Blue Collar

Paul Schrader's first film as director. Three friends work at a car plant in Detroit: they are in debt, the shift never ends, and the union squeezes them as hard as the company does. The three decide to rob the union safe. What comes out is far less money than they expected, but there is also a ledger, and it documents the leadership's illegal dealings. The blackmail plan starts there, and so does the destruction of the friendship. Its political argument is explicit: the system survives by setting workers against one another, and racial division is its most effective instrument. A line spoken near the end serves as the film's summary: they set the old against the young and the Black against the white. Richard Pryor, Harvey Keitel and Yaphet Kotto star. It is regarded as Pryor's best work outside comedy. The shoot was difficult; tension between the three actors reached actual fights on set, and Schrader later described that as feeding the film's energy. An important work for anyone who likes 1970s American cinema and films built on class. For a viewer looking for hope, it leaves no exit at all.