Hooray for Hollywood…of the north!
FARM-FILM FLIM-FLAM
Film was a brand new, even novel technology at the turn of the 20th century. While French director Georges Méliès wowed audiences across Europe with his innovative science-fiction films such as A Trip to the Moon, Hollywood was just getting started. As far as entertainment was concerned, vaudeville was still tops.
Things were even quieter in Canada. In 1898, the Canadian film industry began to take root. That’s when the Toronto-based Massey-Harris company decided to dabble in “moving pictures.” They contacted Thomas Edison (one of the developers of the technology) to help them make short films for a very important purpose. Massey-Harris was a manufacturer of farm equipment, and they wanted to advertise their tractors via filmed advertisements across Canada and the U.K.
Oddly enough, at the around the same time in Brandon, Manitoba, another farmer was interested in the nascent world of film. James S. Freer bought a movie camera and projector and became Canada’s first film “producer” and the first man to shoot moving pictures in Canada. Freer shot short movies about life around Manitoba and footage of Canadian Pacific Railway trains. The CPR caught wind of Freer’s work and paid him to screen his films around the U.K. in late 1898. His tour, titled “Ten Years in Manitoba,” was a hit, which perked up the ears of officials in Ottawa.
LIKE MOTHS TO A FLAME
Some bureaucrats thought film might make a powerful tool of persuasion and advertisement—they were worried that Canada was losing its distinctive English character in favor of an American influence, in part due to an influx of American immigrants.
The government teamed up with the CPR, who shared a similar mass persuasion goal in getting as many people as possible to ride the train. In 1902, the CPR agreed to film sections of Canada, coast-to-coast, which would then be screened in the U.K. to promote immigration to Canada. The government and the CPR recruited a few filmmakers and formed them into a group called The Bioscope Company. Their instructions—film the majestic natural beauty of Canada…but absolutely no winter scenes. (At the time, the average British notion of Canada was that it was a frosty, desolate backwater populated only by polar bears and igloos.)
OUR HOME AND NATIVE LAND
The crew spent nine months touring the country from Quebec to Vancouver Island and filmed everything from lumberjacks to lush meadows and happy immigrants arriving in Quebec City. They called their film series Living Canada. It debuted at a gala London premiere in 1903 and received rave reviews from critics and audiences alike.
In the decades that followed, much of the almost entirely nonexistent Canadian film industry was dominated by such corporate-sponsored promotions and productions funded by the CPR and government designed to further bolster British immigration. (And it worked—millions moved to Canada from England in the early 20th century.)
Meanwhile, uptight film exchange and censorship groups in each province filtered the flow of much more entertaining international movies into Canada. In what was a predecessor to the “Canadian Content” distinction, at one point, Ontario’s board banned American films that contained “excessive” amounts of pro-American sentiment, up to an including scenes of American flags literally waving. Curiously, after the U.S. joined the U.K. and Canada in World War I, the ban was lifted.
COURTING CONTROVERSY
That’s not to say that a few fictional movies weren’t made in Canada back then. The first known drama produced in Canada was Hiawatha, The Messiah of the Ojibway, a film about the famous Native American leader. It was filmed in 1903 by Living Canada filmmaker Joseph Rosenthal.
After the conclusion of World War 1, Nell and Ernest Shipman, a husband and wife production team, also shot silent films around Canada. Their most notable effort was 1919’s Back to God’s Country, a movie based on American author James Oliver Curwood’s short story about a schooner travelling through the perilous waters of the Arctic Ocean. It’s also the first Canadian film to feature female nudity. Nell, who wrote the screenplay, shifted the story’s focus to Dolores, a young woman who flees the ship on dog sled and avenges her father’s death. Nell also starred in the 73-minute film and is the one who stripped down.
The Lemberg family sued McDonald’s Canada after finding a used Band-Aid in their french fries in 2007.
The incredibly controversial scene helped Back to God’s Country to become both an international hit and the most successful Canadian silent film of all time. The bold production, which was one of the first in cinematic history to feature a woman as a courageous hero instead of a helpless damsel in distress, posted an astounding 300% profit.
Nell divorced Ernest shortly thereafter, moved to the U.S., and formed Nell Shipman Productions, her own film company (with her new lover). She produced, wrote, co-directed and starred in a successful sequel called The Girl From God’s Country in 1921. Nell created several more films throughout the ‘20s before her company went bankrupt.
SILVER STREAK
Unfortunately, most all prints of both Hiawatha, The Messiah of the Ojibway and Back to God’s Country are lost, and in all likliehood were destroyed long ago. Desperate for cash during the Great Depression, the Ontario Motion Picture Bureau melted down most of the movies in its archive to salvage and sell all of the silver nitrate contained in the film stock. Decades later, however, a copy of Back to God’s Country was discovered in Europe. It was restored and re-released in 2000.
The film is still considered one of the finest early achievements in Canadian cinema. Its contentious nude scene also served as an unwitting precursor to another Canadian blockbuster—the teenage sex romp Porky’s, released in 1982.
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QUIRKY COMICS
Mike Myers. Myers collects model soldiers, which he enjoys painting while watching old war footage.
Dan Aykroyd. The former criminology student was born with webbed toes and two different-colored eyes—one green, one brown.