Word: leibman
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...father, Herb (Ron Leibman) formerly a successful screenwriter, now has a seemingly terminal case of writer's block. He is bantering away his life. Asked if he owns the West Hollywood Spanish stucco quarters he lives in, he answers, "Hell, no. The apartment belongs to six termites who lease it to four mice, and I rent it from them." An off-and-on bedmate, Steffy (Joyce Van Patten) completes Herb's agile ménage...
Under Herbert Ross's assured hand, the actors perform with impeccable honesty. Leibman moves from farcical jocularity to bleeding anguish. In a sketchy role, Van Patten displays warming femininity. When she is not biting into a juicy comic line, Manoff clings like a valorous terrier to her prey of hope...
...much of its power from the screenplay written by Irving Ravetch and Harriet Frank, Jr.--it's hokey as hell but it plays. Motivated by a magazine article by Henry F. Leifermann, the screenplay delineates the growing bond between Norma Rae, a hard-assed little cracker and Reuben (Ron Leibman) a New York Jewish labor organizer who comes down to unionize her factory. Refreshingly, their bond stems not from wild, trans-ethnic couplings but from a shared philosophy towards life. Ravetch and Frank use humor, wit and most of all, respect in their screenplay--as a result, their dialogue...
Norma Rae is the story of trashy white woman (Sally Field), a textile worker in a small Southern town, who discovers that she actually has a social conscience when a labor organizer (Ron Leibman) arrives at her mill to establish a union. Despite his education and his uplifting concerns, he is a rainmaker figure, a man capable of breaking through the various dins (of factory, family and juke joints) that have drowned out the voice of Norma Rae's best instincts. His winning out over her suspicions (there is a romantic attraction here that is wisely left unconsummated...
...fault is surely not Field's or Leibman's. Each is at once tough and vulnerable and, above all, engagingly high-spirited. And their roles are well written. Norma Rae's somewhat checkered sexual history, we come to understand, represents the only locally available outlet for a venturesome, restless but essentially very moral spirit. She has, we see, merely been waiting for something more rewarding to occupy her energies and her realistic, feisty if untutored mind. The character of Reuben, the organizer, represents a triumph of sorts. He is the first accurate representation onscreen of a type...