Some Ground to Stand On

"I'm a lucky dyke," says 61-year-old Blue Lunden in this low-budget, but lovingly made, biographical "herstory" from filmmaker Joyce P. Warshow. Uneducated, yet keenly aware of what was right and what was wrong when it came to the big issues, Blue Lunden left New Orleans as a teen in the 1950s, after being caught wearing men's clothes during a bar raid (and being disowned by her father). Lunden fled to New York where she struggled to raise her daughter (the outcome of her first sexual encounter with a male), balance her personal expression (hair style, for example) with a fairly narrow-minded work environment, and fought an ongoing battle with the bottle. During the '60s, '70s, '80s and into the '90s, however, Lunden found her true calling: activism. Fighting for feminist rights, civil rights, upholding non-violence, protesting against nuclear expansion, Blue Lunden has not been a sideline sitter. Lunden's story--while neither earthshaking in either a narrative or cinematic sense--is full of simple human truths. A strong, optional purchase. Aud: C, P. (R. Pitman)