'Blue Collar' is one of the best movies of the 1970s

I've seen the Paul Schrader film Blue Collar several times now and I have always enjoyed it and considered it one of the great overlooked classics, but after viewing it on the big screen for the first time, I became convinced that it is one of the best films of the 1970s.

I have always thought it deserved to be remade because its exploration of class, race and labor would be just as relevant today as when it came out in 1978.

It did little business back then -- studios didn't know how to market a film like this -- with two black leads and one white one, and a plot that mixes some elements of comedy with a fairly bleak drama.

The finale -- which is ambiguous in the best way -- doesn't present any clear heroes or triumphs, instead laying bare the inherent hatefulness within our two main characters.

Richard Pryor in Blue Collar

This is the stuff which made 1970s movies great. Their cynicism. They didn't skimp out on the entertainment though either, and Blue Collar is a wildly entertaining movie -- with an unpredictable plot and electric performances, especially from Yaphet Kotto (and unsung actor) and Richard Pryor, who gives the best performance of his screen career (with the exception of his self-titled stand up movie) here.

Pryor is funny in this movie, but he is also heartbreaking, furious and ultimately deep. He was apparently incredibly difficult during filming -- very much in the grip of his long drug addiction. He, Keitel and Kotto reportedly feuded and fought on set, and Schrader was often forced to shoot their scenes in one shot for fear of losing one of the actors for the day.

But the final results, Schrader's first and best film (although I do enjoy Hardcore and American Gigolo), is a real masterpiece, that has only gotten better with age.

It's about three lovable losers in Detroit who are cash poor and desperate. They decide to knock off their union, which has been screwing them over for years, and stumble upon an illegal loan scheme which could get them killed or get them richer through blackmail.

As the plot thickens so do the characterizations and the scope of this film. You come in for the caper element but leave with a tough take on the economic status of middle America. And, even if the movie was made today, there are elements of this story that would still ring true.

Sadly, because of the limitations of Hollywood at that time, opportunities for Pryor to give this type of performance in his heyday were few and far between. Save for his pairings with Gene Wilder, and the under-seen gem Which Way Is Up?, most of his big screen roles were beneath him at best and demeaning at worst (*cough* The Toy *cough*).

This and his moving supporting turn in Lady Sings the Blues are the best testimonials to his talent as an actor, when he was given a part up to his ability and really applied himself. As the lone name-above-the-title black movie star for almost a decade (until Eddie Murphy supplanted him) he had to bear the burden of a lot of substandard material.

But at least we have Blue Collar, which deserves restoration from the Criterion Collection, and should be included alongside the likes of Taxi Driver and Mean Streets, as one of the great slice-of-life films from the 1970s era of Hollywood.