The Life and Times of Rosie the Riveter (1980)

User Rating:

7.4/10   

Director:

Connie Field

Release Date:

15 October 1981 (Australia)

Genre:

Documentary | History | War

Plot Keywords:

Newsreel Footage | 1940s | WWII | Interview | Armed Forces

Awards:

1 win & 1 nomination

Cast

Wanita Allen	...	Herself
Betty Allie	...	Herself (archive footage)
Gladys Belcher	...	Herself
Lyn Childs	...	Herself
Marynia Farnham	...	Herself (archive footage)
Franklin Delano Roosevelt	...	Himself (archive footage)
Lola Weixel	...	Herself
Margaret Wright	...	Herself

Runtime:

USA:65 min (Sundance Channel Library Print)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White | Color

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Australia:PG

Trivia:

This film was selected to the National Film Registry, Library of Congress, in 1996.

Quotes:

Lyn Childs: We'd never had any opportunity to do that kind of work. Do you think that if you did domestic work all of your life where you cleaned somebody's toilets and did all the cooking for some lazy characters who were sitting on top, and you finally got a chance where you can get a dignified job, you wouldn't fly through the door?

Meet the work force behind the armed force

This is by far, the best documentary on the American home front during the Second World War. It's also an excellent and extremely entertaining look at the spark that ignited the women's liberation movement nearly thirty years before it 'officially' planted its roots. With thousands of men leaving the factories to fight in the war, and with the urgent, escalating need for America to arm itself, women were strongly encouraged to join the factory workforce. They came from all over the country and discovered skills they never knew they had, both as laborers, and as independent women. They were self-sufficient and strong (many of them endured double-shifts on a fairly regular basis), and they eventually discovered new freedoms by earning their own incomes and making their own choices on how to spend that money. Connie Field has created an extremely entertaining documentary that's choked full of interviews with women from all walks of life. She intersperses lots of the newsreel footage and the popular songs that had been created in order to encourage and inspire the female workforce. And she illustrates the myriad of ways in which women were discouraged from working after the war had ended, and how strong a role the media played in encouraging women to raise families and stay in the kitchen. This film is rare glimpse of the Second World War from the female perspective, and a vital document of American history.