Cinema Canada (Aug 1976)

Summer Rain, Ratch Wallace’s postponed feature set in an Ontario boarding school, also went before the cameras in early August. Wallace is now only listed as writer, as Henning Jacobson, with Deane Judson and Englishman George Willoughby now acting as producers. It’s an Anglo-Canadian co-production with Odeon money. David Warner and Honor Blackman star, and shooting is being done in Lakefield, Ontario, just north of Peterborough. Welcome to Blood City, becoming better known as Actors’ Blood, is winding up shooting in Kleinburg, Ontario. This Anglo-Canadian co-production, also reportedly with Famous money, is a sci-fi epic about a group which has to fight its way out of a town controlled by killers, all as a test. Leads are Jack Palance, Samantha Eggar, and, as a substitute for Joseph Bottoms, who couldn’t appear because his _ presence violated the CFDC Canadian content rule, Keir Dullea, who is acceptable because even though he’s American, he lives in London (?). Director is TV veteran Peter Sasdy from England. Hollis McLaren, Barry Morse, and Chuck Shamata are also featured. Some misunderstandings regarding treatment of actors brought ACTRA into the midst of the production, and other troubles include a rumor that the CFDC pulled its money out. EMI in Britain, and Ambassador and Famous Players in Canada are other partners. In low-budget efforts, Allan Moyle has completed The Rubber Gun Show, with many of the same group involved in Montreal Main. Steve Lack was writer and producer, Frank Vitale was cameraman and Moyle directed... In Toronto CFDC backed the low-budget Outrageous, director Richard Benner’s film with female impersonator Craig Russell... And in Vancouver, a CFDC low-budget effort is Skip Tracer, directed by Zale Dalen. Meanwhile, planning takes place. Alan King, despite the setback of losing Budge Crawley as executive producer — replaced by Pierre Lamy — because of script differences (Crawley wanted more input by W.O. Mitchell, King more emphasis on the writing of his wife Patricia Watson), has pushed the start date of Who Has Seen the Wind? ahead only two weeks to the end of August. King auditioned publicly for his child lead, but no other casting has been announced and not even the kid has been found. King is negotiating with Donnelly Rhodes: at this writing. W.O. Mitchell is not idle, though. He’s working on scripts based on his stage play, Back to Beulah, possibly for Fil Fraser/CTV, and on a script about a black cowboy, a story optioned by Maxine Samuels at one time... Don Owen is writing another script, tentatively titled Greenhouse Blues... Twentieth Century-Fox and Astral have two movies to go in their three-pic deal, after Breaking Point... Tom Hendry, of theatre fame, is working on a feature, Private Places, with Ron Kelly. Paramount and others, including actor Mike Connors, have bought a first novel by Montreal writer Philippe Vanrijndt, title of which is The Tetramachus Collection. Deal was $50,000 for the option and another $50,000 if the book hits the bestseller list. That’s the second recent movie deal arranged by publishers Lester and Orpen, the first being Earl Glick’s purchase of Lance Hill’s novel King of White Lady for $100,000... Alex Grassoff Productions and Saroy Film Productions of Canada plan a feature on The Black Donnelleys. Writers are Mark Bruce Rosen and Karl Schanzer. The production may be shot in Italy. John Kemeny has two films planned. One is Trailblazers, a romantic triangle story set among Hudson’s Bay Company members. The other is a Bethune film, and Ted Allan has been signed to do the script. Interestingly enough, this film will probably form part of Kemeny’s co-production deal with Columbia. In the early ‘50s, Allen wrote the best-selling biography of Bethune, but after some overtures, Hollywood ran from the project, fearing harassment from growing McCarthyism. And Columbia has picked up Shadow of a Hawk, the film that Kemeny recently produced in BC. An interesting production is on in St. Johns this summer. Dino de Laurentiis is producing, with Paramount and Famous Films of New York, a killer whale story called Orca. Richard Harris and Charlotte Rampling star, Michael Anderson directs, Luciano Vincenzoni is executive producer and coauthor with Sergio Donati, and Ted Moore is cameraman. It is just another location shoot, except that de Laurentiis acquired his financial backing for Buffalo Bill entirely in Canada, and at that time was reportedly embarking on a multipicture deal in Canada with Canadian money. It’s a. good thing that Canadian investers are putting money into movies. Short filmmaking is also on the move. Clarke Mackey has completed a film for Ontario’s Workmen’s Compensation Board... The National Film Board is producing a series of films, in co-production with Mexico, on problems of cultural identity, in particular vis-a-vis the US. Shooting will be in Spanish and French, with some English tracks. At the Toronto Filmmakers’ Co-op production is active. David Leach completed Expansion and showed it at 15 Dancers Theatre. Patrick Lee is editing his docucomedy Pulling Phones. Director Al Goldstein has completed Let’s Get a Move on, FILMINEWS a docu-drama on treatment of retarded children. Peter Wronski directed American Nights, about a mugger. And Bill Boyle will start shooting Prairie Landscapes on August 18. It’s a one-hour film, stage, and video adaptation, with script by Boyle and Dale Cooper, of a theatrical piece done last summer in Saskatchewan by Theatre Passe-Muraille and 25th Street House. Funded by the Canada Council’s Explorations and the Saskatchewan Arts Board, it features Linda Griffiths, Karen Wiens, Layne Colman, Andy Tahn, Chris Covert and Bob Collins. Film camera is by David Ostriker and video will be handled by Chris Patterson and Robert Appelbe. George Bloomfield Despite the Olympics, TV continues. At CBC George Bloomfield just finished a Ted Allen script called Love Is a Long Shot. Don Haldane directed Hank, with a script by Don Bailey and starring Bob Warner, Richard Donat and Chuck Shamata. Robert Sherrin will produce on tape an adaptation of a story, The Making of the President 1944, from Morley Torgov’s prize-winning _ collection A Good Place to Come From. In the sitcom category, executive producer Ron Kelly is trying desperately to save The Royal Suite, which, despite good writers and acting regulars Maggie Griffiths, Wendy Thatcher and John Evans, as well as guest stars Gordon Pinsent, Jane Mallett and Elizabeth Shepherd among others, seems doomed. And Stanley Colbert, who ran the CFDC’s script course last year, has been hired to oversee film at CBC drama, working especially with the writers of Sidestreet to add August 1976/7