Cinema Canada (Feb-Mar 1974)

Now we're totally confused. Musicals, comedies, gangster pictures or politics? Which style represents the current output best? Probably all of the above, plus more. Minotaur’s The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, Ted Kotcheff’s direction of Richler’s own screenplay, and Carle’s Les Corps Célestes are both period dramas, while Les Oranges d’Israel by Fernand Rivard is a tale of a ménage a trois, embracing a man, his wife and his mistress. Also for sex buffs: from the same folks (at least some of them) who brought you Pleasure Palace and Diary of a Sinner earlier this year, a new one entitled Dream on the Run about an ex-con and his troubles. George Bloomfield’s Child Under a Leaf, produced by Potterton, to be released later this year by Mutual Films, is — on the contrary — about two lovers engulfed in a nightmare. Science fiction? Take L’Etat Solide, scheduled to go before the cameras in February in Montreal, produced by Don Buschbaum and directed by newcomer Luc-Michel Hannaux. Or that other Greenberg/ Sandy Howard production, Magna One, an announced $3 million budget science-fiction thriller. Are westerns your genre? The Devil’s Rain is another Greenberg/Howard co-production slated to be shot in western Canada for $1.5 million. John Ware, the story of the legendary Alberta rancher who was black, is being shaped into a film by Maxine Samuels’ Montreal-based production company. Meanwhile in today’s west, George McGowan’s The Inbreaker, is a tale of white/Indian conflict set against a background of Halibut fishing, and Jack Darcus’ The Wolf Pen Principle is about a young Indian boy who frequents a ZOO, since he’s connected to the wolves through the spirit of his grandmother. Canadian director Darryl Duke also shot an Indian story in B.C. recently. Shown on U.S. network television, “‘I Heard an Owl Call My Name” received a good reception from the critics. Duke’s excellent American-made feature, Payday, stars one of the world’s best actors, Rip Torn, and superbly handles the demise of a pill-popping, whiskey-guzzling, women-chasing country and western singer. It has been re-released in the wake of high critical acclaim. The Dertet Lee, Paul Lynch low-budget Canadian effort, The Hard Part Begins, attempts to deal with the same topic, with less artistic success. Claude Fournier’s Alien Thunder, starring Donald Sutherland and Chief Dan George, will probably be released in 1974 and treat audiences to a story culled from actual Mounted Police files, dealing with a clash between Indian and white values. From Calgary comes John Wright’s The Visitor, to give us Pia Shandel as a girl whose obsession with the past leads her into a new and terrifying existence. Eskimos are treated in Paramount’s The White Dawn, shot last year at Frobisher Bay and based on the Canadian bestseller, as well as in the Norman Jewison/Don Harron collaboration, Richler’s The Incredible Atuk, which might be filmed this spring. And I suppose we should mention Across This Land With Stompin’ Tom Connors, John Saxton’s Cinépix distributed documentary feature on that Luncheon Date groom. Slipstream and Paperback Hero were adequately covered in our last issue. Mention should be made here of the NFB’s new “West” series, currently being aired on the CBC-network. Producer John N. Smith and associate Cynthia Scott have put together 13 half-hour films using the best of film talent available in a very successful attempt to present a cross-section of Canadians inhabiting our western provinces. From a young FrenchCanadian in Saskatchewan who lives the slow life of the small town of his choice and makes miniature clay sculptures of its inhabitants, to Bob “Catskinner”’ Keen, a rough living, big-time millionaire developer who owns a ranch, an airline, a fleet of tugboats and tons of forest-clearing heavy machinery, this new series affords the viewer a revealing look at the real living west. And while we’re at the Film Board, Arthur Hammond’s series Corporation did not fit into the CBC’s schedule this year, but is ready and available for distribution. A fascinating study of a small, Montreal family business that grew into the multinational corporation Steinberg’s Ltd. (among its holdings: Miracle Mart Supermarkets), this series of six half-hour films (an hour long update is also being assembled) can be used in any combination by students of the corporate world, whether in the business, academic, or the political arena. The lively pacing of the segments and the reams of fascinating information contained in each episode (Growth, Bilingualism, Motivation, The Market, Real Estate, and International Operations are available so far) make these films easily palatable for a general audience, as well as special interest groups. By the time the update is ready, Hammond (and his editor Pierre Lassry) will have spent four years of their lives on Corporation. Only at the Film Board do filmmakers have the luxury to devote as much time as is needed to turn out quality programs such as these: it’s great to have the NFB after all! That leaves Jean-Pierre Lefebvre’s Les Derniéres Fiancailles, a tender, touching story of two innocent old people and how they get to heaven after caring for a plot of land in virtual isolation through the years; Martyn Burke’s Carnivals, originally a TV feature documentary now ready for theatrical release, on carnies across the U.S. and Canada; Jean Chabot’s Une Nuit en Amérique, produced by ACPAV, the Montreal co-op, about a Hungarian doctor stuffed into a trunk and the mystery surrounding his murder, which seems like the perfect crime; André Forcier’s Bar Salon, about the emotional and economic breakdown of a fifty-year old bar owner; Pierre Duceppe’s Je t’aime, just released in Montreal by Mutual Films, produced by Cinévideo, and starring Jeanne Moreau (yes, the great actress), who plays a self-exiled French woman in a small Quebec village; U-Turn director George Kaczender’s Micro Blues, about corruption in kids, is already casting and will probably roll in the spring; CTV producer Ron Kelly’s movies-fortelevision, the first of which will be filmed in the spring as well; Peter Bryant’s The Supreme Kid and Leonard Yakir’s The Mourners, both CFDC lowbudgeters subject to final script approval, but likely to proceed in a matter of months; and of course Frank Vitale’s Montreal Main about the Montreal English homosexual subculture, René Bonniére’s Hamlet with the experimental theatre group THOG, plus The Pyx, Between Friends, and Quadrant’s Sunday in the Country, which were also covered in issue No. 10/11. That’s 53 Canadian feature films to choose from, Mr. Exhibitor, in various stages of preparation, production, or release. Certainly, there’s enough variety in styles and themes to please even the most eclectic of tastes. Current québécois production by Pierre Latour Yves Dion, a young filmmaker who directed Sur Vivre for the National Film Board, is currently editing Michel Brault’s political drama set in October, 1970, entitled Les Ordres. The feature, Brault’s third, is being produced by Les Productions Prisma, in association with Les Ordres Inc. Jean Lapointe (O.K. Laliberté), Héléne Loiselle ( Mon Oncle Antoine, Réjeanne Padovani), Claude Gauthier (Entre la mer et l’eau douce), and Guy Provost lead the cast. André Corriveau completed the final cutting of Il était une fois dans lest, (‘once upon atime in the east’’), André Brassard’s first feature from a script by Québec playwright, Michel Tremblay. Produced by Les Productions CarleLamy, the film will be distributed by Société Nouvelle de Cinématographie. Claude Jutra will begin shooting Pour le meilleur ou pour le pire (“for better or worse”) at the end of January. From a script of his own, the film is set in northern Québec. Roger Frappier (Le grand film ordinaire, l’infonie inache Cinema Canada 9