The American Version: No Colours, Fewer Colors

The Colours of War
Matt Cohen
Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1977

The Colors of War
Matt Cohen
New York: Methuen, 1977

Related post:

The American Version: The N Word

Bilingual Today, French Tomorrow and the Bigots of Yesteryear

Bilingual Today, French Tomorrow:

     Trudeau's Master Plan and How It Can Be Stopped

J.V. Andrew

Richmond Hill, ON: BMG, 1977

137 pages

This review now appears, revised and rewritten, in my new book:

The Dusty Bookcase:

A Journey Through Canada's

Forgotten, Neglected, and Suppressed Writing

Available at the very best bookstores and through

Biblioasis, Amazon, Chapters/Indigo, and McNally-Robinson.

Related posts:

Bilingual Today, French Tomorrow Redux
A Quiet Revolution and Still Cowards Complain

Beware the Savage Jaw of 1981

This Year? Bust

Grey Cup or Bust

Tony Allan

Winnipeg: Stovel-Advocate, 1954

A 19th-century Céline Dion and Her Horrible Hunchback Husband

'The Lane That Had No Turning'

The Lane That Had No Turning

     and Other Tales Concerning the People of Pontiac

Gilbert Parker

New York: A.L. Burt, 1900

This review now appears, revised and rewritten, in my new book:

The Dusty Bookcase:

A Journey Through Canada's

Forgotten, Neglected, and Suppressed Writing

Available at the very best bookstores and through

Biblioasis, Amazon, Chapters/Indigo, and McNally-Robinson.

Related post:

Further Along The Lane That Had No Turning

Harlequin Blondes: Terror Struck Them Dumb

Blondes Don't Cry
Merlda Mace
1949

The Pale Blonde of Sands Street
William Chapman White
1950

Come Blonde, Came Murder
Peter George
1953

A Body for a Blonde
Ken McLeod
1954

Related post:

Suggestive Harlequins: A Romantic Threesome

The Kidnapping of the President Comes to Canada

Charles Templeton's The Kidnapping of the President was enjoying its sixth month on bestseller lists when the screen rights were sold. This was in April 1975, when $3-million, the announced budget, very nearly counted for something on the big screen. True, 'twas on the low end, but newspapers held the figure high in claiming that this would be the most expensive Canadian film ever made.

Shooting didn't begin until the autumn of 1979, by which time the budget had risen by fifty percent. But even $4.5 million didn't buy much. The film features no rally in New York's Herald Square, there are no shots of a Brink's trunk racing up Broadway, nor is there a stand-off witnessed by tens of thousands in Times Square. Instead the kidnapping takes place in Toronto, with a "Bank's" truck moving at a jogger's pace from one end of Nathan Phillips Square to the other.

You can see all forty-seconds of the chase in this YouTube snippet:

 

I fall in line with most critics in finding Miguel Fernandes' performance strong and Hal Holbrook's steady. Canadian science fiction novelist William Shatner, fresh off the set of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, seems unusually restrained. Van Johnson and poor Ava Gardner contribute kitch as the Vice-President and his wife, but what really attracted my attention was Aubert Pallascio as "the Prime Minister"...

... a character clearly modelled on this man:

The fun continues with unknown Virginia Podesser as "the Prime Minister's wife". An old Canadian Press story reports on her trials:

Strangers in the street demand her autograph. Photographers hound her in clubs and restaurants. Stewardesses stare at her on flights.
     And occasionally, some particularly aggressive fan refuses to believe her assertion that she is not Margaret Trudeau.
     She's not.
     Virginia Podessar [sic], a Toronto model, just looks remarkably like her.

And she did. The accompanying photograph – which captures the uncanny resemblance – comes complete with a Ripley's Believe It or Not-style caption:

The Regina Leader-Post, 15 September 1979

The Kidnapping of the President turned out to be Ms Podesser's only film.

Director George Mendeluk's next two movies were Doin' Time and Meatballs III.

Related post:

The Kidnapping of the President for Christmas