Lineman (occupation) - in Fiction

In Fiction

• The novels Slim (1933) and High Tension (1938) by William Wister Haines are classic portrayals of line work during the Great Depression.
• Slim (film), (1937) starring Henry Fonda, based on the 1934 novel.
• Roy Neary, the character played by Richard Dreyfuss in Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), is a lineman for an Indiana power company sent to investigate a mysterious power outage.
• In the 'Allo 'Allo episode The Gestapo Ruins a Picnic, Gestapo officers Herr Flick and Von Smallhausen disguise themselves as linemen to tap into the telephone line so Herr Flick can call his godfather Heinrich Himmler to ask for money to pay the telephone bill. They climb up a telephone pole, which unbeknownst to them, had been sawed halfway through by the Resistance (who were intending to use telephone poles to build a raft to get the British airmen back to England). The two Gestapo crash down in a picnic.
• The popular song "Wichita Lineman" 1968 written by Jimmy Webb and first recorded by Glen Campbell.
• Lineman is one of the occupations named in The Decemberists' song "The Engine Driver".