away with his secretary and now Judy, ironically, finds a job being one. The company is called Consolidated Companies, which by the way, we never really know what they do or what they sell. We only know that it is a big company and that each floor of the high building is a "division". Frank Hart (played wonderfully by Dabney Coleman) is the villainous boss and head of the division. He is, as his right hand aide might put it, an "egotistical bigot". Hart's overwhelming tyranny makes his aide, Violet, to snap and with her go Judy and Dorlee (Dolly Parton), his voluptuous personal secretary. The trio spend the afternoon together drinking and smoking pot and jokingly thinking how each of them would "kill" their boss if they had the chance. The movie visualizes each of the secretary's outlandish fantasies and this part of the movie is one of the most entertaining and hilarious. Next day it's back to the real world and back to the daily grind. From here on each of the secretaries' fantasies take real form in some way or another making the movie even more fun. You'll have to see the rest to know what I mean. Despite being a 25 year old movie, 9 TO 5 stands the test of time perfectly, with only some of the cars and some of the clothing fashion looking a bit dated. It is a very well made, fast paced comedy that never bores. My wife loved it and she had never seen it before (she was barely a year when this came out!). 9* out of 10!!!

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peachesrox from usa
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From the sparkling acting debut of Dolly Parton to the comic genius of Dabney Coleman 9 to 5 is one of the best acted comedies of the 1980s. Jane Fonda and the brilliant Lilly Tomlin round out the lead cast with hilarious performances in this screwball revenge comedies that was one of the first films to champion "girl power". Even the smaller characters like Marien Mercer (as Missy Hart)and Elizabeth Wilson (as office snitch/bitch Roz)get in good one liners and laughs. Rent this movie. No wait - BUY this movie. You can watch it again and again.

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Terry Roehrig II from United States
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The movie starts with Dolly Parton's anthem to office workers everywhere and immediately sets the movie's tone throughout. "9 to 5", to me, is a comedy classic. The three leads put in fine performances (especially love Lily Tomlin's frustration as Violet Newstead) as does Dabney Coleman as the boss you just love to hate. It's basic "Screenwriting 101". Likable leads, easy to hate protagonist, fun and fast-moving story, solvable conflicts, the "all is lost" moment and viable resolution. It doesn't hurt that your title is a hit song, too.

This movie was pretty big back in 1980. It was the 2nd highest grossing movie of the year. Number one went to "The Empire Strikes Back". It's not hard to see why this movie did so well. How many of us has had dreams of getting even with their boss? The movie still plays well today. Sure, a lot of those office hijinx don't happen anymore and we've become so sensitive as a nation that the mere mention of sex (what?? people do that?? how disgusting!! ) would likely get you sued or fired. Overall, this movie is just one fun ride! See more reviews at www.soveryterry.com

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Ripley from las vegas
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I first saw this movie on HBO around 1981. Now, as I re-watch it again for the 20th time, it still has me laughing at all the hysterical lines, "....change you from a rooster to a hen....", "....gruesome but cute....", "It looks just like Skinny & Sweet....I might as well save them the trouble and give them the rat poison....", and all the rest of this wildly funny movie.

This movie is timeless. Including all the actors who are the perfect choice for this movie.

This comedy is a definite 10 out of 10!!!!

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mat-tuck from Bournemouth, England.
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This has to be a true classic movie for anybody. Parton, Fonda, Tomlin play the three main characters set in a big business office block, "Consolidated". Dolly Parton is excellent, portraying the country girl, Jane Fonda as the divorced housewife's first job role, and Lily Tomlin as the bosses stepping stone. The film is full of one line crack jokes which can be missed on the first time you watch it. Do watch the movie a few times, and soon you'll pick up on how funny the lines are "Violet, did you get my Memo?", "I did Roz, I tore right through it".

Later in the film the plot is well underway and animation is combined successfully with Tomlin's scene of a Snow White type character!

I loved this film, and my laserdisc copy is always on the top of the pile. A good all rounder to be watched over and over, and I sometimes find myself using those punch lines.

Dolly Parton provides the "9 to 5" opening music, which sets the movie off to a good pace.

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Genevi Landon from United Kingdom
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I am a 31 year old man, married to a high-powered corporate secretary. Her favorite film is Nine to Five. I never understood this until the past year. It NAILS what is STILL going on to our women in the workplace. Lily Tomlin is absolutely perfect in her role as Violet, and she is really at the heart of the movie. Her struggle is that of almost any honest, hard-working mid-level manager. This is not feminist propaganda by any stretch -- in fact I am extremely impressed by the humor with which this movie is pulled off. Dolly Parton is so awesome, so hilarious. Dabney Coleman embodies pure sleaze, and although it pains me to say this, many "executives" here in 2005 are almost identical to him. Obviously he is a ridiculous chauvinist bastard, but so are thousands of these guys in corporate America (and elsewhere) -- and they do it with impunity and without a sense of humor. Thank God for Nine to Five!

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scrufffles from United States
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This is an excellent movie. Funny as hell, a bit twisted and psychedelic at times, and close to the reality of cubicle working. It shows the different personalities of people who come together working in an office environment. It is based in reality and how disenfranchising a job like this can feel, quite hopeless. The fantasies of the workers against their sexist, lying, hypocritical bigot of a boss are played out in playful talk. These dreams/fantasies are not to be missed and are quite surreal, that's one of the best parts of the movie. But then they actually do concoct a scheme to expose their boss' mishandling of company funds. It's a struggle to the end to out him until the ending where they don't have to do anything at all. The problem of their boss of taken care of for them in an unexpected and very fitting way.

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melwyn from Australia
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I first saw this film as a kid when it was in the cinema. I must have watched it more than a few dozen times since then. As a kid I simply loved the comedy, and the way our three heroes triumph over the Boss from Hell. As an adult I've found it's a great way to cope after a terrible day at work: beer, pizza and 9 to 5. When you've got the Boss from Hell, then this movie is your fantasy. I feel like I'm getting revenge on my boss from the comfort of my own home!

Parton, Fonda and Tomlin make a fantastic team. There is obviously an incredible chemistry at work between them. Along with Dabney Coleman they play their fantastic characters to the hilt, right up to the edge of "over the top" without actually jumping off. At the same time the dramatic moments in the film fire up their (and our) sense of outrage at the conditions they must work under, giving the story a kick along at exactly the right moments.

Apart from being horrendously funny, it is a stark reminder of what sort of conditions prevail in a workplace without a union to represent staff. I've been working for 14 years now and spent many years as a trade union delegate in my workplace. So much has been gained in the last 20 years that it is now not uncommon to encounter young, naive employees with no idea of history, asking "So, why should I join the union? What's the union ever done?". Look at this movie, look beneath the comedy, and see exactly what a workplace can be like without a union.

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bkoganbing from Buffalo, New York
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While watching Nine To Five, I couldn't help but think about the Billy Wilder classic film, The Apartment. Part of the plot of that film was Fred MacMurray, a more polished version of Dabney Coleman from this film who also used his office and position of authority to behave like a real pig. I thought about poor Shirley MacLaine who tried to commit suicide and eventually found love with Jack Lemmon, but both faced an uncertain future albeit with each other.

Shirley and the other of MacMurray's victims should have seen this film and taken a lesson from Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, and Dolly Parton who start as strangers and end up as allies and who find a way to get even with Dabney Coleman for using and abusing his employees.

All three women are different, different in real life and playing different types of characters in the film and at the beginning not really liking each other because they don't know each other. Tomlin is the efficient office manger who makes Coleman look good because he takes credit for her work. Fonda is a new employee who had to go back to work because her husband left her. And the beautiful and curvaceous Parton is Coleman's secretary who Coleman is trying to jump her form and the folks in the office think he already has.

But eventually these women make common cause and what they do to Coleman is an inspiration to working women everywhere.

As good as these women are the film would go nowhere without Dabney Coleman who makes a specialty of playing men you love to hate whether in comedy or drama. He's as big a sexist pig as MacMurray and a whole lot funnier.

The supporting cast has some real interesting roles as well. Elizabeth Wilson plays the office snitch and anyone who has ever worked in an office you can count yourself lucky if there are only one of those in your place of work. And they don't have to necessarily be women. I also liked Marian Mercer as Coleman's completely clueless wife. And movie veteran Sterling Hayden comes on in the end as the chairman of the board of the company who in his own earnest, but clueless way settles all their problems.

To Dolly, Jane, and Lily who took action for put upon employees everywhere, we did love you in this film.

Reportedly, Dolly Parton was cast in this movie because Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin felt that she would "bring them the West". Parton was both a lead actress and singer in this film and sang the title '9 to 5' song which got Oscar nominated. In an interview with Isaac Mizrahi, Parton states that when she wrote and performed the theme song to Tomlin and Fonda, she used her long acrylic nails to create the beat to the song.
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This was Dolly Parton's film debut. In preparation for her role as Doralee Rhodes, she not only committed to memory her own part, but the parts of every other actor in the film. Apparently, the 2 other and more experienced co-stars Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda burst out laughing when Dolly Parton let on that she believed that pictures were filmed in the chronological order of a film's script.
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The movie spurred a reasonably successful sitcom television series 9 to 5 (1982) which went for eighty-five episodes and aired between 1982 and 1988. The first three seasons were broadcast on ABC between spring 1982 and fall 1983, while the second and final season aired in syndication between 1986 and 1988. Dolly Parton's younger sister Rachel Dennison played Parton's role Doralee Rhodes in the series.
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To prepare for her role as Judy Bernly, a middle-aged divorcè e entering the workforce, actress Jane Fonda interviewed a number of women who had entered the labor market late in life due to being widowed or divorced. Fonda took from this an element for her character, that of being over-dressed on her first day. Fonda wore an over-frilly over-prim very dowdy conservative wardrobe with over-sized glasses, elaborate hats and an over-done hair-style.
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In the approximate middle of the film, Dolly Parton and her colleagues sent an over curious secretary to the Aspen Language Center in Colorado to learn French. This very same particular TWA 747 shown in this film, later was used in reality on the ill-fated flight of TWA 800, which exploded off of Long Island, New York, on Wednesday, July 17th, 1996.
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Violet's fantasy features Disney-like characters from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) (including Violet herself as Snow White), Bambi (1942) and Robin Hood (1973). The animated characters resembled the Disney characters but were obviously drawn differently for legal reasons.
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The nickname, the girls gave to their horrible boss, Franklin M. Hart Jr. (Dabney Coleman was a "sexist egotistical lying hypocritical bigot". The phrase now lends itself to being the edition title of a DVD release of the film being called the "Sexist Egotistical Lying Hypocritical Bigot Edition".
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Lily Tomlin originally turned down the role of Violet because she was working on The Incredible Shrinking Woman (1981). She eventually relented and had production on her film shut down so that she could work on this film.
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Plans for a sequel were considered throughout the 1980s, but no storyline was ever settled upon.
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A release on VHS for the same day as the film's theatrical release was originally planned. The video release was postponed three months, due to complaints from movie theater owners.
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The picture ranks No. #74 on the American Film Institute's "100 Funniest Movies" chart.
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The three main characters' first names were based closely on their real first names. Jane Fonda's role was Judy Bernly, Dolly Parton's role was Doralee Rhodes and Lily Tomlin's role was Violet Newstead.
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The office building exteriors were filmed at the Pacific Financial Center on West 6th street, Los Angeles.
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Gregory Peck and Charlton Heston both turned down the role of Russell Tinsworthy which went to Sterling Hayden.
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The name of the company was "Consolidated Industries". Most of the picture is interiors of its workplace and this was filmed on Sound Stage 6 at 20th Century-Fox studios in Hollywood. A two-level set that cost around $1 million was constructed to feature interiors of two floors of a then modern office complex.
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A $150 ticket charity retro premiere of this movie was held in 2003 to benefit the Georgia Campaign for Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention (GCAPP) which was founded by the film's top-billed star Jane Fonda. When asked which was their favorite scene from the movie, the film's three female stars agreed that it was tying horrible boss Dabney Coleman up in the SM-like rig.
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In 2009 a musical version of "9 to 5" opened on Broadway on Friday, April 30th 2009. The opening cast included Allison Janney, Stephanie J. Block, Megan Hilty, and Marc Kudisch. "9 to 5: The Musical" closed on Sunday, September 6th, 2009, after 148 performances and 24 previews.
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First of two consecutive back-to-back movies for actors Dabney Coleman and Jane Fonda who together played spouses in 1981's On Golden Pond (1981).
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According to "Variety", Jane Fonda was the initiator of this project. The picture was the third of six movies made by her production company IPC Films.
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The picture has been said to have been inspired by Preston Sturges's classic screwball comedy Unfaithfully Yours (1948) itself remade just a few years after this movie with Unfaithfully Yours (1984)
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A sequel was planned but was scrapped after the death of Colin Higgins.
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Sterling Hayden: As the head of the company Russell Tinsworthy. The movie was one of Hayden's final film roles.
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AKAs Titles:


Certifications:
Argentina:Atp / Australia:PG / Canada:PG (Ontario) / Finland:K-12 / Iceland:L / Netherlands:AL (1981) / Peru:PT / Sweden:15 / UK:15 / UK:AA (original rating) / USA:PG / West Germany:12