cult film freak: DOLLY PARTON, JANE FONDA AND LILY TOMLIN WORKING '9 TO 5'

Title: 9 TO 5 Year: 1980 Rating: ***

Even though country crooning queen Dolly Parton sang the incredibly popular title song 9 TO 5 (a working girl's take on Paul McCartney's alarm-clock section of John Lennon's Beatles opus A Day In The Life), it could have easily seemed like novelty casting, having the blonde bombshell — equally known for her large bosom as her music — in the role as the sexy personal secretary of the most evil of evil movie bosses...

But she's an absolute natural/scene-stealer alongside professionally-trained actresses Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin... and the literally hands-on employer Dabney Coleman, who for decades, without that sinister mustache, blended into the background of episodic television and b-movies...

Dabney Coleman and Dolly Parton in 9 TO 5

As the epitome of a sexist jerk role (that would soon progress into TOOTSIE), he's also love-to-hate funny, hitting all the right antagonistic beats in a 1980 comedy epitomizing that colorfully mainstream decade while being shot in... and seeming still connected with... the crest of the previous free-form/hangout 1970's...

Including the rather overused trope of smoking pot to bring almost-friends together (beginning with the counter-culture classic EASY RIDER and most memorable five-years later in THE BREAKFAST CLUB), which is when an intriguing secretary pool comedy (a hidden parody of THE BEST OF EVERYTHING) is derailed into a complicated, dizzying and comparably unfunny version of a zany heist flick...

From a stoned fantasy in 9 TO 5

Not money, but the boss himself... as in kidnapping... so these endearingly struggling female characters turn into somewhat broad-stroked caricatures of what they'd built up more effectively earlier on, especially true lead Lily Tomlin, an experienced secretary providing just-employed Jane Fonda the usual expository working-place tour: educating both the new girl and the audience...

As improvisational icon Tomlin is both sarcastically quick-witted and dramatic... in that she's taking the brunt of what's the boss's worst sin: keeping her down because she's a female...

Lily Tomlin, Jane Fonda and Dolly Parton in 9 TO 5

And Jane Fonda's at her underrated best here, playing more of quirky character-actress-type in a mousy and awkward, insecure divorcee, without her signature self-assured persona... until her own stoned-fantasy about what she would do to the boss, making little sense since only Tomlin has a genuinely understandable corporate-climbing gripe...

Although billed as a feminist comedy, 9 TO 5 never feels like revenge against men in general, just one man... a brutish yet sophisticated scoundrel that Dolly Parton has better moments fervently fighting against than the otherwise breezy chemistry between Tomlin and Fonda: who all needed more scenes involving what they do for a living rather what they get themselves into — far too soon and for way too long.