CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
1967-68

Isabel

Back in Toronto, Geneviève got another call from Paris. Would she appear opposite Jean-Paul Belmondo in Louis Malle’s Le Voleur?

“You must go, Geneviève. You will have worked with the top three directors in Europe, Alain Resnais, Philippe de Broca, and Louis Malle — I’ll never forget his film The Lover, with Jeanne Moreau. Go. I’ve got a break; I’ll come for a while.”

So when Geneviève left, Paul served on the jury of the Montreal Film Festival, making friends with another juryman, Milos Forman, the young Czech director whose Loves of a Blonde had caused a stir in North America.

In Paris, Geneviève rented an apartment on the Left Bank from an Italian photographer, Murella Ricardi, at 2bis rue de Verneuil. Paul arrived to find himself in a large room with big bookcases and huge windows, and a long comfortable sofa down one wall. Above, a mezzanine bedroom looked down, behind which Paul found a sunny boudoir where he could work on his new inspiration for a film.

While Geneviève was shooting, Paul wandered in the Tuileries and Champs Elysées, letting his film idea blossom. Geneviève’s parents had been born in St. Simeon de Bonaventure, about thirty miles from Shigawake. So what about a motion picture in which Geneviève would be stuck on a Gaspe farm? As the film progressed, every door of escape would slam shut.

Nights were filled with happy dinners, sometimes with Louis and his extraordinarily beautiful wife, Anne-Marie, and days were filled with writing his new film.

Back in Toronto, Bob Allen told him that the CBC was moving to colour. Would Paul please direct the first play on this new network?

Why not a play performed in both English and French? So he chose Marie-Claire Blais’ delightful La roulotte aux pupées, or Puppet Caravan. Geneviève would play the puppet, and the bilingual cast would include Jean Doyon (from the Anouilh play) and François Tassé. Paul taped the English version in Toronto on December 8th and the French with the same cast in Montreal on March 12th.

Before these tapings, Paul asked Budge if he might borrow an empty cottage to work on his screenplay. Budge did own a shack in the Gatineau and in October Paul went there to finish Isabel. He came back full of excitement, only to be met with real resistance.

“If you want to shoot this as a feature film,” Bob Allen said, “why not go to London? Or New York?”

“When I was in London, Kotcheff said the same thing and so did Narizzano: stop thinking about Canada. Ted has already made films over there, and Silvio, too. But Bob, this is my country. I intend to stick it out through thick and thin.”

“Paul, no one has made a truly Canadian film. Harry Horner tried for years, he’s a reasonably well-known production designer in the US; but he failed.”

“He’s not a director.”

“What about The Luck of Ginger Coffey?”

“Okay, so Crawley Films made it in Canada, but it was directed by an American, starring British actors Robert Shaw and Mary Ure. It originated out of Hollywood, too.”

“No one knows Geneviève in the United States,” Bob went on. “Producers in France have tried to get their films distributed in America. They always fail.”

“Look at our television industry, we do marvellous shows —”

“But David Green, Arthur Hiller, Hank Kaplan, they all went south.”

“And I stayed, Bob. I don’t care, I’m going to make Isabel here in Canada.”

Still seething, he reported the conversation to Geneviève.

“Remember that agent Stevie Phillips?” Geneviève said. “You met her in New York. She’s building quite a reputation with young stars.”

“Yeah,” Paul said, “with Judy Garland’s daughter, too, I think?”

“Yes, Liza Minnelli. And that new young actor, Robert Redford, she’s handling him.”

“But where does that get us, Geneviève? She doesn’t handle me. No directors.”

“Meet her anyway.”

Down they both went. Stevie announced she’d gotten him an interview at Colombia Pictures, and after it, he reported, “Geneviève, you should see their headquarters! Big stuff. I finally got through enough doors to Mr. Big himself. He sat in a huge office. He was certainly gracious.”

“How wonderful!”

“Sort of... Listen: once I’d introduced myself, he said he had thought I was somebody else! So he thanked me courteously and showed me the door.” He grinned.

Geneviève shook her head.

“At Paramount, some guy did say he’d bring it to the attention of Mr. Bluhdorn.”

“I’ve heard of him,” Geneviève said. “He ran a nuts and bolts company, and just bought the whole studio! Paramount is in an uproar. It’s never happened before.”

“Well, maybe I can meet him.”

Stevie had insisted they stay at the prestige Hotel Pierre and one day their phone rang. Paul listened, then put his hand over the mouthpiece. “Geneviève, it’s Paramount. Bluhdorn’s secretary! He’ll meet us! Three this afternoon in his office.”

Geneviève paused, then shook her head. “We’re not going.”

“What?”

“If he wants to see us, he’ll have to come here.”

Paul could scarcely believe his ears. But Geneviève was adamant.

Paul shook his head and then spoke the fatal words. “We’d love to see Mr. Bluhdorn. But he’ll have to come here.”

No one was more surprised than Paul, perhaps Geneviève, too, when the secretary rang back to say Charlie would be right over.

The new owner of Paramount had an owlish face and large black glasses. Already balding, though probably in his 40s, he seemed the epitome of a dynamic, energetic owner of a large conglomerate.

Charlie, as Paul began to call him, confessed that his wife was French and knew all about Geneviève. So yes, Paramount would finance Isabel — the tiny Canadian film to be shot on the Gaspe Coast wilderness.

***

Had Paul taken on too much again? No film crews in Canada, no film series shooting, and now they were headed into a remote area with no caterers, no facilities, and he was supposed to deliver a motion picture to a world-wide distributor.

The first thing he did was call Peter Carter, his chum from the RCMP series. “Peter! The film’s on! We’ve got to find a crew, we’ve got to... well, do everything, I guess.”

They raided the National Film Board. Cinematographer Georges Dufaux had shot lots of documentaries, and his kid brother Guy wanted to start so they joined in. Georges recommended an NFB gaffer who knew something, though not a lot, about lighting.

Peter became Production Manager as well as First Assistant Director, and Peter wanted Joyce Kozy as continuity girl, so she also became Production Secretary, Unit Manager, and organized everything — all for $1.70 an hour. Geneviève wore Joyce’s cheap green turtleneck sweater in many scenes.

Casting was easy. Paul had often worked with Gerard Parkes, an Irish actor who took risks and would make a perfect Uncle Matthew. Going further afield, he found Marc Strange, slightly overweight, to play the mysterious stranger. Al Waxman, just back from a British movie, trooped down to the Gaspe to play a van driver. The others Paul would later cast among the denizens of Shigawake, including cousin Elton.

The next hurdle — permission to shoot in the Old Homestead, which had been built by his great grandfather. Auntie Lil had left it to her son, Paul’s cousin Henry. But previously Paul had written a poetic short story, A Sheaf of Wheat, lovingly describing his Aunts and Uncle and the hired hand, Tim Smith. Out of ten years of fiction carried weekly in the Family Herald, it had been selected for a hard cover book. But cousin Henry took exception to his family being portrayed in a newspaper, and warned Paul never to set foot in Shigawake again. No one else had found the story the least bit derogatory. Now, Paul had to get Henry to let them film in the Old Homestead.

This Principal of Montreal High, the biggest English high school in Quebec, would be a hard nut to crack. But Paul’s mother, Rene, with the help of Henry’s son, Ted, worked on him until he agreed. At last the location was set.

What about that emerald engagement ring? Both had been married before. But Rev. Brian Freeland managed to get permission from the diocese, and on March 18 in a small ceremony at Hart House Chapel at the University of Toronto, Rev. Brian married Paul and Geneviève in the presence of two witnesses, Robert and Rita Allen. Geneviève wore a short burnt-orange dress under a stunning fluffy white coat and carried a little white bouquet.

After the simple ceremony, they all went to lunch at the Royal York Hotel. But that afternoon, Paul still went to a meeting with Peter Carter about Isabel.

Joyce booked sleepers to St. Godfrey and, with a strong March blizzard blowing, they boarded the train. The next morning they awoke to find themselves stuck in snowdrifts. Stranded for hours in the middle of nowhere, Paul wondered what on earth he had done. Was it all a dream – or a nightmare? To relieve his mind, he worked out with Georges how to shoot the opening scene of Isabel, taking place on this train. The crew members were all excited by their new adventure — save for Michel Desruelles, the Parisian make-up man Geneviève had insisted on bringing. He was frankly terrified. Never had he been in such a wild, remote and obviously dangerous place as the Gaspe coast!

But Paul could not escape the nightmare nagging him. Here he was, stranded in snow with an untried crew, a cast from Shigawake who had never acted, with his own novice script — all sitting squarely on the shoulders of a Producer-Director who had never before made a motion picture.

What would that future bring?

***

As it turned out, after the first week or so, the crew melded into a smoothly working unit. The rushes were sent by bus to Montreal, where Peter had twisted Harold Greenberg’s arm to get him to open the first 35mm processing lab in Canada, and then to give them, as its first film, a huge discount. The rushes came back by bus every week, and then the crew would troop to the broken-down cinema in New Carlisle to watch them silent on its old projector. Peter saw to it that the “Props” person was a local, Arnold Mackenzie. He’d pop down to the wharf every morning, bring back a mess of lobsters on which everyone feasted, adding delicacies such as cod tongues and fiddleheads.

During shooting, major studios always sent an important executive to see how things were progressing. Paul and Peter hatched a plot: Joyce Kozy would arrange the executive’s flight to Montreal so as to miss the Gaspe train and spend a day in Montreal doing nothing. Then spend another night on the Ocean Limited train. The next morning, in his shiny shoes and spiffy black suit, Norman, the executive, arrived at the little St. Godfrey station. Elton met him in his messy farm truck smelling of manure, and drove him to “the set” by back roads through fearsome untamed woods. Certainly not normal for big execs!

“What’s that rifle doing, Elton?” Norman asked.

“Well, I’ll tell ya, me son, it’s the spring of the year, and them bears gets terble wicked... Ya never know. Best be safe, eh?”

Norman shifted uneasily and gripped the floppy door handle.

Now this film dealt with the supernatural, so the crew had become afraid of entering the house at night. Rumours of ghosts abounded. And well they might, because several generations had been born and died in the upstairs rooms.

When Elton arrived with Norman, the crew was primed to rejoice. Usually, when a “suit” turns up, directors and crews resent the interference. But this crew fêted him — they had nothing to hide. They fed him lobsters, then showed him a small bedroom in the ghost-ridden house. At lunch crew members had made sure to drop several stories of fearsome apparitions seen in the night.

Later, when Norman asked about accommodation elsewhere, Joyce explained, “No hotels open in winter, Norman. Just ours which of course is fully booked. But you’ll be quite comfortable in the old house here.”

Paul added, “And every three days there is a train...”

“Three days?” Norman turned white.

“Yeah. Oh! There’s one leaving in an hour — we could get you on that, if you’re quick.”

Well, Norman was quick. And that was how a Paramount executive came for two hours to supervise Isabel.

***

Back in Toronto, editing with George Appleby, another superb craftsman, Paul heard that the government had announced ten million dollars to assist filmmaking in Canada. His friend, Michael Spencer, a pukka British ex-Army officer and former filmmaker, had been doing his best to convince the Canadian government to set up a body to do just that. He later confessed that Isabel and Paramount had been the lever he’d needed. The next year, the Canadian Film Development Corporation was announced with Michael as Executive Director.

While all this was going on, the country was filled with “Trudeaumania” electing Pierre Elliott Trudeau as prime minister on April 20, 1968, which was to continue till June 4, 1979. He became a friend of the couple, often invited to their films.

During the summer, Geneviève was asked to play St. Joan (which would win her an Emmy nomination) in the Shaw play that George Schaefer was directing for NBC’s Hallmark Hall of Fame. Stevie Phillips had arranged to rent Candice Bergen’s lovely but tiny apartment overlooking Central Park. Paul flew down, but realized that when she was working on a difficult part, the last thing needed was a husband. So back he went to his editing room.

Full of confidence, and not knowing anything about how a big (or in fact any) distributor worked, Paul brought his heavy rough cut — quite rough — down to New York to show Stevie and Charlie Bluhdorn: the 35mm print took ten reels and another ten of magnetic dialogue tracks, but with no sound effects or music. He supposed, erroneously, that agents and studio executives knew what rough cuts were. They did not.

Stevie had invited Robert Redford, Liza Minnelli and several others to the screening, and the excitement was palpable. Paul squeezed Geneviève’s hand in anticipation. But halfway through, the screen went white and flashed with flames.

When projectionists got too old to handle the normal cinema chores, their union assigned them to comfortable head-office screening rooms to give the old fellows a sinecure before retiring. These two aged projectionists dithered about, so Paul had to rush back into the projection booth. 35mm frames were now joined by Scotch Tape. One taped splice had jammed in the gate, stopped the film, and the hot projection beam had set it on fire.

Now what?

Fortunately, the booth came with an Italian splicer, an advance on the old hot splicer used by Noel Dodds. Paul quickly had the old technicians unthread the film. He counted the burned frames, cut them out, cut the same amount out of the magnetic track, spliced them back together, and had it thread up again.

He went back to the screening room, and the film proceeded.

Thankfully, Charlie had not yet learned the way big moguls behaved, so he accepted this mishap (with which they all sympathized). Paul and Geneviève jollied everyone up so that in the end, the screening passed muster.

Later, while working with two sound editors, Paul got a phone call from Paramount’s chairman asking him to fly down to direct Robert Redford’s skiing film, Downhill Racer. After all, didn’t Paul come from Canada where they had snow?

But Paul, lacking “an eye for the main chance”, turned him down: editing Isabel came first.

The National Film Board in Montreal had the only mixing facility in Canada. Paul convinced them to let him use it for Isabel, with its top mixer Joe Grimaldi. And thus got the film finished.

Next came distribution. Genial Charles Boasberg, head of Sales, suggested Toronto for the opening. Paul, knowing (correctly in fact) the ways of Toronto critics, insisted Isabel open first in New York City. Already at one private screening, a Toronto critic had, against all protocol, lambasted the film. So they decided to open in July at the 72nd Street Playhouse. The critics were uniformly delighted.

That autumn, Toronto was another matter. As Paul predicted, the Toronto Star tore their film to pieces, albeit a difficult task in the face of so many good U.S. reviews. Nonetheless, Paul was surprised when he went down to Nat Cohen’s prestigious Towne Cinema on Bloor and saw ticket buyers lined up two and three deep around the block.

The good old Montreal Star, September 20, headlined its review: Unforgettable Isabel, a brilliant Canadian film. The film led the box office for all films that month in Canada.