#THE KILLING ROOM MOVIE FULL#

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 total budget for the film was $1.2 million, and funding was culled from a variety of unorthodox sources. Rassbach did extensive research on Chicago's history while writing the story, and hired Lee to draft a manuscript.

John Mahoney as Thomas Condon, meatpacking company representative.

Clarence Felder as Bremer, union leader.

Moses Gunn as Heavy Williams, anti-union antagonist.

Dennis Farina as Supervisor, killing floor supervisor.

The film focuses on many individuals who were responsible for leading the charge to build strong, interracial labor unions in the 1930s. Ĭuster, 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. Frank Custer (played by Damien Leake) 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. Great as it is, he should at least have given us a credit for the idea.Based on real individuals and actual events, the film focuses on two poor black sharecroppers who leave Mississippi for the Chicago stockyards to seek out employment opportunities vacated by soldiers who had departed for World War I. Cheeky bastard! He gave us this pittance one-off fee for the use of the song, saying it was just a little indie film, but forgot to mention that Drew Barrymore was behind it, who had more money than Howard Hughes. “I’d mentioned somewhere that The Killing Moon was about pre-destiny,” says Ian McCulloch, “and he wrote the whole fuckin’ film about it. And a mysterious presence in a crazy rabbit suit – a mad bunnyman, in effect – was one of the film’s key characters. It’s got real power.”Īs well as being covered by Pavement and Grant Lee-Phillips, The Killing Moon was on the soundtrack of Richard Kelly’s surreal 2001 flick Donnie Darko. That song is actually the answer to the big question. You can slice that lyric up wherever you like, but it’s as profound as ‘To be or not to be…’ It’s almost like a soliloquy delivered by a priest. I think it took me 25 years to realise that not only was it about pre- destiny, it was about everything. “One of the great things about the song is that it still surprises me when I sing it live. “I would have loved Sinatra to have had a go at The Killing Moon,” McCulloch confesses. Their biggest seller to date, it’s often cited as the Bunnymen’s masterwork. Three months later came parent album Ocean Rain, a sumptuous record whose dark metaphors were given grand scale by a 35-piece string section. It’s total artistry and the ability to know exactly what’s right for that song.” The Killing Moon rose into the UK Top 10 and stayed in the chart for six weeks. “I knew that it was the greatest song already,” McCulloch marvels, “but Will’s outro guitar is unbelievable. Not only is McCulloch on killer form on the track, but Sergeant is inspired too, conjuring up an atmospheric middle eight and one of the most expressively beautiful codas you’ll ever hear.

#THE KILLING ROOM MOVIE FULL#

Suddenly interested again, McCulloch now gave it his full attention. De Freitas adapted his usual hard-thumping style into a softer canter, using brushes. The pair booked an all-night session at Amazon Studios in Kirkby. It’s ruined.’”īack home, it was drummer Pete de Freitas who finally convinced McCulloch to revisit The Killing Moon. The others suggested I re-sing it when we got back to Liverpool, but I said: ‘I’m not doing it. So I came back a little freer about what I had to say. I was thinking that when we got back we should maybe try a Velvets tom-tom thing, do a Mo Tucker on it. “It was all going wrong so I went to the boozer with Adam Peters. “David Lord was a load of crap and a tosser, the most unaptly named bastard you could meet,” says McCulloch. The tune itself just wasn’t coming together. I spent the next 20-odd years trying to remember how I did it.” Then we went out for a curry and when we came back, producer David Lord had looped it up and punched it back in. “It was just something I did when we were tuning up.

The distinctive, vaguely Spanish-sounding guitar intro on The Killing Moon was a happy accident, Sergeant reveals.

The killing room movie