The Dusty Bookcase

27 January 2014

Brian Moore's Forgotten First Feature: Speculation and Scattered Thoughts on a Film I've Never Seen

As with the pseudonymously published novel on which it's based, the great Brian Moore laid no claim to Intent to Kill. His name does not feature in the credits. Fifty-five years after its release, there's no mention of Moore in the film's IMDb listing. Biographies of the man pay little or no attention to this screen adaptation, but I think it worthy if only because it was the first of his novels to be adapted for the screen. Just consider the wonderful stuff that followed: The Luck of Ginger Coffey, The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne, Black Robe, The Statement.

Need more?

Well, Intent to Kill marked cinematographer Jack Cardiff's debut as a director, and Jimmy Sangster, he of Hammer Horror fame, wrote the screenplay. That's Sangster on the left discussing the script with Cardiff and producer Adrian Worker:

What's more, much of Intent to Kill was shot in Montreal at a time when few features were being made in Canada.

Trust the Brits to do it… and in wintertime.

The Gazette, 18 December 1958

All I've seen of Intent to Kill comes courtesy of this trailer, posted here last week:

It would seem that Sangster remained quite faithful to the book. Each scene in the trailer is just as it is in the novel. The only liberty comes in remaking American doctor Robert McLaurin as an Englishman, thus sparing us Richard Todd's attempt at a Boston accent. Down, down, down the list of credits, I see only three characters that don't appear in the novel: "Carol Freeman", "Carol's friend", and "Kathy". The first of these will be of some interest to readers of a certain a genre for being one of Jackie Collins' very few film roles.

Maybe I'm just distracted by the beauty of Betsy Drake, best remembered as Cary Grant's third wife.

Looking further, I see Sangster deviating from Moore's novel. This scene, with Richard Todd, Herbert Lom and siren Lisa Gastoni aboard a BOAC jet in Dorval, does not feature.

And here, in another scene not in the novel, Lom anticipates his role as Chief Inspector Charles Dreyfus in the Pink Panther franchise:

In the second volume of his autobiography, In Camera, Richard Todd dismisses Intent to Kill as "a stinker", but then he didn't want to do the film in the first place. The reviews I've been able to dig up are overwhelmingly positive. The only reason I've not seen Intent to Kill is that its DVD release is substandard. A pan and scan transfer of a CinemaScope film? One should never encourage such things.

Coincidence: Richard Todd was riding high when Intent to Kill was made, thanks largely to his role in The Sixth of June, based on the novel of the same name by Montrealer Lionel Shapiro.

26 January 2014

'Oatmeal' for Robert Burns Day

The Burns Monument
Fredericton, New Brunswick

'Oatmeal' by Mr John Steele of St John, New Brunswick
from Selections from Scottish Canadian Poets; Being a Collection of the Best Poetry Written by Scotsmen and Their Descendants in the Dominion of Canada
Toronto: Caledonian Society of Toronto, 1900

22 January 2014

Murderers Move in on Montreal… Again

Intent to Kill

Michael Bryan [pseud. Brian Moore]

New York: Dell, 1956

191 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.

Murderers Move in on Montreal

Parisian French, not Québécois French
No Lady Before Judith Hearne
No Gun for Gloria
Brian Moore: The Last of a Paperback Writer

20 January 2014

The View from My Desk

Much celebration these past few days after it was announced that my wife had won the adult category in the annual Doors Open Ontario Art Contest. She submitted two paintings inspired by the event, the first being this glimpse of my study. It received an honourable mention. The second, and winning entry (below), is a cruet set she spotted on display at the St Marys Museum.

Now that the judges are done, voting has begun for the People's Choice Award. You can express your opinion at the bottom of this page. Anyone can vote. Exercise your franchise!

The winner will receive a $500 gift card for use at Ontario's finest spas. Living with me, you'll understand the appeal of a weekend getaway.

15 January 2014

Senator Linda Frum's McGill University Magazine (with a bit about The McGill Fortnightly Review)

In November 1926, F.R. Scott was called to the offices of McGill University principal Sir Arthur Currie. The man behind the great victory at Vimy Ridge had been shaken by the student's new McGill Fortnightly Review. Currie worried that the publication might harm the university's "esprit de corps", that it might adopt "dangerous doctrines", that it might descend into things "Bolsheviki". The principal suggested that the publication would benefit from a board of advisors, but Scott stood his ground. Such a body, he said, would send a message to students that they could not be trusted.

I wonder whether Linda Frum experienced anything similar after running afoul of the university three decades ago. Was then-principal David Johnson at all concerned about the politics espoused by her McGill University Magazine? Perhaps not, but administration did take dim view of Ms Frum's appropriation of the institution's name.

A very good account of the meeting between Scott and Currie is found in The Politics of the Imagination, Sandra Djwa's biography of the poet, lawyer, essayist, civil rights champion and Dean of McGill University Faculty of Law. Whether there was ever a meeting between Frum, now a Senator thanks to Stephen Harper, and Principal Johnson, now Governor General thanks to Stephen Harper, I cannot say. There is no biography of Linda Frum.

And why not?

It's been more than four years since the prime minister recognized her talents as a fundraiser for the Canadian Alliance and Conservative Party. Those of us with a literary bent see greater accomplishment in Linda Frum's Guide to Canadian Universities (1987, rev 1990), a work that might be considered alongside Scott's Social Reconstruction and the B.N.A. Act (1934), Civil Liberties and Canadian Federalism (1959), and Essays on the Constitution: Aspects of Canadian Law and Politics (1977).

In 1970, Scott declined the offer of a Senate appointment.

It goes without saying that we all look forward to Senator Frum's next book. Until then, we must be satisfied with rereading past work… which brings me, at long last, to the January/February 1984 edition of McGill ~~University~~ Magazine pictured above. Published four months after the first, we see signs of growth and great change. Where once were just two names – editor Linda Frum and publisher David Martin – the masthead now features fourteen, including graphic director "Jacques N. Gilles".

Never let it be said that the Magazine didn't attract francophones, or that it had no sense of humour*:

All kidding aside, what are we to make of David Martin's absence and the fact that the position of Publisher has been eliminated? Just who's in charge here? Where does the American Institute of Educational Affairs buck stop? How it is that fourteen contributors managed no more than six pieces over a two-month period?

Seems awfully unfair to Editor Frum, who is forced to carry much of the issue. She should not be blamed for botching her interviews with Allan Gotlieb and United States Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Canada James Medas. When reading the silly review of Uncommon Valor, the movie set in "Vietman", please remember that she had pages to fill. Signs of overwork are everywhere, even in the first sentences of her editorial:

Canada and Poland are both nations of about 25 million people**. They both neighbour one of the super-powers. Russia was invaded from Poland in 1812*** and 1941****; America was invaded from Canada in 1777***** and 1813******.

But for my self-imposed asterisk limit, I would quote more. Frum's point, which she does reach eventually, is that we Canadians are better off than the Poles. We should be less critical of Ronald Reagan, more critical of Pierre Trudeau, thank the Americans for our freedoms and… I don't know, apologize for returning fire in 1777 and 1813?

As I say, overwork.

She's in the Senate now.

She's earned her rest.

Related posts:

Back to School with Senator Linda Frum

Senator Frum's Cold War Campuses

Some Senators Write (or Say They Do)

* The words quoted, belonging to Linda Frum, reference Ronald Reagan's Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Lawrence Eagleburger, who in 1983 at a private gathering compared the prime minister's efforts to broker peace between East and West to "pot-induced behaviour by an erratic leftist.'' Not really the same thing, of course. Again, overwork.
** In 1984, the population of Canada was 25.6 million. The population of Poland at 36.9 million.
*** By France.
**** By Germany.
***** Countering an invasion by the Continental Army.
****** Countering an invasion by the American Army and various Militia.

13 January 2014

Milton Acorn, Music Promoter (Does Not Exist)

A signed copy of Milton Acorn's More Poems for People, purchased at Attic Books' annual Boxing Week sale. It wasn't until after returning home that I noticed these scrawls by Acorn and others on the inside back cover:

It's been over five years since we settled in Perth County, mere kilometres from Stratford, and yet the Perth County Conspiracy and the Black Swan Coffee House meant nothing to me. Time and geography are my only excuses. I was a seven-year-old living in suburban Montreal when Columbia Records was pushing the Conspiracy; I began drinking coffee at twenty-five.

Billboard, December 1970

Still, I can't explain how it is that I'd missed Milton Acorn's involvement all these years. The son of Charlottetown co-wrote several Perth County Conspiracy songs, many with singer turned actor Cedric Smith. That's a contemplative Smith on lower left-hand corner of The Island Means Minago, for which Acorn received the 1976 Governor General's Award for Poetry or Drama.

Like the great Mekons, the Perth County Conspiracy seems fairly designed to give Peter Frame nightmares. A band that was not really a band – or was it? – you'd almost think the line-up was dictated by weather, whim and gas money. The name, either the Perth Country Conspiracy or the Perth County Conspiracy (Does Not Exist), is a bit of a mindfuck, is it not?

Just as well that I knew nothing of the PCC/PCC (DNE) back in high school – my teenage, post-punk self would've sneered. My adult self enjoyed Kevin Courrier's excellent CBC Radio documentary, Dream Times: The Perth County Conspiracy… Does Not Exist.

Old man Busby recommends it most highly, along with "The Early Days of the Perth County Conspiracy", a detailed history by Swedish scholar of psychedelia Patrick Lundborg. Musician David Woodhead shares some pretty great photos here.

Was he ever a member of the band?

Who knows?

Was Acorn?