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Blue Collar (film)
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Blue Collar is the 1978 directorial debut of screenwriter Paul Schrader. This drama (with minimal comic elements) 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, but find a few scant bills in the union safe. More importantly, they also come away with a ledger, evidence of the union's illegal loan-lending operation and ties to organised crime syndicates. They soon find themselves wrestling with what to do with this newfound knowledge amidst both a union investigation of the crime and a federal agent's attempts to coerce Jerry into informing on union corruption.
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, none 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
[citation needed], his dressing down of a union rep and a later exchange with an
IRS agent considered masterstrokes.
[citation needed]
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.