Cinema Canada (Dec 1974-Jan 1975)

English tradition of keeping your place. When the great Call for World War Two went out, we went off to fight. The growth of any kind of social awareness was only happening at that time. The part Tiiu plays is really far out. She’s a very unusual character for the ear. I mean, the Montreal Gazette is still not unionised. At the same time in the film, she’s ambiguous as a person, because she also is seen from Harry’s viewpoint, as ideal, romantic love. “In the last scene, what I wanted to leave in the audience’s mind is what happened next week or next month. Did he step out of the frying pan into the fire? Because that’s what happened: we made it Bam into the sixties. He is as unsettled in his mind as we were in the forties. “But I was very disappointed to read in a recent Maclean’sCanadians remembering the war years as a marvellous time and as a good thing for Canada.” There was no thought of cashing in on a nostalgia boom, mainly because a first try at making the film took place in 1971. But Howe sees the film as an added bonus in getting the audience into the theatre. “More people will see the film, and if eighty per cent of the audience pays to see nostalgia, and keeps the film running, that won’t upset me either. For one thing, I’ve been in this business long enough to know that if only two or three people hear what you care about, then it’s worthwhile. “But there’s more involved. Why Rock The Boat? needs support to keep running. I feel a commercial pressure because we’re in a commercial business. Those managers out there have a living to make, and they don’t care about nationality. If the film brings in money, they’ll run it for years. Feature making in Canada is a card game in which the cards are stacked against us. My competition out there in those cinemas is The Sting. Big movies with big production budgets and big stars and big advance hype. Our market is too small for big budgets, so the film has to be better than its competition. That means every nickel has to look like ten. I don’t want my budget published | because I want people to think it cost double. ‘We have to increase our output to keep people working and keep them here. A quota is not the problem. We need money for production, and we get it when we have a market that can return it in an economic way. I’m sick and tired of handouts. We should apply muscle and a little reciprocity. American films take a hell of a lot of money out of our box office. An Eady-type plan to pour the money back in as well as some percentage of films shown on the American circuits. Otherwise it’s charity, and I’m sick and tired of that. Like the Canada Council, it’s applying a band-aid instead of getting at the diagnosis and curing the illness. And the CFDC, as much as | it’s been a great help, is the same thing, unless it can get actively involved in distribution. It’s the old Canadian way of ducking out. We don’t have any trouble with wheat reciprocity or oil; why can’t we do it with this product?” John Howe is tired. He’s just completed two films back to back (Boat and the TV musical in the Language series, A Star is Lost) and all he wants to do is retire for a while and write music at his country place. In fact, it was writing the forties style music for the film that he enjoyed most. As the conversation closes, however, he reiterates his purpose. “What I was at pains to create was a Canadian thing in the Forties, with universal messages or whatever. We see ourselves. Harry could not be anything but a Canadian boy, couldn’t exist anywhere but here. Our people can see it and say ‘Wow’ and still say I enjoyed paying three bucks to see it.” Stephen Chesley Cinema Canada 39