Movies - Blue Collar

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	Movies - Blue Collar

Blue Collar is the 1978 directorial debut of screenwriter Paul Schrader. This dramedy stars Harvey Keitel, Richard Pryor and Yaphet Kotto.

Both a critique of union practices and an examination of life in a working-class Rust Belt enclave, the film concerns a trio of Detroit auto workers: Zeke Brown (Pryor), Jerry Bartowski (Keitel), and Smokey James (Kotto). Fed up with mistreatment at the hands of both management and union brass, and coupled with financial hardships on each man's end, the trio hatch a plan to rob a safe at union headquarters. They commit the caper without interference, but only to come away with a few scant bills. More importantly, they also come away with a ledger, evidence of the union's illegal loan-lending operation. They soon find themselves wrestling with what to do with this newfound knowledge admist both a union investigatation of the crime and a federal agent's attempts to coerce Jerry into informing on the union.

The film is notable for its language, which mimics the street-level profanity found in Schrader's Taxi Driver screenplay and exceeds it in both frequency and rhythm. It is also notable for the performances of its three leads. As Schrader observes in the commentary on the film's DVD, neither of the three got along with each other during the production, and fistfights between takes were not uncommon. Film scholars and fans of the film cite Pryor's performance as one of the best of his career, his dressing down of a union rep and a later exchange with an IRS agent considered masterstrokes.

The film was shot on location at the Checker plant in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and at numerous locales around Detroit, including the Ford Rouge plant on the city's southwest side and the Belle Isle Bridge.

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