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The Weavers: Wasn't That a Time

  • 19811981
  • PGPG
  • 1h 18m
IMDb RATING
8.3/10
211
YOUR RATING
  • Cast & crew
  • User reviews
  • IMDbPro
The Weavers: Wasn't That a Time (1981)
  • Documentary
  • Music
Documentary about the blacklisted folk group, "The Weavers," and the events leading up to their triumphant return to Carnegie Hall.Documentary about the blacklisted folk group, "The Weavers," and the events leading up to their triumphant return to Carnegie Hall.Documentary about the blacklisted folk group, "The Weavers," and the events leading up to their triumphant return to Carnegie Hall.
IMDb RATING
8.3/10
211
YOUR RATING
  • Director
    • Jim Brown
  • Writer
    • Lee Hays
  • Stars
    • Lee Hays
    • Pete Seeger
    • Ronnie Gilbert
Top credits
  • Director
    • Jim Brown
  • Writer
    • Lee Hays
  • Stars
    • Lee Hays
    • Pete Seeger
    • Ronnie Gilbert
  • See production, box office & company info
    • 6User reviews
    • 4Critic reviews
  • See production, box office & company info
  • See more at IMDbPro
    • Nominated for 1 BAFTA Award
      • 3 wins & 1 nomination total

    Videos1

    Sneak Previews Season 4 Episode 36
    Video 29:47
    Sneak Previews Season 4 Episode 36

    Photos

    Ronnie Gilbert, Lee Hays, Fred Hellerman, and Pete Seeger in The Weavers: Wasn't That a Time (1981)
    Ronnie Gilbert, Lee Hays, Fred Hellerman, and Pete Seeger in The Weavers: Wasn't That a Time (1981)
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    Top cast

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    Lee Hays
    • Self - Narratoras Self - Narrator
    Pete Seeger
    Pete Seeger
    • Selfas Self
    Ronnie Gilbert
    • Selfas Self
    Arlo Guthrie
    Arlo Guthrie
    • Selfas Self
    Fred Hellerman
    • Selfas Self
    Harold Leventhal
    • Self (Weavers manager)as Self (Weavers manager)
    Don McLean
    Don McLean
    • Selfas Self
    Holly Near
    Holly Near
    • Selfas Self
    Harry Reasoner
    Harry Reasoner
    • Selfas Self
    Studs Terkel
    Studs Terkel
    • Selfas Self
    Mary Allin Travers
    • Selfas Self
    • (as Mary Travers)
    • Director
      • Jim Brown
    • Writer
      • Lee Hays
    • All cast & crew
    • See more cast details at IMDbPro

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    Storyline

    Edit
    Documentary about the blacklisted folk group, "The Weavers," and the events leading up to their triumphant return to Carnegie Hall.
    • folk
    • new york city
    • manhattan new york city
    • blacklisting
    • carnegie hall manhattan new york city
    • 11 more
    • Plot summary
    • Add synopsis
    • Taglines
      • We felt that if we sang loud enough and strong enough and hopefully enough, somehow it would make a difference.
    • Genres
      • Documentary
      • Music
    • Certificate
      • PG
    • Parents guide
      • Add content advisory

    Did you know

    Edit
    • Connections
      Featured in Sneak Previews: The Thing, The Atomic Café, The Weavers: Wasn't That a Time, Megaforce (1982)

    User reviews6

    Review
    Top review
    9/10
    A sweet slice of history.
    A wonderful movie.

    Movies are always subjective. We all try to pretend to be objective about the movies we see, to pretend that we judge them on the sheer filmmaking ability they display and not on anything to do with us: our lives, our sentiments, our politics, our histories. Of course that's not true, but in the interests of fairness I'll divide this review in two:

    As a movie--

    As a movie, "Wasn't That a Time" is a simply made, well-constructed documentary about a the reunion of The Weavers, a four-person group of singer/musicians who helped bring about the public revival of interest in folk music that blossomed in the fifties and sixties. It features much of their music as it illustrates their history as a group, from their initial success to their subsequent blacklisting, and on to their triumphant comeback(s). It is narrated with self-deprecating humor and tremendous charm by Lee Hays, the bass singer of the group, who, having already lost his legs to diabetes, died shortly thereafter. The concert footage is exceptional and the interviewees are entertaining and informative. The whole thing is as entertaining and funny and fun as all get-out.

    As for me--

    Gosh.

    Most of the folksingers who came along in that fifties/sixties boom were college kids or young musicians who wanted to "join the scene" or take a political stand or simply make a hit record. Some, like the Kingston Trio, took a few tunes, performed them with spirit, made a few hits and vanished again; some, like Dylan, recreated themselves as inheritors of a great tradition and went on to forge something new. The Weavers came from the generation before-- they had grown up in families of laborers or had labored themselves-- Hays, for example, had been a migrant farmhand and a roving preacher, among other occupations. They had gone where the trouble was, to strikes, to mines, to migrant camps-- they had sung the songs back to the people who made them, the workers and the farmers.

    The Weavers were born of an old-time bedrock unionizing leftism that McCarthy and the HUAC nearly erased from the American past. At one point, at a neighborhood picnic, they sing one of the old-time union songs-- a pragmatic warning to the worker: "Keep your eye upon the dollar..." When they finish Hays wryly adds: "We will now pass out among you...." The opening statement to a passing-of-the-hat that an organizer might have done at a laborers' meeting back in the days when unions had to be fought for, and paid for, against real violence and big moneyed interests. It's a joke, of course, and the audience laughs, but you know Hays has said that before, under different circumstances.

    I was born in 1970, an early Gen-X-er. My parents were older than those of most of my age-- children of the Depression, old-school liberals. The Weavers' albums were prominent among the collection of records they had acquired over the years, and I listened to them over and over, thrilling as Seeger's voice hit the high notes on "Michael, Row the Boat Ashore," and laughing at "The Talking Blues."

    The Weavers are part of a history that has gone now-- erased by television, computers, George Lucas, the New Economy, etc. America is simultaneously the country with the least appreciation of its own history and the most reason to celebrate it. Seek out this film, whatever your politics or age, and learn from it. It does not itself explore much in the way of history, but the Weavers themselves embody it: a solid, funny, down-to-earth, committed collective voice from the past. Not to be missed, and not to be forgotten.
    helpful•26
    0
    • miloc
    • May 20, 2002

    Details

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    • Release date
      • March 7, 1982 (United States)
    • Country of origin
      • United States
    • Language
      • English
    • Also known as
      • Wasn't That a Time
    • Filming locations
      • New York City, New York, USA
    • Production company
      • United Artists
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Box office

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    • Gross US & Canada
      • $524,203
    • Gross worldwide
      • $524,203
    See detailed box office info on IMDbPro

    Technical specs

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    • Runtime
      1 hour 18 minutes
    • Color
      • Color
    • Sound mix
      • Mono

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