Cinema Canada (Feb-Mar 1974)

Astral Bellevue Pathé to make big-budget co-productions Soon after the merger of Astral and Bellevue Pathé became official, Harold Greenberg and Edward Bronfman flew to Hollywood to announce the new ABP Ltd.’s plans to co-produce three big-budget features with Sandy (The Neptune Factor) Howard Productions. Greenberg was quoted in the trade press as saying: ““We want to win acceptance of Canada as a viable place to make movies and the best place to start is in partnership with Hollywood. Since Canada provides some 10 per cent of the domestic market for U.S.A. films, we feel that it is only natural that our country should be actively involved in at least 8-10 per cent of features made for global distribution.” The three films are The Devil’s Rain, scheduled for a June start in western Canada, Magna One, a three million dollar science fiction epic, and RRRomppp!, a musical. Canadian shooting is apparently implicit in the deals, at least on a partial basis. But time will tell. Some element of confusion was added to these announcements by the presence of David Perlmutter of Quadrant in Hollywood. Even’ though Quadrant co-produced “Neptune” with Sandy Howard, Perlmutter denied his company’s involvement in the three upcoming films, when contacted at his Toronto offices. It seems that a party celebrating Neptune’s grosses (reportedly in excess of $10 million) and thrown by Howard was responsible for Perlmutter being in Hollywood at the time of the Astral Bellevue Pathé announcement. 53 Canadian features... any trends? Doug Jackson’s Heatwave, the first feature completed in the NFB’s new Language Drama series, is about a TV news cameraman who becomes involved with the Montreal underworld. Gordon Pinsent, Alexandra Stewart, and Larry Dane star. Also at the Board, Jacques Godbout is post-producing La Gammick, the story of small-time Montreal gunman Chico Tremblay, who was used by the American Mafia to kill the head of Murder Incorporated in the late fifties. Marc Legault, Pierre Gobeil, Serge Theriault and Dorothy Berriman have the leading roles, and Columbia put up some of the money for this picture. In Toronto, Larry Dane’s Canart Films is presently editing Only God Knows, Peter Pearson’s direction of a story concerning three men of God who decide to relieve the Mafia of some 8 Cinema Canada of its illegally acquired loot. Again, Gordon Pinsent heads the cast, Paul Hecht and John Beck co-star. Before we jump to conclusions about these recent films trying to cash in on the success of that over $100,000,000 earner about a well-known crime syndicate, let’s look at some more recently shot films. Michel Brault’s Les Ordres went before the cameras in December, it being the first québécois-made film touching on 1970’s October crisis. Les Films Prisma producing. The Vision IV production of A Quiet Day in Belfast, directed by Milad Bessada and starring Barry Foster, Margot Kidder and Sean McCann, obviously focuses on_ the political troubles in that tragically torn part of the world. Back in Quebec, Jean-Pierre Lefebvre’s On n’engraisse pas les cochons 4a l’eau claire, Denys Arcand’s Réjeanne Padovani, and the collectively-made On a raison de se révolter all deal with that culture’s political realities. Lefebvre’s story concerns a student police spy, Arcand’s an usurous developer and his political cronies, and the last one examines the newly emerging phenomena of worker’s media. Jean-Claude Lord’s Bingo is being edited right now and deals with college students who get involved with politics and violence. And coming up is Coup d’Etat, to be produced in the spring by the CBC’s News and Public Affairs Department, in conjunction with Quadrant Films, Martyn Burke directing. The plot? Obviously the overthrow of the government in a South American country, probably in moviesfor-television staccato style (with built in breaks for commercials? ). Are we to conclude then that gangster films and political dramas or documentaries predominate Canadian production today? Well, not exactly. Mort Ransen is finishing Conflict Comedy and John Howe is wrapping A Star is Lost at the Film Board, both musical comedies. The first stars Jackie Burroughs, David Balser, Gerald Parks and Sandy Webster, while the second — another language drama film — affords Montrealer Tiiu Leek her motion picture debut as blonde starlet Gloria Glyde, in addition to featuring Don Arioli (as co-star and co-author with Howe), Les Nirenberg, Eric House, Michael Mammoth Jr. and Jack Creley. Also at the NFB, Michael Scott is completing the editing on Albie the Frog, still another language-drama comedy. Ciné-Capitale is distributing the Cinévideo-produced screen farce, Y a toujours moyen de moyenner, directed by Denis Héroux and starring a whole list of Quebec showbiz personalities, including Jean-Guy Moreau, Yvan Ducharme, Willie Laméthe, Danielle Ouimet and Paolo Noél. Then there’s the musical RRRomppp! , as announced above. Marcel Carriére’s OK... Laliberté is a comedy in a more serious vein, injected by our best actor for ’73, Jacques Godin, and his highly talented and prolific co-star, Luce Guilbeault. At the Montreal co-op, Michel Bouchard is putting the final touches on his Noél et Juliette, a seriocomic story of a young eccentric and his lady, originally entitled Blanc Noél, then Rue St. André. Roger Frappier’s L’infonie inachevée is a foot stomping, lively look at how Québec folk art and contemporary poetry can and do mix. And Dusan Makavejev shot for twenty days in Montreal studios, then moved on to do further location work in France and Amsterdam, for his QuebecFrance co-production, Sweet Movie, starring Carole Laure and John Vernon. Gilles Carle’s next one is entitled Nothing, but he’s not in a rush to start rolling on it yet. Spring is more likely (if at all? ) for what seems to be a bittersweet comedy about changes. Richard Dreyfuss, star of The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz