George Abbott and Stanley Donen | The Pajama Game / 1957

union girl

by Douglas Messerli

 

George Abbott and Richard Bissell (screenplay, based on Bissell's novel 7 1/2¢ and the musical with music and lyrics by Richard Alder and Jerry Ross), George Abbott and Stanley Donen (directors) The Pajama Game / 1957

 

     The Pajama Game, based on Iowa writer Richard Bissell's 1952 novel 7 1/2 ¢ is a none too serious example of a workplace drama, and were there not a real battle between labor and management presented in this work, it might have floated off into a love comedy. The head of the Union Grievance Committee, Babe Williams (Doris Day)—despite her denials ("I'm Not At All in Love")—is clearly attracted to the new superintendent of the Sleep-Tite Pajama Factory, Sid Sorokin (John Raitt). But, as she later explains to him, she is a "Union girl," and resists his attentions precisely because she is afraid of what will come between them. Although it is a comic resistance—one that we immediately know will ultimately be overcome—there remains throughout the play a serious breach between management and labor that ends, temporarily, in their separation.

 

    A more comic series of characters buoy up these more serious issues facing the feuding lovers by mocking all love quarrels: Vernon Hines (Eddie Foy, Jr.), the factory timekeeper, is perpetually jealous of the woman he loves, Gladys Hotchkiss, (the great comic dancer Carol Haney) secretary to the head of the factory "Old Man" Hasler. That jealousy, combined with Hines' drinking and "skill" at throwing knives, a skit he is determined to perform at the annual employee picnic, creates its own fireworks, underlying the more serious battles between the superintendent and union representative. One of the best comic moments in the work, indeed, is played out by Sid's secretary, Mabel (the delectable Rita Shaw), and Hines, as she tries to cure him of his jealous behavior ("I'll Never Be Jealous Again"); that "cure," however, is short-lived, ultimately hinting at an even darker fears in the war between factory employees, culminates in the possibility of murder and death!

     As Sid and Babe fall deeper and deeper in love (helped along by songs such as "Small Talk" and "There Once Was a Man"), the war between the union and management threatens. Workers demand a raise most other such employees have received throughout the state of 7 1/2 cents, and as Hasler continues to resist, a slow-down is ordered. Outraged by their actions, Sid orders an "honest day's work," and as the slackers again speed up production, Babe jams the machinery. Sid has no choice but to fire his lover. His lonely fate is beautifully spelled out twice in the musical as he sings to himself into a Dictaphone ("Hey There").

    Meeting at Babe's house, several rebellious workers plan strategies to embarrass the company, mismatching sizes of pajamas, flimsily sewing on fly-buttons, etc. In order to correct the threatened mayhem, Sorokin becomes determined to see the financial records which the company head keeps carefully locked away from sight. Pretending to court Hasler's secretary Gladys—who by this time has dismissed her dangerous lover Hines—he meets her at the popular city night club, Hernando's Hideaway, with the attention of wheedling the key to the company records she keeps on a chain

around her neck.

     In fact, that key reveals another kind of "chain" around all the worker's necks. Sid discovers that Hasler has already raised the cost of his products to account for the 7 1/2 ¢ months before, refusing to grant the raise simply out of greed.

 

    The union rally is in progress where union leaders explain just what that raise of 7 1/2¢ will mean to the underpaid workers over a lifetime. But before the strike is declared, Sorokin arrives with Hasler in hand, having threatened to reveal Hasler's actions to the workers. The old man has no choice but to give in to Union demands. Sid is restored to a hero in Babe's mind. And everyone is suddenly off to celebrate at Hernando's where "All you see are silhouettes. / And all you hear are castanets. / And no one cares how late it gets," clearly a kind of hard laborers’ heaven.

 

Los Angeles, October 14-17, 2009

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (October 2009), originally printed with reviews of On the Waterfront and Norma Rae as

     “It Comes with the Job.”

Reprinted from Reading Films: My International Cinema (Los Angeles: Green Integer, 2012).