Canadian Bacon - History of Canadian Filmmaking (Part Four)

“Reality is frequently inaccurate.”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

But back to Halifax. After World War II, Nova Scotia would see another uptick in filmmaking. This time, the charge was led by Margaret Perry.

In 1945, the Nova Scotia Department of Industry and Publicity hired a Film Officer, Margaret Perry, to head the newly created Nova Scotia Film Bureau. Up until 1945, Perry was the Nova Scotia film industry. After her husband's untimely death in 1926, Perry took up filmmaking as a hobby, and John Grierson, the head of the National Film Board of Canada, noticed. In 1942, as war raged across continents, he brought her into the NFB. Grierson had a habit of hiring women but not of respecting them. He once said female filmmakers “had ideas above the station to which it had pleased God to call them.” He paid them less and praised them less.

This didn’t stop Perry. During her stay, she produced several films set in Nova Scotia, including Grand Manan (1943) and Trappers of the Sea (1945), each a rebuttal to misinformation circulating about the province. After the war, Nova Scotia hired her full-time. T starting with meager equipment resources, one camera and one tripod, and Perry being her one-woman team. The first three films shot by the Bureau’s Halifax branch would be Land from the Sea(1946), Craftsmen at Work(1945), and Battling Blue Fins(1947). Margaret Perry shot all of these. Under Perry's 24-year creative direction, the Nova Scotia Film Bureau produced over 50 films, including Nova Scotia Sage (1960), The Cape Islander (1961), The New Nova Scotia (1962), Woodland Wealth (1963), Royal Province (1967), Orison (1968), and Artists (1970), many of which were award-winning.

The NFB’s Nova Scotia Film unit grew slowly under Perry’s leadership and created opportunities for television visits, various television commercial productions, and special events coverage. The Film Bureau employed many talented individuals, including cameraman/director Ned Norwood, Rod MacEachern, writer Martin Alford, director Les Krizsan, and underwater photographer Charles Doucet. This partnership would help the NFB establish a regional studio in the province in the late 1970s. This studio enabled a more sensitive and realistic treatment of relevant subjects and issues for Nova Scotians.
And then came television.

Nova Scotia was the first province to experiment with educational television in 1954 and 1956 in partnership with the CBC. Additionally, the creation of the television channel CBHT-DT (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) in Halifax was launched in 1954. From the ‘50s to the ‘70s, CBC television brought a gold rush of airtime in the province. The advent of television created a massive demand for film to fill the hours of broadcast time and, consequently, a boom in local production and the production of series such as At the Back Fence (1967 - 70), Let's Look (1958 - 63), and Max Museum (1968 - 69), Interrogative 3 (1963 - 68), Perspective (1968 - 71), and Focus (1970 - 71).

CBHT was a station that gave its employees remarkable creative freedom. Employees were considered generalists at the station. Employees would rotate between radio broadcasting and television and assist one another with research, writing, production, performance, and set design for various programmes. Films from these years were primarily produced on 16mm kinescope, a highly stable format with poor visual quality.

The Policies Arrive

Canadian filmmaking in the first half of the 1900s was, for lack of a better word, disorganized as hell. The Canadian federal government's focus in the early 1900s was elsewhere, resulting in insufficient support for preserving Canada's film heritage. Filmmakers as few and far between as they were were scattered and working independently from each other. There wasn’t a strong sense of communal bond, and there was barely even a national front to compete with the United States’ Hollywood invasion.

Successful filmmakers of the era who established businesses and produced films with box-office potential were scarce, as they often left the country quickly to expand their careers in America. International companies would be the primary employers for Canadian film producers. One company to enter the scene was the British American Film Company of Montreal, one of several short-lived companies in that city. The company produced The Battle of the Long Sault (1913). Another short-lived venture was the Conness Till Film Company in Toronto, Ontario, active between 1914 and 1915, which produced several comedy and adventure films. In Windsor, Ontario, the All Red Feature Company produced The War Pigeon (1914), a drama about the War of 1812.

Americans took full advantage of this, and the 20th century saw American cinema dominate. One of the earliest examples of blatant greed-pushing in the industry came from the American Consul-General in Winnipeg, John Edward Jones, in 1909, when he was caught writing an open letter in a New York publication exclaiming the potential for Americans to dominate the business. "In this new country where all forms of amusement are scarce, moving pictures are welcomed, and there is no reason why the manufacturers of the United States should not control the business."

By 1910, the Thomas Edison organization had informed Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) officials that, if they wished to distribute and promote their films, they would have to be of a type that would appeal to a broad audience. Canadian films needed to become thrilling dramas, tragedies, or comedies to attract audiences across all social classes. However, this conflicted with the Canadian Pacific Railway’s broader message. The company wished to convey the same messages it had long portrayed about the glory of the Canadian wilderness through the documentary format. However, if they were to follow this format, they would be compelled to relinquish their distribution in America. It didn’t help that the Edison organization heavily influenced several partners and long-time collaborators of the CPR.

In 1911, in retaliation against American control of the North American film industry, Ontario, Quebec, and Manitoba established their film regulatory boards. In 1911, Ontario established the first Board of Censors in North America, and Manitoba passed an act that delegated film censorship to the City of Winnipeg. Ontario’s board was considered the gold standard across North American jurisdictions. British Columbia, Alberta, and Quebec established active censor boards in 1913. Manitoba created a proper provincial board in 1916.

The provinces sought to counter the tariffs and regulations by gradually imposing their own tariffs and regulations. Among the regulations for American filmmakers was the banning or censoring of films that contained “an unnecessary display of U.S. flags.”

America also took advantage of Canada’s film industry, using it as an excellent way to quietly scout the country for natural resources. In 1916, the USA decided “Canada was worth investing in,” and the Bureau for Commercial Economics, a United States government agency, asked the Canadian government for films detailing natural resources and hydro development possibilities under the guise that filming these locations would help expand the American film industry into Canada for possible film shoot locations. New access to mineral and natural resources was something America desperately sought during and after World War I, and Canada, naively, obliged.

Back to God’s Country

Canada’s defining success of the silent film era was a film shot on location near Lesser Slave Lake, Alberta. Back to God’s Country(1919) was Canada’s most successful silent feature film. Produced by Ernest Shipman, an established promoter in the US. He returned to Canada in 1919 with his author/actress wife, Nell Shipman, to produce the film in Calgary. It returned a 300 percent profit to its Calgary backers and featured a strong, assertive female character who behaved heroically and independently in the Canadian wilderness.

Neil Shipman was "one of the first writers and directors of her sex to gain some stature" in motion pictures. At sixteen, she toured Alaska leading her own company, and in 1909, she was the female lead in Charles Taylor's touring company. In 1910, Nell accepted the leading role in "The Barrier," a play produced by the Canadian theatrical manager and producer Ernest Shipman, who organized productions in Australia, Canada, France, the U.S., and Asia.

In 1914, Nell scripted The Shepherd Of The Southern Cross, one of the first films produced in Australia. She made her directorial debut in Canada after the director and his leading actress suddenly quit the production. Nell also assumed the vacated heroine's role. When Nell offered a script adapted from James Oliver Curwood's novel God's Country And The Woman to Vitagraph Studios in 1915, the studio accepted it and cast her in the starring role. This was her first film for a major studio. The picture was a commercial success, leading to substantial contracts with Vitagraph, Fox, and Lasky.

Nell completed a total of thirteen films between 1916 and 1917. During the same period, she was a lecturer for Vitagraph and published various short stories, magazine articles, and a novel. Nell Shipman was also noted for her loyalty to Canada. She always wanted to make films about Canada in Canada. In early 1919, Nell wrote of her ambitions in an article for her fans: "And now, My Dream. It's a genuine one to me. Someday, I may go up into Canada, to the Hudson Bay territory's waterways, the Middle West's plains, and the mountains and forests of the coast, and make big human outdoor pictures."

Ernest Shipman would establish several companies in several Canadian cities over the next three years following his major success with Back to God Country(1919). He made several features based on Canadian novels. They were filmed not in studios, as was the common practice at the time, but on location. These films, including God's Crucible (1920), Cameron of the Royal Mounted (1921), The Man from Glengarry (1922), and The Rapids (1922), were less profitable than his first, but they were not failures either.

For the production of The Man from Glengarry (1922), Ernest Shipman arrived in Ottawa, sets were built at the Central Canada Exhibition grounds at Lansdowne Park, and exteriors were shot in Ottawa and up the river at Mattawan. Gary was a melodrama that centered on two rival lumber gangs and the love life of an embattled heroine. Shipman’s business motto was to establish separate companies in different Canadian cities for each film he completed and to raise local funds after each film was finished. Shipman would then move on before the auditors arrived.

In 1920, Nell and Ernest divorced. While Ernest maintained his northern base, Nell returned to Hollywood and made short films independently. Never again would she make a picture under a Canadian production company. However, she did make several other feature films in Canada for American companies, including The Girl From God's Country (1921) and The Golden Yukon (1928). By 1921, Nell had formed Nell Shipman Productions and was busy writing Canadian films for movie audiences. Her production of The Girl From God's Country alone was enough to earn Nell her nickname "A Jill of All Trades."

Ernest Shipman’s last film, Blue Water (1923), made in New Brunswick with future Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) star Norma Shearer, was a disaster. The picture foundered in mid-production, and Ernie Shipman quietly left town one night, leaving a few unpaid Bills.
Shipman died in 1931 in relative obscurity after heavy drinking destroyed his liver. Neil Shipman's fate wasn’t pleasant either. She spent her last years impoverished, supported by the kindness of relatives. When she died on January 23, 1970, she left behind a manuscript of her memoirs, The Silent Screen and My Talking Heart, which she had failed to sell to various publishers. Ernest Shipman’s departure also marked the end of the minor boom in Canadian production.

Trenton Studios

Few producers, aside from Ernest, were active in Canada during the Great War and afterward. Only one other production company produced Canadian films, and it was based in Trenton, Ontario.

Trenton was chosen as “movie central” in 1915, as several small movie companies were popping up. However, none of them had a permanent studio. In 1917, Canadian National Features was an early Canadian film production company that sought to establish a distinct national cinema to counter the influx of American films. sought a site for a movie studio and considered a location in Kingston. However, that deal fell through, so Trenton became the next best option.

Trenton was home to Adanac Films, Canada’s first film studio, opened in 1917 and led by George Brownridge. He produced three feature films, including the anti-Communist The Great Shadow (1919). The Trenton Film Plant was leased to various filmmakers before the provincial government purchased it in 1923 to serve as an Ontario Motion Picture Bureau production center. Between 1917 and 1934, over 1,500 silent films were produced at this facility.

The Ontario Motion Picture Bureau (OMPB) was founded to provide “educational work for farmers, school children, factory workers, and other classes.” Its mandate was to produce films that would advertise Ontario and promote infrastructure projects. The OMPB initially contracted all production to private companies in Toronto.

Some films produced by the Ontario Motion Picture Bureau and Trenton during their existence were Tiny's Troublesome Tooth(c.1925), an early animated film produced by Filmart Motion Pictures; Her Own Fault, a 1921 educational film; Transport in the North, a 1925 film about life in northern Ontario; and Cinderella of the Farms, the only dramatic feature-length production by the OMPB. For all of its films, the Bureau used 28mm, non-theatrical safety stock to avoid the fire hazard posed by 35mm nitrate stock.

In 1927, Trenton Studios became the entire focus of the Canadian film industry. Premier Howard Ferguson of Ontario, concerned with American domination of Canadian culture, strongly encouraged Canadian businessmen to invest in the company. The response was gratifying. The studio’s Feature film producers utilized Canadian nationalism to the fullest, producing three fictional features set in the tiny town.

The most notable of the three was a Canadian epic called Carry On, Sergeant! (1928), a World War I drama directed by British cartoonist Bruce Bairnsfather, who fell in love with Trenton. He thought it was the perfect place to make a film about Canada’s role in World War I.

The production cost $500,000, and hundreds of locals were hired as staff. The production also used several war films as B-roll from Ontario Motion Picture Bureau cameraman Norman Gunn’s private film collection. At the time, Trenton was impoverished. The downsizing of the local railway industry affected many local workers, and the logging industry declined as well. Almost the entire town jumped forward and applied to be extras for Carry On, Sergeant! Despite its high production costs and initial critical acclaim, the film was a flop, especially as audiences began to favor sound films over silent productions.

The reviews were also mixed. The Toronto Star was full of praise, but other critics attacked a specific scene between the main Canadian sergeant and a French cafe girl, arguing that it should not be suggested that the Canadian soldier would engage in sexual intercourse out of wedlock, even under the most trying of circumstances.

The film premiered at the Regent Theatre in Toronto and ran successfully for two weeks. After that, it appeared in Kingston and St. Catharines for a week before coming back to Trenton.
Afterward, the film was presumed lost until the 1970s, when the National Archives of Canada discovered a surviving print. From there, the film was reconstructed with help from the legend Gordon Sparling, who served as an assistant director, and then it was aired on television in a brief 1968 showing.

Unfortunately, the advent of "talkies" in the late 1920s rendered much of the equipment at many Canadian studios obsolete, leading to the closure of the Trenton Film Plant in 1934 and to the Ontario Motion Picture Bureau's distribution system when 16mm film stock replaced 28mm. The Bureau's films were increasingly regarded as outdated, and the organization was criticized for its large, unwieldy bureaucracy. The Bureau's property in Trenton was subsequently donated to serve as a community hall. From there, Liberal Premier Mitchell Hepburn announced that Ontario should not be in the film industry, and the Trenton Film Plant was shuttered. The Trenton film plant now serves as a textile mill in modern-day Ontario, and, eventually, the studio would become the subject of a documentary titled Hollywood of the North (2018).

There were also various industry lobbying concerns at the federal level. America had stuck its nose into Canadian politics to destroy any efforts to distribute and exhibit Canadian films. Such pleas from Canadian film industry friends, such as Col. W.H. Price, Provincial Treasurer of Ontario, would go unnoticed by Col. John Cooper, who ran the American film industry lobby in Canada until the Second World War. He just wanted a film industry in Ontario, and one that would appeal to Canadians, even if the country’s films were just included in a bare minimum of theatres: "... would it be possible to start an industry in Canada providing Ontario insisted on a quota of Canadian pictures, say 25%?" (June 19th, 1924) Cooper gave many half-assed responses to these letters and didn't care.

American lobbying entered the Canadian Government Motion Picture Bureau in the 1920s. Ray Peck, head of the Bureau, initially wanted to attract American producers to Canada, which was a good business idea, but grew into a more serious problem after he discovered he preferred the scenic landscapes of Hollywood studios in Los Angeles to the Canadian wilderness, especially on the dead, cold days of winter. In the spring of 1927, he was invited for a two-month stay in Hollywood to visit the major studios and speak with producers to find ways the Canadian government “could assist Hollywood producers' films in Canada”. This would be the first of many invites to follow.

From these visits, Ray Peck began to believe that Canadian films couldn’t compete with Hollywood films and shouldn't try. On March 3rd, 1926, Peck wrote a letter to a colleague in Vancouver who complained that there were too many American films in his local theatres: "We are attempting at all times, as Canadians, to induce American capital and manufacturing interests to come into Canada and establish branch factories. I look at the American film industry as a branch factory and how it affects Canada. American motion picture producers should be encouraged to establish production branches in Canada and make films designed especially for British Empire consumption. I do not entirely agree with the thought expressed in your letter that the experiment of allowing American producers to get a footing in Canada would be a dangerous one. We invite Americans to come over to Canada to make automobiles and a thousand other things, and why not invite them to come over to make pictures but make them the way British markets demand?”

There would be a few supportive voices in favour of Canada from the American industry. In 1926, D.W. Griffith, a director best known for The Birth of a Nation(1916) and a pioneer in many aspects of film editing and narrative film, told the Canadian Club in Toronto, "You in Canada should not depend on the United States or Great Britain. You should have your films and exchange them with other countries. You can make them just as well in Toronto as in New York."

It is here that we shall pause, and circle back. Because Griffith wasn’t the only person in the industry with this similar thought. Most Canadian filmmakers of this era had similar feelings. But few, if any, had the resources to fight the Hollywood invasion. Fewer than a dozen film directors were in Canada, and very few collaborated. They were isolated from one another. There was only one organization that had the money, the experience, and the time to give Canada any ability to fend for itself, and it was the same company that had kick-started filmmaking in the country to begin with. The Canadian Pacfic Railway(CPR).