F.I.N.K.

F*I*S*T (1978)
dir: Norman Jewison

F*I*N*K
Crazy #43, October 1978
w: Murad Gumen
a: Walter Brogan

F.I.S.T. is an acronym for Federation of Interstate Truckers, the union the Stallone character headed, and supposedly the title was emphasized in ads to cash in on the success of Rocky, even though the movie would still be called that and the name of the union would be just as prominent no matter who the star was.

It begins when Johnny Kovak (Sylvester Stallone), a dock worker, and his friend Abe (David Huffman) see a fellow worker mocked for his Polish heritage and fired for dropping crates.

Johnny fights back about the issue of dropping crates by doubling down and dropping more crates, for which he's fired. The owner of the company agrees he was treated unfairly and hires him back, then backs out and fires him the next day. His friend Vince (Kevin Conway) offers him a job in organized crime, which he turns down because it's organized crime. Mike Monahan (Richard Herd), who saw him when he was leading the workers' rebellion wants him to be a union organizer. He does this with the assistance of Abe even though they're only paid per worker they sign up instead of a salary.

While he's heading up the local union, he's courting Anna (Melinda Dillon). We'd call it stalking now but 80 years ago in working class Cleveland, it was how they did things. He gets beat up by truckers who refuse to sign up (Abe is also beat up by hitmen, which they leave out for brevity). National union head Graham (Peter Boyle) isn't tough enough when he meets with the companies, so Johnny Kovak takes the initiative. Meanwhile, he's still trying to land Anna, who lectures him about how he has to behave like a gentleman and impress her mother if he wants to go out with her.

Johnny leads a strike against one trucking company and they fight back with their goons. Mike Monahan decides to plow the goons down with a truck but they shoot him. At his funeral, Johnny approaches Vince and decides he needs mob connections after all, so incidents like this won't happen again, Babe (Tony LoBianco), another gangster, gets in on it, making a deal that trucks won't deliver to bars unless they also carry jukeboxes from his company.

Johnny and Anna marry. Abe doesn't leave F.I.S.T., he just heads another branch. Cut to 20 years later, Johnny visits the national headquarters in Washington and finds out how corrupt President Graham is, and blackmails him into stepping down so that he can take over. Now he has to testify in front of a Senate Subcommittee led by Sen. Madison (Rod Steiger) about the union's mob ties.

In some of these panels, Stallone doesn't look like Stallone at all. In one, he looks more like Christopher Walken. These panels were obviously swiped from somewhere... but where?

Abe Belkin was supposed to testify but was killed the day before. They think Kovak did it which only makes him angry and he walks out of his testimony. He goes home to find his wife gone and he's shot down by the mob. The person in the last panel is supposed to be Jimmy Hoffa, whose story may have inspired this one.