Canadian Film Digest (Mar 1973)

The Canadian Film Digest MARCH 1973 Domestic Notes People, Places, Events from Across Canada Festival season is almost upon us, and so Maurice Bessy, the director general of the Cannes Festival, was recently in Ottawa and Montreal to screen films for presentation. The new Film Festivals Office should be active in this area by now... Random notes on Canadian Oscar participation: Canada’s entry in the Foreign Language film category was Carle’s Le Vrai Nature de Bernadette . . . . Tadeusz Jaworski’s Selling Out, honored with an Etrog at last fall’s Canadian Film Awards, has been nominated for an Oscar. Jaworski is filmmaker in residence at Toronto’s Humber College, and Humber participated financially in the film. Thirty-five minutes long, it tells about leaving the traditional residence, and is set in Prince Edward Island.... Cinebooks, Canada’s only bookstore devoted entirely to film, is having an Academy Award contest. Prizes are lavish books on film. details can be obtained by writing to them at 692A Yonge St., Toronto H4Y 2A6.... Astral Communications is rapidly becoming a major force in the Canadian Film industry. It just announced officially, though the deal has been common knowledge for some time, that has acquired Gendon Films of Montreal. Gendon distributes and produces, and was started by Paul Almond and Genevieve Bujold. Its basic assets are Mon Oncle Antoine and Journey, among other films. But what is significant here is that an English company now has a concrete French link. More Astral: to emphasise their participation in Quebec film, Astral recently took over management of the Arlequin theatre in Montreal. Astral has houses in many small Quebec cities, but the Arlequin can act as a showcase to introduce French Astral product, as well as serving as a test ground for other product It may have been overlooked, but Charlotte’s Web, which opens an Easter school run soon, had Edgar Bronfman as executive producer. Bronfman recently bought into Astral Communications, and the late Gerry Solway secured Charlotte’s Web for Astral in Canada just before he died. Pic is distributed by Paramount in the U.S. That’s the Bronfman of Seagram ancestry. More honors for Norman MacLaren: The Philadelphia Museum of Art recently held a _ retrospective of the film pioneer’s work. In cluded were exhibits of his sketches and notebooks. Feature action: John F. Bassett is seeking Gordon Lightfoot’s song If You Could Read My Mind as the theme for his Last of the Big Guns. Pic is scheduled to be ready April 15, but Bassett hasn’t decided when or where to release it. To protect his investment fully, and have an easier time of it in the distribution division, Bassett has set up his own distribution company, Lions Films Face Off has now been seen in more countries and probably grossed more than any other Canadian film, except Goin’ Down the Road. Maxine Samuels and Richard Shouten have acquired rights to Harry Boyle’s The Great Canadian Novel. Plans are for a production sometime within the next two years. Samuels’ Host productions will produce. Shouten is the former assistant publisher of Saturday Night Magazine. For devoted film fans, Toronto may have seen the last of the lot. Teenager Jim Craig of Don Mills saw the Poseidon Adventure twentynine times, and last Saturday bowed out after number thirty. Seems he is enthralled with actress Pamela Sue Martin. Manager Chalmers of the Odeon Carlton didn’t mind, and neither did the cash register. For Gene Kelly fans, be it known that Toronto’s Tony Thomas has been commissioned to write the text for a book on Kelly’s career. Volume is to be called Song and Dance, and is due for publication in December. More people news: J. F. Senior of the Harlan Fairbanks Co, Ltd. of Vancouver has been appointed regional vice-president for area ee ee oenene Michael Caine is on page 11 seven, i.e. Canada, of the National Association of Concessionnaires. The latest word on The Film Last Tango in Paris, is that the same procedure followed in the U.S. will be applied for the Canadian opening. Select pre-screenings will take place. The film will open in Toronto and Montreal at the beginning of May. $4.50 looks like the ticket price and probably reserved seating will be used. In the U.S. a particular form of revenuesharing between distrib and exhibs has been instituted: the four wall formula. The distrib rents the entire theatre for 10-20% above the house nut. The rest is his. No word yet as to whether same procedure is to be used here. Government fun: Ontario plans to set up a culture branch as a separate entity in the department of colleges and universities .. . Same province is unwilling to see the IMAX process go to waste in the Ontario Place Cinesphere. Last year North of Superior was so good in the house, and the potential is even greater, that the province has committed $250,000 per annum to purchase a film made with the process .... British Columbia, satisfied with the ten million dollars revenue film has brought the province during the last several years of production there, but worried because it can be so fickle and it was so foreign-owned, has intimated it may class film production as a secondary industry. The medium would then be eligible for government grants and loans. Some producers are talking in terms of 30% participation by the government. Disada Productions of Montreal have created several new cartoon characters for TV’s Sesame St. and The Electric Company. Among them are The Phone, Grumpy and the Grinning Grape, The Phantom, The Thing, Chip, and Chubby Chicken .... And for costumers, Continental Tress of Toronto now has an offthe-face wig .... A new women’s film producing company has been formed in Toronto. Called Fromunder Films, the firm plans TV and film work exclusively about women. People involved are Sylvia Spring, Lorna Forman, Janine Manatas, Patricia Gruben, Sandra Gathercole, and Roz Michaels. The Canadian Motion Picture. Pioneers have announced their thirty-second annual Meeting and Banquet. It will be held at the Empress Room, The Park Plaza Hotel in Toronto on Monday, April ninth. Plans call for a banquet, new members induction, and president Leonard Bernstein’s annual report. Information and tickets are available from Graydon Hulse, Harry Green, Zeke Sheine, or May Chinn in the Pioneer head office. Variety, the Bible of Showbiz, has reported that nine major distributors have filed actions in the Supreme court of Ontario against certain exhibitors for under-reporting of box office receipts. The Exhibs challenged include: Michael Zahorchak and Canadian Theatres Group Ltd. (hardtops and drive-ins in Welland, Grimsby, St. Catharines and Niagara Falls); Brantford Drive-In Theatre Ltd.; Capitol Theatres (Listowel) Ltd.; Curley’s Investments Ltd. and Grand Canyon Investments Ltd. (Hardtops and drive-ins in Brantford, Listowel, St. Thomas, Sault St. Marie); William J. McLean, Shirley J. C. McLean, Gordon Harris, Beverly A. Harris and Boiler Beach Drive-In of Kincardine. The distribs include Astral Communications, Bellevue Film Distributors, Columbia Pictures, Empire Films, MCA Canada, MGM, Paramount, Twentieth Century-Fox, United ‘Artists and Warner Brothers. Columbia, MCA, and Paramount were not included in the Boiler Beach action. At a recent heated gathering in Toronto of those in favor of more controls in Canadian film and more Canadian content, one of the besieged panel members asked all those in the audience who had seen the currently running True Nature of Bernadette film to raise their hands; only a small percentage did. Little help in budget for Showbiz Finance Minister John Turner presented some benefits for theatre equipment users, but otherwise the recent federal budget offered nothing to the film business. Henceforth motion picture projectors, among other imported goods, will have their customs duty lowered from 15% to 10% of the invoiced price. Special tax treatment for performing artists, especially in the area of unemployment insurance benefits, were not granted. This decision will be appealed by the artists in April at a special meeting. > ee ae ig tea os a ~ : a 24, a = > Focus On: Jack Lemmon Jack Lemmon was in Toronto for a day to promote his latest film for Paramount, Save the Tiger. During his stay he attended a special preview of the film at the Ontario Film Theatre. These comments occurred during a question period following the showing, and at a press brunch. On his acting: I’m a_perfectionist. But I don’t ever want to be satisfied. I’ve seen what happens to people when they become satisfied. They find there’s no place left to go. They become sterile. On Choosing a Role: I’m not concerned with maintaining any definite ‘‘image.’’ Whatever gooses me as an actor is the part I want to play. On his part in Save the Tiger: I become so immersed in a part that I bring it home with me. I don’t know if I was glad when shooting finished, but my wife was. On Save the Tiger: It’s my first promotional tour. I’m doing it because I care more deeply about it than any other movie I’ve been in. On his cigar: It’s my pacifier. I smoke only three a day but it’s always in my hand. Toronto is great because I can get brands that aren’t available at home. On public recognition: I once got into an elevator in an office building. A guy got in later, looked at me, thought for a minute, then said, ‘Is your air conditioning out too?” Page 3