SELECTED REVIEWS EXCERPTS

"The Killing Floor brings uncommon clarity and emphasis to talking points that still bear repeating. "

"It's an important history lesson, a compelling drama and a lovingly recreated period piece all rolled into one."

"This film succeeds in telling the untold truth at a time when we are exposed only to revisions of the same old story. As we careen blindly through these numbed out days of historical and cultural amnesia, any restoration to memory of time actually lived brings with it a kind of revelatory shock, an insistent shaking up of the deaf-, dumb-, and blindness that constitute a simulated present."

"A tribute to the superhuman efforts of dedicated filmmakers like Rassbach...."

"Few American movies have this kind of reach. Executive producer Elsa Rassbach, who worked on the story with black playwright Leslie Lee, was educated in West Germany, and Brecht Lives in the jaunty narration that accompanies speeded-up newsreel footage and in the filmmakers' detachment – the way their characters act logically (if shortsightedly) in response to dire economic conditions."

"THE KILLING FLOOR is a marvelously acted and incisively nuanced exploration of how racial and ethnic divisions have been historically used to break up labor organizing. It’s an instant essential discovery, the kind of film I hope someday plays in classrooms to teach kids about parts of our country’s past that some teachers neglect to mention. Needless to say, it’s even more necessary viewing in an era when simmering tensions in our history are boiling over."

"The extensive background research guiding Lee’s script is realized not just in the film’s depiction of the unionization process, but also in the language employed by the characters, as well as in the archival footage used as interstitials between scenes. And the function of those qualities adds up to far more than just period detail and regional texture: The film’s relationship to established facts and records are what drives its narrative momentum – and what eventually grants it true purpose. THE KILLING FLOOR reveals itself to be an intrinsically American historical epic. "

"Chicago film history remains the richer for its existence and its recent digital restoration."

"For families looking for more historical context on the systemic racism that many Americans are starting to attempt to better comprehend, THE KILLING FLOOR is essential viewing. The acting is magnificent across the board, and the story doesn't shy away from thorny complexities and ugly truths. It should inspire discussion about what has and hasn't changed since the events depicted in the movie, how events like these continue to haunt the American backstory, the development of the labor movement, and where we go from here as we strive to make a more just society. "

"Bill Duke’s underseen and recently restored directorial debut, THE KILLING FLOOR ... is technically a made-for-TV movie; it debuted via PBS’s American Playhouse series. But it has all the heft and energy of a theatrical movie epic, which suits its subject: the fight, among Black and white stockyard workers in early-20th-century Chicago, to form an interracial workers union. "

"Leake is terrific, as is Ernest Rayford as Frank’s best friend who goes off to war in the film’s first act....THE KILLING FLOOR is thrillingly watchable, profoundly stirring and perennially relevant. And it’s an exemplary exercise in how to dramatize history and ideas. "

"THE KILLING FLOOR is a striking illustration of the need to synthesize class and race. Based on the experience of trying to build a trade union in Chicago’s stockyards during WWI, it is an object lesson on the need to abandon 'white privilege'. THE KILLING FLOOR ... belongs alongside 'Salt of the Earth' and 'Matewan' as truly engaged, working-class cinema. "