The film 9 to 5 is to be rereleased as part of what the BFI is billing as the UK’s greatest ever celebration of film and TV comedy.
The 1980 movie starred Jane Fonda, Dolly Parton and Lily Tomlin as a trio of women who refuse to put up any longer with the outrageous behaviour of their sexist boss.
Helped by alcohol and cannabis, the women fantasise about how to bring down their nemesis – a liar and a bigot who promotes men over women and harasses his secretary on a daily basis. They end up abducting him and take over the business.
Fonda will be in London at an event to introduce a preview of the film, arguably a classic feminist comedy years ahead of its time, and to discuss her career. She confirmed earlier this year that a sequel, which would reflect the #MeToo Movement, was in development.
The release into selected cinemas of 9 to 5 will be a centrepiece of the three month season, beginning in October, called Comedy Genius.
As well as screenings of film and TV considered the funniest ever, the BFI has planned events with guests who will include Jennifer Saunders, Tracey Ullman, Lenny Henry, John Landis, and Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer.
Heather Stewart, the BFI’s creative director, promised lots of “wisecracking, slapstick, satire, smut and innuendo” to keep everyone happy.
Stewart admitted it only took “Sid James holding a sausage roll or the sight of Jack Benny at the front of a bunch of goose-stepping Nazis in To Be or Not to Be” to be cheer her up.
“In a divided Britain, in a world where we may be uncertain about what we’re allowed to find funny anymore, we need a laugh more than ever,” she said.
The season will address what lines can or cannot be crossed be in comedy today and ask whether it is possible to enjoy non-PC comedy of the past with a clear conscience.
Among the early cinema highlights will be a month of Laurel and Hardy and a celebration of Mabel Normand, a little remembered comedy actor eclipsed in posterity by the likes of Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton and who starred in over 167 shorts and 23 feature films.
A ‘Trailblazing Women’ strand will see screenings of films including She Done Him Wrong starring Mae West in her first major role; Overboard starring Goldie Hawn; and 2004’s Mean Girls, written by Tina Fey.
The season will take place at BFI Southbank in London, on the BFI Player, and at partner venues across the UK.
For example Quad in Derby will present a series of comedy screenings at UK cathedrals and churches which will include Monty Python’s Life of Brian, a film roundly condemned at the time as foul and blasphemous by some Christian groups. The Catholic film monitoring office deemed it a sin to even see it.
Broadway Nottingham will have a Some Like It Hot ‘strum-along’ for ukulele enthusiasts and the Dukes Cinema in Lancaster will screen Mel Brooks’s Young Frankenstein in “a spooky historic location”.
Other events in London include ‘Father Ted Talks’ with comedy figures discussing subjects close to their hearts. Lenny Henry, for example, will address the lack of black British comedians who have made it to the big screen.
• Comedy Genius runs 22 October-31 January.
