American Playhouse (TV Series) The Killing Floor (1984) User Reviews

Early Union Days

[boblipton · 7/10 · 17 July 2022]

During the First World War, during the Black Diaspora, Damien Leake travels north to get a job in the Chicago stockyards. He's ambitious. He hopes to become a butcher, and buys a knife for the job. But while many of the stockyard workers are off in the Great War, the workers in the stockyards organize. Leake is skeptical at first, He doesn't trust the White men who are leading the organizing, and the cost of union membership is immense given the war-enriched 50-cents-an-hour wages. But he comes around, and even after the war ends and the government controls come off, he remains a staunch union man.

This episode of American Playhouse is directed by Bill Duke, and is told in a straightforward fashion, with a lot of period details; the large number of Polish workers is indicates by music and the simultaneous translation of the leadership's speeches into that language. Other well-known performers include Alfre Woodward, Moses Gunn, and Dennis Farina.

the killing floor

[mossgrymk · 7/10 · 18 August 2022]

Interesting, if uncinematic. Even if I hadn't known it was an episode from the 1970s/80s American Playhouse television series I still would have sniffed the somewhat musty odor of prestige tv with its uninspired back lot exteriors, over use of stock footage and superfluous narration, and, most "prestigiously" of all, a pushing of the verbal over the visual (as in too much "soapbox" speechifying). Best thing about it is the acting with Damien Leake, Moses Gunn, Alfre Woodard, Ernest Rayford and Mary Alice all delivering powerful, layered performances. And I always appreciate being reminded just how difficult it is to achieve economic and racial justice at the same time in this benighted country of ours. Give it a B minus.

Useful for those studying the black migration during WWI, the race riots in Chicago and the labor movement

[asphyxiatedagnostic · 30 May 2003]

Summary: Black workers from the South migrate North during WWI to look for jobs left vacant by people going off to war. They were often relegated to the most undesirable jobs and faced some prejudice. Some of them join the local labor unions and find themselves being paid substantially more than they would have if they had stayed in the South. After the war ends, the labor union loses influence as there are men who want their jobs back that these workers filled. We see employers using race to try to break up the union and there are accurate depictions of the Chicago race riots that occurred in 1919. There were massive strikewaves after WWI when many workers were laid off or had their wages cut. This film is useful to anyone interested in the labor movement.