Faith, Philanthropies and Verse for Air Raid Victims

Montreal in Verse:
     An Anthology of English Poetry by Montreal Poets
[Leo Cox, ed]
[Montreal]: Writers of the Poetry Group of the Canadian Authors Association, Montreal Branch, [1942]

A fundraiser in aid of the Queen's Canadian Fund for Air-raid Victims in Britain, this little chapbook of was published sixty years ago this month. Just in time for Christmas.

The Second World War looms large in these pages, but is dwarfed by Mount Royal.

(cliquez pour agrandir)

Thirty-two poets contribute thirty-two poems, and the hill that gives Montreal its name features in nearly half. I think the explanation may be found in the contributors' addresses. You won't find A.J.M. Smith, A.M. Klein or Leo Kennedy in these 48 pages, with few exceptions this is the verse of the city's privileged. And of this group, no one enjoyed greater status and comfort than Amy Redpath Roddick, whose family names kick off poetess Mildred Low's contribution, "Children of the McGill Campus":

Roddick and Redpath and old McGill,
Who, being dead, are living still,
How does it meet your kind intent
The way your benefice is spent?

Lady Roddick herself can't avoid same:

Six decades on, it's impossible to read this verse without thinking of F.R. Scott's "The Canadian Authors Meet" and the poets "measured for their faith and philanthropics". The good folks at Poetry Quebec have made a similar observation. That said, I'm not about to throw Montreal in Verse on the scrap heap. If anything, it reminds me of how much there is to explore of our literary past. Contributors Stella M. Bainbridge, Lily E.F. Barry, Warwick Chipman, Leo Cox, Lorraine Noel Finley, John Murray Gibbon, Christine L. Henderson, A. Beatrice Hickson, W.J King, Alice M.S. Lighthall, William D. Lighthall, Mildred Low, Margaret Furness MacLeod, Martha Martin, Dorothy Sproule, Jean Percival Waddell, Robert Stanley Weir and Margaret Ross Woods all had titles to their names, but I've yet to pick up even one of them.

Researching these names I discover that John Murray Gibbon once wrote a universally praised, yet entirely forgotten novel entitled Pagan Love (1922). Then there's R. Henry Mainer, whose Nancy McVeigh of the Monk Road (1908) centres on a hard-as-nails widowed Upper Canadian tavern owner.

The most intriguing is A. Beatrice Hickson, whom Canada's Early Women Writers tells us not only founded and ran a school for "misdirected and wayward" girls, but "painted figurines which were unique in design and costume and whose popularity outran her ability to produce them."

In language and theme, Miss Hickson – she never married – stands apart from her polite and proper fellow poets:

Before reading this slim volume of verse I'd never heard of Leo Cox, who wrote these charitable lines in his Editor's Note:

As in all anthologies, quality and style vary considerably, but all the pieces possess in common a strong love of Montreal, of her history and infinite charm. These verses are a loving tribute from sensitive citizens.

Apparently Macmillan published a collection of Cox's verse in 1941. Must track it down. I'll pass on his  Story of the Mount Stephen Club.

Object: A nicely produced, staple-bound chapbook in red paper wraps, this copy comes to me from my father. The pencilled correction to Amy Redpath Roddick's poem is in an unknown hand. Dare I hope that it is the work of Lady Roddick herself?

The 1 May 1943 edition of the Gazette reports that nearly one thousand copies of Montreal in Verse had been sold, contributing $200 to the Queen's Canadian Fund. The selling price was 25¢.

Access: Not found in even one of our public libraries – those wishing to borrow a copy should look to our universities. Two copies are currently listed for sale online, the most expensive of which ($45) is dedicated and signed by contributor Jean Percival Waddell.

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

The Kidnapping of the President for Christmas

The Kidnapping of the President
Charles Templeton
Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1974

Charles Templeton [...] will probably have some idea by mid-November whether he is launched on yet another successful career, this time as a novelist. His meticulously researched first novel, The Kidnapping of the President (McClelland and Stewart), comes out in October; within, say, 90 days from now he'll know whether he's another Arthur Hailey or just a guy who once wrote a novel. 

— Robert Fulford, The Windsor Star, 6 September 1974

It took at lot less than ninety days.

The Kidnapping of the President entered bestseller lists in the month of its release, then fought Richard Rohmer's Exxoneration and Frederick Forsyth's The Dogs of War to become the top novel of the gift giving season.

Its title pretty much says it all, but I'll expound a bit:

President Adam Scott looks to make gains in the 1978 mid-terms by holding a rally in New York's Herald Square, while Marxist Guatemalan terrorist Roberto Moreno and girlfriend Linda Rodriguez see an opportunity to further their cause. Disguising themselves as Brink's guards, they manage to hustle the President into an armoured truck and race toward Times Square. Linda is dropped off at the subway and, incredibly, manages to blend in with the crowd. Moreno emerges to give himself up, telling the secret service that someone somewhere (this would be Linda) holds a remote control device that can blow up the truck, the President and the ever-gathering crowd.

Hayseeds will appreciate these visual aids from first edition:

Robert Fulford described The Kidnapping of the President as a meticulously researched first novel. Therein lies its greatest flaw. The author shares a whole lot about the Constitution of the United States, its Twenty-fifth Amendment, and the construction of armoured trucks, but this only serves to slow the pace; expending three of 237 pages on presidents who died in office and their respective vice-presidents seems a needless waste.

Though The Kidnapping of the President was written with an eye on the massive American market, Canadians will find some things with which they can relate, like the upbringing of the Saskatchewan born Director of the FBI, the Vice-President's Newfoundland fishing trip and the acknowledged ingenuity of the RCMP. Templeton had a bit of fun with news anchor Robertson Kirk and, I think, Art R. Eagleson, whose chick hatchery the Secretary of Agriculture is visiting on the day of the abduction. I really don't know what to make of Gerry Regan, "Special Agent in Charge of the White House Detail", who in 1974 shared his name with the Premier of Nova Scotia.

This first edition of Templeton's first novel features three blurbs, the first of which comes courtesy of political strategist Dalton Camp. "I guess this must be the biggest caper in Canadian fiction...", writes my favourite Red Tory.

Guess so.

Camp was no literary critic, but I think he had this book pegged. Nearly four decades after it was published, The Kidnapping of the President remains the great Canadian caper novel... but that's not saying a whole lot.

Q&A:

Q: How tempting is this?

 

A: Not tempting at all.

Trivia (personal): Amongst those tasked with guarding the President is Secret Service agent Gil Busby. He very nearly thwarts the kidnappers' plan with his suspicions about Moreno, but is sidetracked by a collapsing barricade from which he rescues a young girl.

Good man, that Busby.

Agent Busby is only the second character with my surname that I've encountered in Canadian literature. The first, whistling Sgt Calvin Busby, is found in Earle Birney's Turvey (1949).

Object: A slim hardcover, my first edition – signed by the author – I purchased my copy in 1991 from a Montreal Salvation Army Thrift Store. Price: $2.

Access: The Kidnapping of the President is long out of print – the most recent edition I could find was Seal Books' 1980 movie tie-in – but it still makes a great Christmas gift. The McClelland and Stewart first edition can be had in Very Good condition for one dollar. Expect to pay more – but not much more – for the 1975 Simon & Schuster American first, the 1976 Quartet British first, and the mass market editions from Avon (1975) and Seal (1980). There are dozens of copies to be had for under five dollars. Ignore the bookseller trying to sell a "Good" copy of the Simon & Schuster edition for $74.99.

Related post:

The Kidnapping of the President Comes to Canada