''The Killing Floor'' is a 1984 American made-for-television

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super- ...

directed by

Bill Duke William Henry Duke Jr. (born February 26, 1943) is an American actor and film director. Known for his physically imposing frame, Duke works primarily in the action and crime drama genres often as a character related to law enforcement. Frequently ...

which highlights the plights of workers fighting to build an interracial labor union in the meatpacking industry in the years leading up to the

Chicago race riot of 1919 The Chicago race riot of 1919 was a violent racial conflict between white Americans and black Americans that began on the South Side of Chicago, Illinois, on July 27 and ended on August 3, 1919. During the riot, 38 people died (23 black a ...

. The film debuted on PBS via the ''

American Playhouse ''American Playhouse'' is an American anthology television series periodically broadcast by Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). Overview It premiered on January 12, 1982, with ''The Shady Hill Kidnapping'', written and narrated by John Cheever an ...

'' series on April 10, 1984 and was produced by Public Forum Productions, an independent company founded by the film's writer Elsa Rassbach. The teleplay was later adapted by Leslie Lee. In July 2021, the film was shown in the Cannes Classics section at the

2021 Cannes Film Festival The 74th annual Cannes Film Festival took place from 6 to 17 July 2021, after having been originally scheduled from 11 to 22 May 2021. American director Spike Lee was invited to be the head of the jury for the festival for a second time, after t ...

Plot

Based on real individuals and actual events, the film focuses on two poor black

sharecroppers Sharecropping is a legal arrangement with regard to agricultural land in which a landowner allows a tenant to use the land in return for a share of the crops produced on that land. Sharecropping has a long history and there are a wide range ...

who leave Mississippi for the

Chicago stockyards The Union Stock Yard & Transit Co., or The Yards, was the meatpacking district in Chicago for more than a century, starting in 1865. The district was operated by a group of railroad companies that acquired marshland and turned it into a centra ...

to seek out employment opportunities vacated by soldiers who had departed for

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

. Frank Custer (played by

Damien Leake Damien Leake (born August 12, 1952, in The Bronx, New York City) is an American actor and record-holding masters track and field athlete. Starting with a role in 1973's '' Serpico'', Leake has had a continuous career appearing in some 70 motio ...

) and Thomas Joshua (Ernest Rayford) eventually secure jobs working in the infamous meatpacking industry, where they are forced to confront racism, labor disputes, layoffs, and union organizing. Custer, the film’s main protagonist, is eventually persuaded by his fellow workers to join the Amalgamated Meat Cutters & Butcher Workmen of North America Union, pitting him against a variety of forces, including his non-union black co-workers, as well as the Polish, Irish, Lithuanian, and Germans also living and working in the area. The film focuses on many individuals who were responsible for leading the charge to build strong, interracial labor unions in the 1930s.

Cast

as Frank Custer *

Alfre Woodard Alfre Woodard (; born November 8, 1952) is an American actress. She has received various accolades, including four Primetime Emmy Awards (tying the record for the most acting Emmys won by an African-American performer, along with Regina King), ...

as Mattie, Custer's wife *

Dennis Farina Donaldo Gugliermo "Dennis" Farina (February 29, 1944 – July 22, 2013) was an American actor. Often typecast as a mobster or police officer, he is known for roles such as FBI Agent Jack Crawford in '' Manhunter'', mobster Jimmy Serrano in th ...

as Supervisor, killing floor supervisor * Ernest Rayford as Thomas Joshua *

Moses Gunn Moses Gunn (October 2, 1929 – December 16, 1993) was an American actor of stage and screen. An Obie Award-winning stage player, he is an alumnus of the Negro Ensemble Company. His 1962 off-Broadway debut was in Jean Genet's ''The Blacks,'' and ...

as Heavy Williams, anti-union antagonist * Clarence Felder as Bremer, union leader *

John Mahoney Charles John Mahoney (June 20, 1940 – February 4, 2018) was an English-born American actor. He was known for playing Martin Crane on the NBC sitcom '' Frasier'' (1993–2004), and won a Screen Actors Guild Award for the role in 2000. Mahon ...

as Thomas Condon, meatpacking company representative

Production

Rassbach did extensive research on Chicago's history while writing the story, and hired Lee to draft a manuscript. The total budget for the film was $1.2 million, and funding was culled from a variety of unorthodox sources. Given the film's focus on Chicago's labor history, Rassbach approached more than three dozen unions for support, eliciting donations ranging from $1,000 to $300,000. The film's end credits include a long list of guilds and locals who contributed. Filmed in Chicago, the production was made at a challenging time for unions, after Ronald Reagan had fired over 11,000 striking members of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization in 1981. Conversely, Chicago had recently elected their first African American mayor,

Harold Washington Harold Lee Washington (April 15, 1922 – November 25, 1987) was an American lawyer and politician who was the 51st Mayor of Chicago. Washington became the first African American to be elected as the city's mayor in April 1983. He served as may ...

, whose campaign helped recruit numerous black extras to appear in the film. In addition, the local

Teamsters The International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT), also known as the Teamsters Union, is a labor union in the United States and Canada. Formed in 1903 by the merger of The Team Drivers International Union and The Teamsters National Union, the ...

were said to believe in the film's objective, and worked for half-pay during production.

Reception

The film was selected for the International Critics Week (

Semaine de la critique Critics' Week (french: link=no, Semaine de la critique), until 2008 called International Critics' Week ('), is a parallel section to the Cannes Film Festival organized by the French Syndicate of Cinema Critics. It was created in 1962 after the Fre ...

) at the

Cannes Film Festival The Cannes Festival (; french: link=no, Festival de Cannes), until 2003 called the International Film Festival (') and known in English as the Cannes Film Festival, is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films ...

in 1985, and winner of the

Sundance Film Festival The Sundance Film Festival (formerly Utah/US Film Festival, then US Film and Video Festival) is an annual film festival organized by the Sundance Institute. It is the largest independent film festival in the United States, with more than 46,6 ...

's Special Jury Prize in that same year.

Release information

Originally, the film was set to be the initial production for a PBS series of ten historical docu-dramas exploring the little-known history of American workers. Rassbach developed the project together with a cohort of historians and screenwriters, though ''The Killing Floor'' was the only film ever made in the series. To recognize the 100th anniversary of the Chicago race riots in 2019, the film underwent 4K DCP digital restoration by the University of California-Los Angeles Film & Television Archive.

References

External links

* * *
Official Trailer
{{DEFAULTSORT:Killing Floor, The 1984 films 1984 television films 1984 drama films American independent films American films based on actual events American drama films American Playhouse African-American drama films Films about activists Films about the labor movement Films about racism Films directed by Bill Duke Films set in the 1910s Films set in 1917 Films set in 1919 Films set in Chicago Films shot in Chicago Sundance Film Festival award winners World War I television films 1980s American films