We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.
Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.
By PAUL CORUPE
TAKING OFF THE MASK
Rediscovering Nat Taylor and
the B—MOVIES of Canada’s Past
Rock ’n’ roll motorcycle gangs, hallucinating psychiatrists and beatniks out for kicks are not usually associated
with polite English—Canadian films, but these lowbrow characters were Canada’s sole voice in the hostile feature
film climate of the late 1950s. Muscling their way into theatres and drive-ins dominated by Hollywood product, Toronto-shot films such as A Dangerous Age (1958), The Bloody Brood (1959), The Ivy League Killers (1959), A Cool Sound from Hell (1959) and The Mask (1961) were thrilling audiences several years before the English-Canadian film industry’s widely acknowledged official birthdate in 1964—with the release of Don
Owen’s classic Nobody Waved Good-Bye. Scantly noticed in their time and barely remembered today, these films
were expected not only to crack the Hollywood stranglehold but to restore a lost cultural industry.
By 1957, the dream of feature filmmaking in Canada had all but been abandoned. Almost two decades had passed since the National Film Board, with its emphasis on animation, shorts and the documentary, had taken over Canadian film production, and there had not been a sustained attempt at creating an Ontario feature—film industry since the mid-1920s. But slowly, things were beginning to change. Disillusioned with working on innocent post-war NFB filmstrips outlining the importance of nutrition and workplace safety, many writers, directors and producers began to break away to start up their own production companies.
Although these new companies continued to focus on documentaries and industrial shorts, this shift toward autonomy left many feeling bold enough to consider breaking with the staid traditions of NFB filmmaking. Building upon the wealth of experience they gained at the Film Board, the directors and writers behind these production companies had just began to consider the possibilities
of dramatic filmmaking when they were beaten to the punch. In October 1957, 24-year-old Sidney J. Furie announced that he had completed his first feature. Originally slated as a CBC drama, A Dangerous Age was already in the can before many knew Furie was even trying to make a film. A coming-of-age story with a few flashes of melodrama, A Dangerous Age is surprisingly thoughtful and well-acted. David and Nancy, played by Ben Piazza and Anne Pearson, are teenage lovers desperate to tie the knot. One day David sneaks Nancy out of her boarding school to get a marriage licence at the local courthouse. When they are told they must file a statement of intent and return the next day, the young lovers find themselves clashing with the rules of adult society and their own marital expectations. Their second trip to the courthouse is cut short when Nancy is arrested for truancy. Upon her release, David steals a car and tries to take his fiancée back to the courthouse but the cops are quickly in pursuit. When the pair is eventually caught, they realize they aren’t ready to face the reality of love in an adult world.
TAKE ONE
17