Take One (Dec 2003 - Mar 2004)

Sydnie Furie, left, directing A Dangerous Age In his announcement of the film’s completion, Furie said that he didn’t see why marketable features couldn’t be made regularly in Canada, optimistically predicting that he would go on to make one picture a year. Although A Dangerous Age suffers slightly from Furie’s inexperience as a director, he had high hopes for it connecting with an audience. Films de France agreed to distribute the film in the United Kingdom, where it was reviewed as “distinctly encouraging” by The British Film Institute’s Monthly Film Bulletin on its release in May 1958. But on this side of the Atlantic, it was another story. Furie did not anticipate the difficulties he would face in securing North American distribution, which eluded him at every turn. The sudden appearance of A Dangerous Age may have surprised Canada’s new independent filmmakers but Nat ‘Taylor, head of the Twentieth Century Fox theatre chain, the third largest in Ontario, had been waiting for just this kind of development. As the publisher of Canadian Film Weekly, Taylor was using his regular column to call for government support for Canadian features. Taylor saw himself as an industry insider who could give a larger cultural meaning to the low-budget pictures that independent film companies across Toronto were now considering. Taylor knew that if a Canadian feature could be sold to a major studio it would not Nico, the smooth-talking mentor to a gang of coffee-house beatniks. In his pursuit of “kicks,” Nico proclaims that murder “is the last great challenge to the creative mind.” When an unsuspecting messenger boy drops by his wild bongo party the next night, Nico offers him a hamburger laced with shards of glass. The boy dies and the body is disposed of. Frustrated by the slow and inconclusive police investigation, the victim’s brother, Cliff (Jack Betts), retraces the delivery route in search of clues. Convinced that Nico is behind the monstrous crime, Cliff infiltrates the circle of beats and starts hanging out at the coffee house. After a run-in with a pair of strong-arm thugs, Cliff unmasks Nico not only as the killer but also as an underworld gangster masquerading as an authentic hipster. With an emphasis on thrills, Te Bloody Brood is undoubtedly more of an “exploitation film” than A Dangerous Age. Still, the tightly paced story and competent direction gives the film a level of professionalism comparable to American B-movies of the time. But despite Roffman’s experience, The Bloody Brood is still rough around the edges and falls victim to its budgetary constraints. Harsh lighting in many of the scenes shot at Meridian’s stages give the film a flat look that lacks the menacing atmosphere needed to properly compliment Falk’s ominous performance. All NIGHT parties with JAZZ and DOPE. only be a boon to the industry; it would also strengthen his case for federal funding. To make a low-budget film that could take advantage of this opportunity, Taylor looked to Julian Roffman, a seasoned NFB director. Roffman had co-founded Meridian Films, which housed the soundstage Furie had used on A Dangerous Age. In October 1958, Taylor’s wife, Yvonne, formed ‘Taylor-Roffman Productions and immediately signed on as a co-producer for The Bloody Brood, a beatnik crime flick. It stars a young Peter Falk as DECEMBER 2003 — MARCH 2004 The Toronto beatnik scene also inspired Furie’s second feature, A Cool Sound from Hell. A young square named Charlie (Anthony Ray) is initiated into the twilight world of “all night parties with jazz and dope” when he becomes infatuated with a blonde beatnik named Steve (Carolyn D’Annidala). Trying to impress her by buying drugs for her favourite jazz musician, Charlie inadvertently gets mixed up with both the police and a dope ring. When one of the dealers is arrested, the gang pegs the new convert as an informer and administers a vicious beating. Bruised and