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Blue Collar

United States

1978

114 Min
Color
1.85:1
English
  • Currently 4.0/5 Stars.
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DIR Paul Schrader

EXEC Robin French

PROD Don Guest

SCR Paul Schrader, Leonard Schrader, Sydney A. Glass

DP Bobby Byrne

CAST Richard Pryor, Harvey Keitel, Yaphet Kotto, Ed Begley Jr., Harry Bellaver, George Memmoli, Lucy Saroyan, Lane Smith, Cliff De Young

ED Tom Rolf

PROD DES Lawrence G. Paull

MUSIC Jack Nitzsche

Berlinale (Competition)

Synopsis

Three guys, two African-American, Zeke (Richard Pryor) and Smokey (Yaphet Kotto), and one Polish, Jerry (Harvey Keitel), are unhappy workers on the assembly line in a Detroit automobile factory. The three angry dudes all have money woes. The loudmouth Zeke pleads with his union rep (Lane Smith) for the last six months about fixing his locker with no results and is in debt to the Internal Revenue Service for claiming six children instead of his actual three. The married Jerry works two jobs to try and get out of debt, and still needs money for his daughter’s braces. Smokey is an ex-con and a bachelor, who acts like a Playboy and is in a jam because he owes his loan shark. The three pals decide to get even with the union that is only giving them lip service in representing them but really is in bed with the bossess, by robbing their headquarters. The masked armed robbery earns them a mere $600, but they unexpectedly snatch evidence of union corruption and union links with organized crime. They’re now out of their league, as violence, paranoia and recriminations erupt around them. —Ozus’ World Movie Reviews

Director

Original

Paul Schrader

Raised in a strict religious household in Michigan, writer/director Paul Schrader studied theology at Calvin College and didn’t see a movie until he was in his late teens. His stern background would fuel many of the themes throughout his career: downbeat stories of characters who violently break down in oppressive situations. Transfixed by the cinema and encouraged by critic Pauline Kael, he moved to Los Angeles and became a film scholar at U.C.L.A. He wrote movie reviews for newspapers, edited the magazine Cinema, and wrote the highly influential critical essay “The Trancendental Style: Ozu, Bresson, Dryer.” After a period of heavy drinking and serious depression, he sold his first screenplay, The Yakuza, a Japanese thriller co-written with his brother, Leonard, and Robert Towne. The next year, Schrader wrote Taxi Driver, the grim tale of urban alienation. Taxi Driver started his successful collaborative relationship with director Martin Scorsese, another… read more

Wall

Displaying 4 of 13 wall posts.
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Cbarky99

29Apr13

"Maybe I'll go to Canada. Things can't be any worse there." Heartbreaking.

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lauli

26Dec12

Not my favourite movie ever, but I really loved Keitel's acting, and the first part, where we see the trials and manipulation the working class has to undergo. But the political plot was a bit too out there for my taste.

Picture of filipequintans

filipequintans

15Oct12

Troubles and mishaps of the working man.

Picture of Sean

Sean

4Aug12

Great acting from Pryor and Kietel , the rest of the cast was decent too. Excellent dialogue and direction from Shrader. My one problem is that ending. Nonetheless I enjoyed it.

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Articles

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Ruthless people

By davecit​o ! on August 11, 2011

Why should you see BLUE COLLAR? Richard Pryor.

It was something of an accident of timing, but BLUE COLLAR pretty closely mirrors or forecasts the dire decline of the so-called (American) rust…  read review

Forum

Displaying 2 discussion topics.

Is the Malaise of the 70s Returning to America?

102 posts by 17 people over 1 year ago

DVR Alert

4 posts by 4 people over 1 year ago