There was one glaring omission in this year’s Academy Awards, and it tells more about the failure of courage, vision and politic amongst the movie moguls than a thousand awards to such relevant movies as Coming Home and Deer Hunter. From the opening power blues beat of Paul Schrader’s Blue Collar we are plunged full force into a drama as powerful as the machines that dominate the lives of three auto workers — Yaphet Kotte, Richard Pryor and Harvey Keitel. They are pressed on । three sides: the union doesn’t help them, their foreman is abusive, and the government is more or less after them. Keitel and Pryor are family men, and there’s no way they can keep their bills paid. One day they decide to rob their union and get back a little of what they owe. Instead of money, they August GOOD CLE4N J^ZZ July 647 Capricorn 11 Dead Kennedys 13 Daners of the Ancient World 14 Clayton Callopy C&W spectacular 18 Alan Wachs 2 0 Face Ditch 21 Playpen 25 Jill Gholson Every Tuesday Poetry Every Thursday Dr. Twelve Alan Wachs Every Thursday Face Ditch Every Sunday Punk & New Wave call for information Playback Theater July 19-Aug. 25 “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolfe?” and “Imaginary Invalid call 241-9466 for reservations LONG GOODBYE 3 0 0 N.W. lOth 228-1008 get the goods on some union officials. Management and union, not about to let all the dirt leak out, take steps to drive the three apart. The movie is paced as fast as a well conceived caper picture yet at the same time it shrewdly envelopes a family melodrama and political essay into an incredibly insightful look at the workingman and his struggle to grab a piece of the American Dream Machine. The British Film Institute recognized this by nominating Blue Collar as one of the 3 most inventive films of 1978. Pryor, Keitel and Yaphet Kotto turn in stellar performances easily as powerful as the jobs done by DeNiro and Walken in Deer Hunter or Voight in Coming Home, yet nary a mention come award time. To understand the snubbing of Blue Collar one must remember that throughout our long torturous involvement in Vietman the only movie Hollywood released on Vietnam was John Wayne’s flag waving Green Berets. The war was much too sensitive a topic for Hollywood to touch when a Coming Home might have had an affect on public opinion and maybe saved a few lives. The war is far enough behind us for. the moguls to take a small plunge into uncharted waters. Both Coming Home and Deer Hunter were promoted with a lot less hullabaloo than say the Deep, Jaws II or your average sexploitation flick. United Artists, the distributor of Coming Home, did not have much confidence in the picture and gave it little backing until the recent re-release behind Voight and Fonda’s Oscar winning performances. Universal, the distributor of Deer Hunter, did not give it wide distribution until it won the Academy Award as best picture. The industry’s conservatism is enhanced by a Vincent Canby of the N.Y. Times who’ll put such pap as California Suite and Grease on his top ten list or Jack Kroll of Newsweek who’ll declare Coming Home as romantic aS the Green Berets or other national columnists whose vitrolic attacks on Jane Fonda was part of the reason for United Artists reluctance to put much money behind the excellent Coming Home (some reviewers even went to the point of suggesting that the bedroom scene where Voight goes down on Fonda was her way of assuaging guilt for the war). Blue Collar received such short shrift that the usual bulky press packet sent to exhibitors was cut down to one 1l-by-14 piece of paper with three ad slicks. No Saturday Night Fever disco contests in your local factory helped spread the word on Blue Collar. Universal had no idea of what to do with the movie from the very beginning, as the original financing only came about because of the participation of Keitel and Pryor. For a long time the studio was convinced that the film had to have two whites and only one black in the lead roles and in fact thought the original Schrader script with the Oreo look was just a typo mistake. Universal’s bookers, who can find 500 outlets for an innocuous piece of trash like Jaws II, somehow found it hard to find outlets for Blue Collar. When the Clinton St. did astoundingly well by running a quality campaign around the movie, a regional representative suggested that maybe a similar campaign could be run around The Greek Tycoon or The Choirboys. The automakers in Detroit who refused permission to have Schrader film in their plants are very aware of the power of motion pictures to affect popular sentiment. Universal spent 9.9 million dollars to promote Jaws II. A tenth of that spent on Blue Collar might have meant a major breakthrough for this important picture. The commercial success of Blue Collar might have set off a chain reaction that would open American cinema to a more penetrating look behind the makeup of society. Is it no wonder that the captains in the capital of illusion put one of the top pictures of last year on the back burner before it got too hot in the kitchen. When they ripped open the Academy Awards last spring, two wired and defiant black men were not seen leaning forward in their tuxedos, chewing their fingernails, hoping their name was inside. Richard Pryor’s mad-eyed beleaguered unionist and Yaphet Kotto’s picture-stealing force and charm went unnoticed. They was prejudiced against. Blue Collar will play July 18-24 at the Clinton St., and July 26-28 at the Cinema 21. 248-1199 IMPERIAL CHINESE CUISINE 529 S.W. THIRD LUNCH AND DINNER FREE PARKING MAJOR CREDIT CARDS AT BOTH 227 -6956 2601 N.W VAUGHN PACIFIC NORTHWEST FARE \NEDNESDZY - S4TURDAY NIGHTS AT THE KINGSTON 2021 SNN /MORRISON ST BUD ON TAP 224-2115 33
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