The Molly Maguires -- September 4, 2023

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Happy Labor Day, everyone.

The Molly Maguires was a 1970 movie directed by Martin Ritt and starring Sean Connery and Richard Harris. It was distantly based on real events when oppressed coal miners in Pennsylvania created a secret society to fight back against mine owners. The movie gives a good example of working conditions in the late 19th Century. 

SAG-AFTRA on Strike -- July 13, 2023

SAG-AFTRA (Screen Actors Guild - American Federation of Television and Radio Artists) are now on strike against the AMPTP (Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers). WGA is still on strike. 

Strike -- May 1, 2022

A poster for Sergei Eisenstein's first movie, Strike, seemed like a good subject for International Labor Day.  The film is set before the revolution, in 1903.  After the revolution, strikes were not allowed. 

The Face at Your Window -- September 20, 2021

Lakeland Evening Telegram, 22-September-1921

I was concerned when I came across ads for this movie. Was this another movie like Birth of a Nation where the Ku Klux Klan are the good guys? 

Moving Picture World, 24-September-1921

I was more concerned when I saw that the Klan staged a march to endorse the movie, which was showing at a theater in Atlanta.  

I dug around through some reviews and found that the movie was about labor and anti-immigrant issues. The recently organized American Legion comes in to cool down a strike, but the costume is troubling. 

Meanwhile, the Klan was going through a big revival, which encouraged and was encouraged by rerelease of DW Griffith's Birth of a Nation. This ad was for a showing at the Convention Hall in Tulsa, which ironically was a place where African American residents were herded while their neighborhood was being destroyed during the Tulsa Race Massacre a few months earlier:

http://cablecarguy.blogspot.com/2021/06/tulsa-race-massacre-100-day-2-june-1.html

Union Members Are The Heroes on the Frontlines of the Crises -- May 1, 2020

www.facebook.com/UFCWLOCAL770

Today is International Workers' Day. God bless the grocery workers, the transit operators, the medical workers, the janitors, the farm workers.  We owe them a great debt.

Strike -- May 1, 2014

A poster for Sergei Eisenstein's first movie, Strike, seemed like a good subject for International Labor Day.  The film is set before the revolution, in 1903.  After the revolution, strikes were not allowed.