Trivia / Blue Collar

• Colbert Bump: Some fans of Spike Lee's movies have been led to this by his recommendation. Bruce Springsteen also names it as one of his favorite seventies movies in his autobiography.
• Hostility on the Set: The film had a very tense shoot.
  • Richard Pryor, Yaphet Kotto, and Harvey Keitel argued constantly. There were fights, verbal abuse, walk-offs, and Mexican stand-offs.
  • According to Paul Schrader, hit Kotto with a chair during filming. On another occasion, Keitel became so irritated by Pryor's lengthy improvisations that he flung the contents of an ashtray into the camera lens, ruining the take. Pryor and his bodyguard responded by pinning Keitel to the floor and pummeling him with their fists.
  • Kotto for his part claimed that the only problem he had with Pryor was that Pryor would improvise frequently causing Kotto to lose his place.
  • Schrader suffered a nervous breakdown that caused him to quit the film industry for a while. This was the result of an incident where Pryor pulled a gun on him and said there was no way in hell he was doing more than three takes of a scene.
  • Actor George Memmoli filed a $1-million lawsuit against Pryor, claiming that Pryor hit him with a chair during filming and fractured his skull.
• Troubled Production: The picture's production was dogged by tension and conflict between the three lead actors and occasionally director Paul Schrader as well.

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