Restored versions of Montreal 1970s movies will be screened in festival homage this year.
Fantasia, kicking off its 28th edition on Thursday, is the continent’s largest genre film festival, focusing on future trends with a dazzling array of auteur-driven fare. Yet the Montreal fest has always been mindful of its host city’s past, paying homage to our film shakers of yore.
Among the 125 features and 200 shorts to be showcased at this year’s event — including the Cannes fest hit The Count of Monte-Cristo and Montrealer André Forcier’s Ababouiné, which closes Fantasia Aug. 4 — are two local films from our too-often forgotten past: the underground classic The Rubber Gun (1977) and the animated romp Tiki Tiki (1971), both being screened in restored versions Saturday afternoon at the Cinémathèque québécoise.
Before striking gold in 1981 with the box-office smash Heavy Metal, Gerald Potterton, the British-born animator whiz who spent most of his career in Montreal and the Eastern Townships, directed the seldom-seen Tiki Tiki, a truly off-the-wall space spectacle. Potterton, who died two years ago at 91, also worked on the 1967 production of Yellow Submarine and had oft cited the Beatles-centred ‘toon caper as an inspiration for Tiki Tiki.
The Rubber Gun marches to the gonzo beat of its filmmakers and players, the Montreal guerrilla ensemble of Allan (Bozo) Moyle, Stephen Lack, Frank Vitale and the late Peter Brawley. A farcical deployment into Montreal’s drug and bohemian subcultures, The Rubber Gun, about an ill-fated heist, is the last chapter of this group’s canon, beginning with Montreal Main (1974) and followed by East End Hustle (1976) — which was presented at last year’s Fantasia fest.
Moyle, Lack, Vitale and Brawley — among others in their coterie — were credited for breathing new life into an often-moribund Canadian movie scene in the ‘70s. Mavericks to be sure, they were unforgettable characters both on and off screen and brought atmospheric-high energy levels to match their out-of-control imaginations. In The Rubber Gun, they didn’t even bother changing their real names on screen, which gave the film an eerie yet credible documentary-like feel. Moyle directed and also starred along with Lack and Brawley, while Vitale, who had previously directed Montreal Main and East End Hustle, served as cinematographer here.
It’s worth noting that Moyle would go on to Hollywood to direct Times Square (1980) and Pump Up the Volume (1990). Lack, now living in Upstate New York, would make chilling waves in his buddy David Cronenberg’s horror hits Scanners and Dead Ringers, but has also established himself as a major artist. Vitale, also living in upstate New York, still churns out small indie films. Brawley, also a poet, never left Montreal and passed away in 2006.
David Marriott and John Doyle, co-founders of the Montreal-based Canadian International Pictures (CIP), are responsible for the restorations of Tiki Tiki and The Rubber Gun, among other blasts from our movie past.
“Our mission with CIP was to champion Canadian film classics from the second half of the 20th century,” Marriott says. “We loved a lot of these films, but we felt they were also so under-represented in the market for cinephiles as well as general audiences in Canada and the U.S. This was really born out of the pandemic. John and I, who come from film backgrounds and have been friends since our Concordia days, thought it would be a blast to bring some of these titles which were often virtually unknown to audiences who would view them as new films, be they art or genre — to fill a void with titles that make Canadian and Québécois films so unique.”
Marriott and Doyle initially drew up a list of about 20 films they felt were an “absolute must” to bring back to life.
“We felt these were films that would definitely find an audience and that were full-stop masterpieces in my opinion,” Doyle says. “The Rubber Gun and Tiki Tiki were definitely on that list, along with East End Hustle and Potterton’s The Railrodder (1965) with Buster Keaton and The Rainbow Boys (1973) with Donald Pleasence, which we already brought out. Now we have a number of other titles that we have restored and will be bringing out soon.
“Kind of what we do is to take strands of Canadian history and dig into some of the more obscure and challenging projects that our filmmakers have undertaken.”
High up on their list of these sorts of priorities is Montreal Main, the last of the trilogy they plan to release — perhaps even at next year’s Fantasia.
Nothing would please Lack more than a restored version of Montreal Main. He will be coming to Fantasia for The Rubber Gun and visited the fest last year when East End Hustle was presented.
“Things really changed in Montreal,” laments Lack, married with two kids and four grandchildren. “The Main is just not what it was in our day. It appears to have moved to heaven. I loved being young and wild there back then.
“Sadly, the party days we all shared on the Main came to an end with the passing of Peter (Brawley) in 2006. But the memories will always live on, although my wife tries her best to keep me under control. … No small task at all.”
AT A GLANCE: