In addition to maple syrup and softwood lumber, one of Canada’s greatest exports is whimsical short films and documentaries by the National Film Board (NFB). Now that these are easily viewed on the internet I’ve revisited some of my favourites.
The late great film director Bill Mason is best known for his nature documentaries and canoe instructionals, but in 1968 he shot a 20 minute short about one of his friends, Blake James which includes a number of CC worthy vehicles.
First off is Blake’s terrible VW. The low mounted front turn signals and oval rear window indentify it as a 1954-1957 model.
I get a kick out of this scene at 1:30 where he gets in, on my VW the vent wing lock is busted just like that, and I had to push the window trim up until I put a blob of silicone sealant on it. Batwing steering wheel and bright trim around the window exteriors tell me this is the deluxe export model. Maybe some VW experts can nail the year of this car down from the dash details?
I’m not sure if the red sheet metal patches are for dramatic effect or to cover up some hideous rust or collision damage. Looks like this VW was hit in the back, which may have ripped the bumper brackets through the fenders.
In this parking lot scene we see several mid 60’s VWs, an Austin 1100, a 1968 Mustang and a 1966 Valiant. Is that a Simca 1000 up there to the left and a 1966 Pontiac on the far right? Note also the 1968 Quebec plate, they had year specific license plates up to 1978.
Next there’s a Montreal traffic scene. In the film they talk about “jammed cities and jammed roads“, but take a look and you will see the cars actually moving. Montreal traffic has only gotten exponentially worse in the last 50 years, today’s commuters would likely find 1969 traffic quaint.
If you look close you can see the Expo 67 licence plate on the front of the VW, that was a very big deal in Canada the year I was born. I see a 1966 Newport back there, and a 1964 Mercury with breezeway window goes by later on. Who can identify the bus?
During Blake’s ill-advised trip to the Montreal airport we see some interesting Air Canada flying stock, starting with a shot of this DC-8 landing at 8:48. AC used the DC-8 for a long time, retiring their last from freight service in 1994. I like their 1960’s livery, the flat black nose looks very business-like.
During his departure Blake taxiis out behind a four engined turboprop I didn’t recognize.
It’s a Vickers Vanguard, I’d thought it was a Viscount until Daniel M corrected me below. That’s a rare bird, only 44 were built and 23 of them went to Air Canada and it’s predecessor Trans Canada Airlines. No wonder I don’t remember these, AC retired them all by 1972 and I didn’t make my first trip to a major airport until 1977 when our family flew to the Netherlands on a CP 747.
Finally there is Blake’s biplane, which is a home-built MacGregor MG65 . This particular aircraft disappeared for many years but was found in the US on Ebay, and restored at the Canadian Bush Plane Musuem in Sault Ste Marie, Ontario.
“You really can find anything on Ebay”
Blake was reunited with his old mount in 2016, he is retired but had a full career in animation and film production. Bill Mason died of cancer in 1988, another of my heroes I never got to meet. Who knows what happened to the blue VW, I’ll bet it was gone before the film was even released. Too bad, it would have been a desireable classic now.
The NFB still exists, unlike so much of today’s ratings and profit driven media it offers a window into a simpler time, when a goverment agency helped film makers develop their craft and tell our nation’s stories.
Links:
NFB Blake on their YouTube channel
I’ve heard rumors that for decades there was an unwritten agreement between Canada and Hollywood, that if the NFBC or any other body in Canada didn’t make “real” big-money feature films, Hollywood would treat Canada as a “domestic” market and pull whatever immigration strings needed for Canadians to work down there,
I’m not sure how true that ever was…
Other exports from Canada: Casavant Frères and Orgues Létourneau are pipe organ builders whose instruments are all over the U.S. Casavant in particular has built numerous organs in China; they have also built organs in prominent concert halls such as the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. and Orchestra Hall in Chicago.
For years, I had licensed use rights to a couple of NFBC shorts, which my company used for training purposes.
Like the Beetle, they had an honest, elegantly simple aura of quality, yet they got the job done efficiently, and with a minimum of fuss.
Great article Doug. The National Film Board site is a treasure trove of Canadiana. As a kid, I enjoyed watching the documentary ‘King of the Hill’ about Chatham, Ontario native, and Chicago Cubs star Ferguson Jenkins. The NFB site is well worth exploring for cinematographic gems.
The second commercial airplane pictured in your article is another Vickers aircraft popular with Air Canada. The Vickers Vanguard.
King of the Hill…
https://www.nfb.ca/film/king_of_the_hill/
Fixed, thanks..
That VW reminds me of my ’63 after I had a nasty front end accident. I pulled out the underlying body structure, and found a rusty black oval-window Bug that had been rotting away in the woods in Iowa, and was given permission to pull its front fenders and hood. On my white Beetle, they made quite a contrast. I rather liked the little side-mounted turn signal lights.
of course the hood and fenders didn’t fit properly. I had to use a strong bungee cord for the hood, and the fenders had about half their original bolts. But it was a cheap fix, and I drove it that way for some time until the engine blew. But that was my GF’s fault. 🙂
I always smile when I see a NFBC label on a film, as it generally warrants the movie to be well made, and watchable. Hollywood is all flash and sizzle and NFBC films are always a nice reminder that you don’t have to have Olympic Gods and Goddesses exploding everything around them to tell an interesting story.
Thankfully, the National Film Board has existed for decades, seeming devoid of corporate influence, and has largely appeared independent. Avoiding appearing as a blatant arm of government messaging, though they do answer to Canada’s Parliament.
I don’t know: Canada had their own team of superheroes – Alpha Flight – for a while, and they could’ve made a pretty good movie. 🙂
Quebec had both front and rear licence plates until well into the 1970s, so in 1968, that Beetle should have had the same plate front and back.
1967 was an exception, though. Quebec had different plates front and back. The one shown here (white with red lettering) is a front plate. Under the large Expo 67 script is the actual plate number (9A-9999, where 9 is any digit, A is any letter). The rear plates in 1967 had the plate number in proper large script.
The ’68 plate is in the format that Quebec used for most of the sixties and some of the seventies. A Fleur-de-lys and the year in a separate box on the left, and the rest on the right. The ’67 rear plate was not like that, though.
The Sweater (wonderful, you have to see this):
http://www.nfb.ca/film/sweater/
The Big Snit:
https://www.nfb.ca/film/big_snit/
I’d heard that at the NFB office in Vancouver, it was possible to go in and get a screening of any NFB film you wanted. Some years ago on a trip to Vancouver, I stopped in and asked about that. They said they’d once done that but no longer. At least they gave me a very nice catalog of NFB films.
The big snit is my all time favourite ?
I grew up on NFB films, since they were supplied to schools free of charge. They have always been excellent and have allowed Canadian artists and producers a way to get known in the face of huge competition from our neighbours from the south. There is a huge archive of them on YouTube.
This kind of Beetle was also common when I was a kid in Montreal. I saw them, even as a ten year old, as cold, rust-bucket death traps. The one in the film is like seven years old and it is really too dangerous to drive. Jalopies like this were causing lots of deaths every year in Quebec.
In all fairness, a 1963 Chevrolet would have had massive holes in it by this time, but it would have ran fine and still made heat!
It is a Simca 1000 in the parking lot scene, definitely. I had no idea these were ever sold across the Atlantic.
I will have to keep an eye out for National Film Board works. Thanks for this one.
I was introduced to NFB films by my art teacher in 9th grade, who used to play some for us not uncommonly. They were really terrific, and really opened my eyes to what good films can be. This was 1967, and the subjects were very often leading edge in terms of social issues. I’d like to spend some time with more of them.
_not_ a ‘bat wing’ steering wheel ~ those were very different, this one is a ’56/’57 .
I remember so many battered Beetles like this in the 1960’s through the 1970’s….
My current ’59 # 113 looks almost as bad due to paint issues , much less body damage though .
-Nate