Picturing: Lining Up the Mitchell II ― and Directing

I loved that camera, and its "Mitchell movement".

Remembrance Day 2025: Last Post

A few years ago I watched a fine feature-length documentary on WWII. Produced by the National Geographic Channel, "Inside WWII" overviews, in the hyper-speed mode so typical of info-dump docs made these days, the 20th century's largest conflict.

Some of the interview subjects explain why they joined the war. I remember a certain day in the summer of 1984. As we sat in the front yard I decided to start asking my father more-probing questions regarding his war story. What at first seemed to me to be a futile exercise after his first answer was "I don't remember much, Simon, that was years ago" became hopeful after I pushed further. Responses containing details I had never known before only encouraged me. Eventually I got around to asking the most obvious question: What made him decide to enlist?

"I was pissed off. I was doing poorly in school and my mind was on the war overseas."

His rationale for joining the bomber force as a gunner was expedient:

"You got overseas quickly that way . . . It was an eight-week air gunners' course in Montreal."

He knew that flying as "aircrew" in Bomber Command was dangerous work. Many young men, men too young, got "The Chop".

As was the norm at the time in this neck of the woods my dad was sent to the CNE (Canadian National Exhibition) grounds for dispersal. From that famous Canadian site began the process of getting "shipped overseas", but as this was wartime it wasn't quite that easy. German U-boats prowled the North Atlantic in search of prey, and a steamer loaded with fresh faces off to war was a prime and highly-prized target.

I'd be nervous having to cross a canal to pick up a loaf of bread.

As readers here have already surmised, my father survived the war, including a raid on the SS barracks at Obersalzberg during the last few days of the war in the European theatre. He was demobbed shortly after two flights to Rotterdam as part of "Operation Manna", a humanitarian effort which involved food drops to starving Dutch civilians.

After enjoying a few years of civilian life after the war, he reenlisted with the RCAF and enjoyed a long career with Canada's finest service.

I left the best for last; the big "and" part of my dad's explanation for wanting to see action overseas:

"... And I wanted to get the Germans."

(A childhood friend did not come home; he died when his bomber was shot down over France. Kinda sobering, ain't it?)

Passions of the time, those were.

My father loved Germany and the Germans. We moved to West Germany in October of 1966, just twenty-one years after he flew in a Lancaster bomber doing a job he felt he must do.

Royal Air Force No. 626 Squadron ― May 1945

Remembrance Day 2025: The Poppy's Power

Wear it!

A Remembrance Day to Be Remembered

With Remembrance Day upon us, I'm reminded of a story of my own regarding that special day; and its special and important symbol: The poppy.

In early November in the late 1980s (I'm thinking 1989), I hopped onto a TTC (Toronto Transit Commission) subway train car. With the seats being all but fully occupied I took the famous door position as the doors closed behind me. Sitting on the other side of the car, with his poppy box resting on his lap, and looking sharp in his uniform, was a veteran.

Immediately I remembered that a few minutes earlier I had shoved a two dollar bill (remember those?) into my shirt pocket. I approached the vet as I drew out the money. He got up from his seat and carefully pinned the poppy to my coat's lapel. I thanked him and went back to my first position. Then, all of a sudden, and in the style of an over-directed film, several other riders popped open their purses and pulled out their wallets.

This Time of Remembrance

Yesterday I took a trip on the TTC (Toronto Transit Commission), the subway portion. I saw just three people wearing a poppy. The good news is there were four of us.

Today is Remembrance Day. Let's watch....

I could easily go into an essay here, long or short, about how the lack of poppy-wearing is an indicator of how seriously people respect the men and women who have fought, and continue to stand, for this great nation called Canada.

Hey!

Don't miss that text message!

That TicTok video cannot be missed!

Put that goddamn fucking phone down and pay attention!

The Edmund Fitzgerald Sank 50 Years Ago Today

I started high school in September of 1975. My strongest memory of those earliest months of, what would turn out to be, my laboured secondary school education, was not of something scholastic, but learning of a grand ship's sinking with all hands.

Even at that young age I had "long" been into shipping. Hearing the news of one of the Great Lakes' finest ore freighters succumbing to a sudden and horrible storm saddened me but also fascinated me. Youth protects one somewhat from the realities of tragedy. Some of the Edmund Fitzgerald's sailors were not a lot older than I was at the time: a few were in their early twenties, a couple were barely out of high school.

During much of the 1970s, my family and I were living at Canadian Forces Base Borden, here in Ontario. Like many folk who live in that region, the Great Lakes will draw one to Wasaga Beach, a small town which sits on the "world's longest freshwater beach", which itself cups the lower end of Georgian Bay, and therefore Lake Huron. I knew what a huge lake looked like, even if it wasn't Lake Superior, the tumultuous body of water where the Edmund Fitzgerald and her twenty-nine souls met their end. How it all happened exactly is still open to much conjecture and speculation. My own feeling is that she "bottomed out". However, perhaps some secrets are best kept to the lake.

***

Dr. Joseph MacInnis' book Fitzgerald's Storm - The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald is excellent. "Doctor Joe" was a client of a video company I worked at here in Toronto. My own copy is autographed by the author, no surprise. By the way, the last chapter of the book covers the creation and resulting fame of Gordon Lightfoot's classic song, "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald". The songwriter was living in Toronto's "Yorkville" neighbourhood at the time.

Picturing: Railway to Nowhere and Somewhere

Having lived for years in Nova Scotia (Canada) and Germany gave me a love of railways. Better still are railway tracks that have long been abandoned or are used so infrequently that their signatures are threatened by encroaching flora.

The picture above I took looking north from Horner Avenue here in Toronto.

"I am your passport to adventure!"

Picturing: Swans Cruise by Toronto's Harbourfront

Beautiful.

Book: Fantastic Television (Gerani with Schulman)

Copy Number 2.

I bought Fantastic Television when it came hot off the presses in 1977. Unfortunately I left it under a school desk during a class, and, no surprise, when I rotated to my next class, I failed to... you guessed it.

(A polyester-clad geek running down the hall in a flurry of panic would be disappointed.)

A wave of nostalgia forced me to Amazon.ca to seek a replacement copy of one carelessly discarded book.

(It came from Texas.)

Written by Gary Gerani, with some assistance from Paul H. Schulman, Fantastic Television ― A Pictorial History of Sci-fi, The Unusual and the Fantastic ― From Captain Video to the Star Trek Phenomenon and Beyond, the book's full title, is an intelligent look at old series of note, some of which were then barely 'old'.

When FT fell into my local bookstore I was already aware of the overall subject of SF television in cursory terms. I had not yet seen Thriller and One Step Beyond, though I had heard of them. The title of "The Outer Limits" was unknown to me, but two years later I would get my introduction, courtesy of CKVR's late-night framework programme, "Summer Cine". The Outer Limits would earn a well-deserved "Wow!" from me.

I understand that the authors took some heat for their 'brazen' opinions, I certainly don't agree with everything they write, but subjectivity is just that. And their perspectives are always well-considered, and never flippant. For those of us who discarded our teen years a long time ago, Fantastic Television is now a nostalgic document, albeit a classy one.

The series given chapter treatment, complete with an episode guide:

The Adventures of Superman (1953 - 1957)

One Step Beyond (1959)

The Twilight Zone (1959 - 1964)

Thriller (1960 - 1962)

The Outer Limits (1963 - 1965)

Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1964 - 1968)

Lost in Space (1965 - 1968)

Batman (1966 - 1968)

Star Trek (1966 - 1969)

The Time Tunnel (1966 - 1967)

The Invaders (1967 - 1968)

The Prisoner (1967 - 1968)

Land of the Giants (1968 - 1970)

Rod Serling's Night Gallery (1970 - 1972)

Kolchak: The Night Stalker (1974 - 1975)

Space: 1999 (1975 - 1977)

Further chapters:

"American Telefantasy"

"British Telefantasy"

"Kid Stuff"

"Made-for-TV Movies"

FANTASTIC TELEVISION

- A Pictorial History of Sci-fi, The Unusual and the Fantastic -

From Captain Video to the Star Trek Phenomenon and Beyond

by

Gary Gerani

with

Paul H. Schulman

Harmony Books

1977

Picturing: Building a Set for Graveyard Shift

Last month I posted two pieces (Picturing: Me at the Graveyard Shift Workshop and Picturing: Reopened Graveyard Shift Contact Sheet) on a set design job I had very early in my career... so early that I had only just started my second year of film school. Actually, I had been hired during the summer break. It all happened so fast, which is not exactly atypical in film production, certainly not low budget feature film production. "Toronto" was just beginning to hum at that time — mid 1980s. It would soon explode with feature film and television production.

Here below are a few photographs taken during the mausoleum construction phase, and its setting up in the film studio. The set build happened at the old and long-abandoned Massey Fergusson plant on King Street. The studio itself, located on lower George Street, was small, with a too-low ceiling ("That is not sixteen feet!"), but somehow we made it all work. As is typical of the form, we had no choice. Kudos to that great crew, many of whom worked for little or no money. But it was valuable and great experience — and a great experience.

Set builder Dave Fiacconi takes a break for the camera.

I check to see if Dave is level headed.

I hang on for dear life while the crew works to prep the set in the studio.

Chris Leger paints after building some pyro charges into a tombstone.

Set builder Rae Crombie paints some details into the mausoleum set.

The set build crew works their magic. (The shoot starts in hours.)

Sunday Fun: It's the Monster Mask!

Click on image for "more scarier".

On Friday, Halloween, in keeping with the spirit of ghosts and goblins, I posted a picture of a monster designed and built by me for a (as of yet unfinished) short-form motion picture. After the monster entered the filming stage, the fight choreographer, a young woman, told me as she looked off toward the special guest star: "I find that really disturbing."

(I should rent it out for Halloween... the costume, that is. A human being needs to populate it.)

This monster-build started on my office's work table. I bought a theatrical mask from Malibar, here in Toronto, and used that as my starting point. From a hardware store I grabbed a tube of urethane foam and, with a few squeezes of the caulking gun's trigger, a star was born.

Postscript: Yes, that is the National Post underneath my work of art. I had a subscription for a couple of years. (Not any more.)

Happy Halloween 2025

"Trick or Treat!"

Someone's trick or treating in the wrong neighbourhood! Be careful out there, kids!

'Archie Bunker' on That Important Difference

"Respect is for the dead. The livin' need dough!"

"LOL" is my only response.

ReDVD: Magical Mystery Tour (The Beatles)

A few years ago I found out that my Beatles-fan brother had not yet seen a certain 1967 television opus. I asked why he hadn't sought out that essential slice of Fab Four 'merchandise'.

"I'm afraid I'll be disappointed."

This Beatles fan, if not quite "fanatical", enjoyed the group's first foray into "personal filmmaking". While this Magical Mystery Tour might not exactly be magical, it has its appeal for some of us.

"They're coming to take me away!"

Willingly I went along for the bus ride, sharing the "coach", as they call tour buses in the UK, with an assortment of interesting and odd characters. Through the frequent stops in various towns, villages, and fields, the crowd's buffoonery becomes the scenery. The production involved a lot of made-up shenanigans, and at times it shows. There is that unscripted "let's just have fun" vibe to most of the 53-minute running time. And there are those great Beatles songs to give the picture some solid ground, even if a lyric mentions a walrus and we see a "walrus", and a line speaks of a "fool on the hill" and what we get is Paul McCartney playing not so much a fool, but a bored-looking bloke standing still — on a hill.

Though critics at the time of MMT's original television showing in December of 1967 complained of being bored stiff, today's rearview mirror of some 50-plus years rates the flick as an interesting, if not exactly absorbing, artifact. Unique among the telly tableau of the mid-sixties, the Beatles-authored experimental film certainly plays better today... though many fans now still list this particular, and perhaps peculiar, creative tour as a rare Fab Four trip.

The DVD contains a few extra features: I'm interested to hear what Magical Mystery Tour booking agent and organizer Paul McCartney has to say....

Postscript: In the mid-sixties, the vast majority of British households had monochromatic (black-and-white) television sets. As the flick was shot in colour, and done so with little or no regard for that spectral fact, a lot of visual tricks, like picture "posterization", were lost, and appeared to viewers as shades-of-gray mush instead of the intended creative splash of chromatics. This unfortunate anomaly did not cast any magic spell on the BBC1 audience, that Boxing Day evening of 1967.

Magical Mystery Tour

Made by

The Beatles

EMI Records Limited

2012

A Forever Question: Ahead Warp Factor Nine

“Since before your sun burned hot in space and before your race was born, I have awaited a question."

Sir. Why is the concept of time travel dismissed as an impossibility given that we're always travelling forward in time most efficiently?

Picturing: On the Road Is On the Table

A friend of mine is a bit of a Jack Kerouac fan. After I told him I was reading On the Road, he said he preferred the author's next book, The Subterraneans. As I had to resort to speed reading On the Road, due to the fact that my copy was borrowed from the Toronto Public Library, and could not be renewed as someone had put a reservation on it, I couldn't quite "get into it".

Now that I have my own copy of Kerouac's 1957 classic American novel, I can take my time and enjoy the travels of 'Sal Paradise' — I think I knew that guy — then graduate to the highly recommended The Subterraneans (1958).

Postscript: My copy was drawn from one of the many discount tables at BMV Books here in Toronto, specifically the location on Bloor Street, just a few minutes walk west from Spadina Avenue. This store chain is highly recommended to those readers visiting this great city.

Book: Totally Tasteless (Richard Marson)

Totally Tasteless

― The Life of John Nathan-Turner ―

by

Richard Marson

Miwk Publishing Ltd.

2016

***

When John Nathan-Turner executive produced Doctor Who from 1980 to its cancellation in 1989, I had more or less abandoned watching the long-running British science fiction series, certainly as a regular viewer. WNED (the PBS affiliate in Buffalo, NY) ran Who in the early 1980s, and I did catch a few of the episodes governed by "JNT", so I was aware of him and the changes he made: some controversial, some essential ― getting rid of Tom Baker, who had become intractable.

In 2018 I ordered the book, and when it hit my front door I wasted no time in absorbing its many pages. For some reason I did not write a review. That must change, but first I'll have to do an essential reread as it's been a few years.

Totally Tasteless: The Life of John Nathan-Turner is a captivating, absorbing, and detailed document on a complicated man and television producer. Author Richard Marson created an important work, certainly for "Whovians" and for those who are interested in television production and its politics. It is a brilliant biography, and a fascinating look into the BBC of the 1980s.

The original cover, a photograph of John Nathan-Turner, was much better than that horrible one seen above, and the one gracing the cover of my copy. To make the issue worse, the revised title of "Totally Tasteless" is just that. Why would the book's publisher, the late Miwk Publishing, change the original "JN-T: The Life and Scandalous Times of John Nathan-Turner" to a trashy tabloid type?

Fun Note: I ordered the book directly from the publisher, and received it promptly... then a few days later I received a second copy. I contacted Miwk, and the gent (bloke) who responded said that a label must have been printed twice; perhaps the label sheet jammed in the printer and the fulfillment crew didn't catch the repeated-name error. I offered to send it back, but received the suggestion that I pass it on to someone who might like the book. So I did just that: I gave Totally Tasteless: The Life of John Nathan-Turner to a major Whovian friend. A year or two later I asked him what he thought. He hadn't yet read it. I'm hardly a big DW fan. My interest is more... academic. (Insert snicker.)

CD: UFO (Barry Gray)

On Tuesday nights during the 1970/71 television season I was there with my parents in front of the 19-inch Zenith colour set tuned to Canada's CTV network; more correctly, Toronto station CFTO, "Channel 9" — CTV's flagship station. British husband and wife producing team Gerry and Sylvia Anderson left their "Supermarionation" puppet show empire behind to launch UFO, a live-action science fiction series set on the moon's surface and here on good ol' Earth, principally in England. "U-Fo" was superior in many areas: one being the music department.

Barry Gray had long been the producers' main scorer, and his efforts for this short-lived dramatic programme were top-drawer, injecting just the right amount of funky Hammond organ fun ― dig that wonderfully spot-on opening theme tune ― and otherworldly bizarreness and genuine heartbreak. While the series could be silly at times, with some episodes seemingly asking, "What were we thinking?", when UFO was good, it was more than good. (The episodes "A Question of Priorities", "Sub-Smash", and "Confetti Check A-O.K.", for example, were great, and more than made up for eps such as the bizarrely bad "Close Up".) Its background music was no small contributor, certainly in a telly-series out of this world, even when based here on Sol III.

The perfect capper to any UFO episode, especially one ending on a particularly serious note, was Gray's dissonant and creepy end title music ― not only did it reinforce a sense of darkness that tended to pervade the show format, it functioned as a fitting counterpoint to the (then) contemporary vibes of the opening title theme.

End note: This CD of a 72-minute total running time is a fine sampling of episode scores; around five hours of music was recorded for UFO. The recordings are in stereo and are of a high standard.

***

UFO

- Original Television Soundtrack -

Music by

Barry Gray

Silva Screen Records

2019

Picturing: Reopened Graveyard Shift Contact Sheet

Reopening my 'Graveyard Shift' files a few years ago sent me back to 1985, as I reviewed photos, memos, call sheets, and sketches related to that film's production. Affixed above is a partial contact sheet of photographs I took right before commencement of the 'graveyard set' shoot.

In the summer of 1985 I was hired to design and build a... graveyard set. (Actually, I was first hired to build a miniature for a script that ended up being unproduced; the script and project changed.) My workshop was on King Street West in downtown Toronto. The studio was on George Street. I also painted designs on 'flats' for a party scene.

Graveyard Shift was released in the States as Central Park Drifter.

The bottom right photograph is of the late Tim Mogg, the talented special-makeup artist who went on to enjoy a prolific career (as did Darren Perks, who is not pictured on this sheet).

Postscript: Director Jerry Ciccoritti, producer Michael Bockner, cinematographer Robert Bergman, and production manager Peter Boboras were all great to work with. Special thanks to Peter for hiring me, especially so given the fact that I was about to start my second year of film school.

Picturing: Me at the Graveyard Shift Workshop

When we were young, spirited, energized, and full of stamina: while I was a few months into my second year of film school I was hired to design and build a mausoleum set for a low-budget Toronto-produced horror feature film called Graveyard Shift.

My workshop was located in the labyrinthian, and long-abandoned, old Massey Ferguson factory complex on King Street West. It was cozy warm, fairly small, but just the right place where my helpers — Chris Leger, Dave Fiacconi, Mark Lang — and I could build our low-budget, but ultimately effective on screen, set piece. (The set's materials cost the production a low $450.00.)

After a day of classes, I'd don my "builders' clothing", and swing and saw.

Postscript: Jerry Ciccoritti, Graveyard Shift's director, was easy to work with as he understood art and design. When I showed him my initial set sketches at the production office, he asked me to make my mausoleum's columns more 'Ionic' than 'Doric'. I was impressed! (We ended up renting Doric columns from the CBC, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.)

Sunday Fun: Those Toronto Temps!

As I write this it's a few minutes past 1pm. Here in downtown Toronto the temperature is currently sitting at 21 Celsius (70 Fahrenheit).

It was almost that warm when I ran out early this morning to grab a Tim Hortons coffee. Now I must ask myself: "Instead of sitting here at home punching keys on my laptop, should I run out again and walk around and soak up the warm air?"

Environment Canada is predicating this great city will notch up two more degrees on the Celsius thermometer before the day is out.

I am out....

Flash Poem: Whose Flattery?

How much is too
much flattery?

It depends on who it
is you are flattering

It might fly
or lie flat.

___

2017

Simon St. Laurent

Sunday Fun: Next Week's Big KFC Fight

That's what I heard, folks, a few years ago. I was working on my laptop as the television smoked at my feet. "Next week's big KFC fight."

Kentucky Fried Chicken? ("Well, folks, he chickened out. He had not the stomach for it.")

I looked up from my computer and saw two mean-looking dudes just inches apart, sharing eye lines, staring mortars. Airing threats.

Back to my work.

I awoke the next morning to the result of the chicken fight. (People were anticipating, wagering, and watching that contest? That very idea I found really hard to digest.)

Oh. Pardon me.

I had pictured fractured legs kicking a way to that last drumstick,

crushing knuckles over the tiny tub of coleslaw,

arms swinging for a wing.

Brutes' brutality to a nutritionist's nightmare. In a fast food church.

Thinking back to "Next week's big KFC fight": I do remember getting the impression that those two dudes did not look like the type who would 'dine' at a place like KFC.

Postscript: This all reminds me that the last time I ate at KFC was in the summer of 1993. It was the location at Bloor Street West and Euclid Avenue, here in Toronto. I remember, it was a beautifully sunny and warm day. Before visiting my Film Effects coworker, I felt the need to down some salt and fat. And whatever else was in that box. Fries?

Post-postscript: While tying up this piece I decided to check that particular store location. It's now a Mary Brown's Chicken. This change must have happened fairly recently. Oh... now I can't recreate my "KFC in 1993" experience. The question is, however: Would I have had the stomach for it?

Blu-rays: Black Zero Titles of Four Ready to Go

As noted on its website: "Black Zero is a multimedia publisher specializing in Canadian experimental cinema from the 1960s to the present."

Experimental filmmaker and film scholar Stephen Broomer is its founder and bright light, and his dedication to preserving Canadian experimental films, especially those all but forgotten, is commendable and something I very much appreciate given my strong interest in the form. As a matter of interest, his book Hamilton Babylon: A History of the McMaster Film Board (University of Toronto Press, 2016) is an excellent example of the scholarly kind. This impeccable document of necessary density has the expected academic bent, but Broomer's writing style is breezy and inviting enough that it should engage those readers who might possess even the smallest interest in experimental cinema. And censorship. On that front — the courts — we Canadians fought battles of our own. (It wasn't just an "American" thing.) On that front — reading — it's quite the page turner. What happens next? What's the verdict?

Recently I picked up a few Black Zero Blu-rays, partly as a show of support, and, of course, to enjoy the disc sets' featured flicks, including their commentaries and supplementary material.

Readying to dig into:

* Green Dreams — Josephine Massarella

* Slow Run — Larry Kardish

* A Man Whose Life Was Full of Woe Has Been Surprised by Joy — R. Bruce Elder

* Everything Everywhere Again Alive — Keith Lock

Enjoy!

Believe me, I will....

***

“(Canadian experimental cinema) has a finer vibration, a finer density, a finer matter.”

— Jonas Mekas, 1968

NFB Film: Test Pilot (1957) — Starring James Doohan!

The National Film Board of Canada (NFB) has uploaded to YouTube a wonderful selection of their old film shorts. One such film, from 1957, is titled Test Pilot, and its twenty-nine minutes are pretty wonderful, certainly for those folk who find such material engaging. And it stars one James Doohan, "Scotty" from Star Trek. (Hearing him say the word "engineers" several times... well, you know. If he only knew then that in a few years hence he would fly to the stars, and fame.) During World War II, Doohan flew observation aircraft while serving with the Royal Canadian Artillery.

"Dave Frost" works as a company (Avro Canada) test pilot; his job is to test various aircraft functions and potential capabilities. As with any job where one is a test pilot for a high-performance aircraft, there is always that risk, that possibility that something might and can go wrong. These pilots are of a special breed: recreational flyers, they are not.

Test Pilot's angle of attack is typical of a late 1950s short film, one with an educational bent. The acting is fine, especially from that famed starship engineer, and the filmmaking sound, which is to be expected from the NFB, old or new. The short-subject was shot primarily on 35mm black-and-white film but contains a few 16mm-35mm "blow-up" sections: some of the aerial photography was captured on the smaller film format, no doubt due to its extra portability. I was somewhat surprised that the filmmakers didn't mount a dashboard camera. That "pilot's point of view" would have given the aircraft climb some extra dimension, even if the viewer would have been treated to little more than clear skies and perhaps a few cloud formations.

 

The featured flying machine: the Avro Canada CF-100 "Canuck" was a great aircraft, an all-weather twin-engine jet-powered interceptor/fighter operated by the RCAF (Royal Canadian Air Force). It served in that role from 1952 to 1961. However, the air force used the 100 for other roles before retiring the type in 1981. (The Belgian Air Force also bought and operated a few examples.) When I lived in CFB Borden a "Clunk" was parked in a holding area not far from our PMQ (Private Married Quarters). It may have been a static training example... or just forgotten. By the way, my dad worked on the CF-100 as an armourer. (When Test Pilot was produced he had already been serving with the RCAF for a few years — and would serve for many more.) A few years ago, while visiting the wonderful Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum, I sat in a beautiful CF-100. One is allowed to sit in the machine, with a little help from the museum's terrific staff, of course. (Military-aviation buffs would enjoy visiting the CWHM. It's located at the John C. Munro Hamilton International Airport in Mount Hope, Ontario, Canada. The selection of aircraft is wide and varied.)

Test Pilot was directed by Fergus McDonell, and written by Arthur Hailey, who, the year before, scripted the CBC live-to-air television play, Flight into Danger, starring... James Doohan.

Postscript: Flight into Danger was produced by Sydney Newman, who, after that production was bought by the BBC and aired in the UK, went on to create The Avengers for ABC Weekend TV, and co-create Doctor Who for the BBC. Scribe Arthur Hailey went on to co-write the Flight into Danger-inspired 1957 feature film, Zero Hour!, which, years later, was adapted as the 1980 comedy flick, Airplane! He went on to great literary-pulp fame with his novels, Hotel (1965), and... Airport (1968), which was then adapted for the big screen and released to movie theatres in 1970. Airport was a big box office hit. I remember well the endlessly replayed television adverts.

Those Crazy Canadians and Their Flying Machines....

Athot for the Day: Strange Matter

Cats are caught in that twilight zone between acting like a cat and being a cat.

Picturing: Finch Avenue West, Toronto, Early Evening

My Canon EOS R100 camera data:

ISO speed: 250

F-stop: f/5.6

Exposure time: 1/125

Sunday Happiness: Toronto's Gleam & Sip Visited

As I wrote on Sunday, August 31st, four weeks ago today, I stumbled upon a shop here in Toronto's beautiful "Annex" neighborhood:

Gleam & Sip

Matcha * Espresso * Bar

Vegan & Gluten Free Bakery

This morning I made my first dedicated visit.

I ordered a coffee and an organic oatmeal cookie. Both were very good. Also, the young gent who served me was polite and courteous. Great customer service skills are most appreciated. Coffees and cookies are just half of one's experience at such a store.

What made me happy was seeing that I was not alone, as there were other patrons. It's nice to see a small business enjoy traffic flow. As friendly neighbours, we must support our local businesses.

On my way out I took note of the cozy little patio. Toronto's been experiencing "patio weather"....

Battle of Britain 85th: Battle of Britain Day 1990

The poster said all I had to know. On September 15, 1990, there would be a celebration to remember on the River Thames. That of "Battle of Britain Day, 1990". This World War Two history buff did not plan his trip to coincide with the event, but through a quirk of fate I happened to be in London, England, and would be be able to attend the fireworks.

I stood among a large crowd on the river's south bank, metres upstream from Tower Bridge. The sky darkened, the vintage searchlights fired up, probing and irradiating a low cloud ceiling. All that was missing was the drone of unseen Heinkel, Dornier, and Junkers aircraft. The Blitz was terrible for London's denizens throughout the summer of 1940, so nobody was celebrating the act of war, but the repelling of invaders... German "Luftwaffe" bombers. (Since there had been no definitive and crippling blows to the Royal Air Force, necessary if "Unternehmen Seelöwe" [Operation Sea Lion], the invasion of England, was to have any chance of succeeding, Adolf Hitler lost interest and turned his attention to the east.)

Music blazed from sparking loudspeakers as fireworks of all colours and stripes rose streaking from a barge anchored to the sparkling waters before us. For many Brits here, this sight and sound must have been emotional. I too was feeling it: Composer Ron Goodwin's magnificent themes for the films Battle of Britain and 633 Squadron were the perfect accompaniment, and helped lift us all up high. (Aces High!)

That event was the 50th anniversary of the great battles fought in the skies over England. Now we're at the 85th. Time flies.

Battle of Britain 85th: Book on the Battle

The Battle of Britain

- The Greatest Battle in the History of Air Warfare -

by

Richard Townshend Bickers

Salamander Books Ltd

1999

Battle of Britain 85th: Battle of Britain (1969)

Battle of Britain was a troubled feature film production complete with massive cost overruns and a shoot that seemed to have no end, this historical aviation epic provides some satisfaction for those movie fans who want to see a breed of filmmaking that will never be seen again. No film company today could afford to make a film like Battle of Britain, at least not one using exclusively the same production methods ― much of it would be done using fake CG fakery, by people who've never taken the time to see how an aircraft, like a Spitfire or Heinkel, twists and turns in the sky. (Try YouTube.) As far as the film as a film goes: It depends on whether the viewer can enjoy a 132-minute story about a critical moment of history. The Royal Air Force's warding off of the mighty German Luftwaffe during the summer of 1940.

What one sees are grand air battles and an abundance of name-actors (at that time, of course). Christopher Plummer, Susannah York, Laurence Olivier, Michael Caine, Curt Jurgens, Robert Shaw, and Trevor Howard are a few of those stars who play historical characters or 'average people' swept up in that pesky thing we humans almost never ask for but often get: War. In this case World War II.

A highlight of many: "The Battle in the Air." It makes me a firm believer in cinema's capabilities.

Kudos must go to director Guy Hamilton (1922 - 2016) for giving a somewhat unwieldy story, one with necessary density, some personality; and for remembering the people, who are so often forgotten in these epics.

Battle of Britain 85th: Battle of Britain Film Extras

My dad took me to see Battle of Britain when it hit the "Astra", CFB Baden-Soellingen's movie theatre. We were living in then West Germany, specifically in a small town, surrounded by Germans, which somehow enhanced my movie-going experience. Not only do I love the sound of that language but in this movie the Germans actually speak Deutsche.

To illustrate how big of a deal this movie was at the time, there was a live-from-London television special one evening celebrating its premiere. German television network ARD or ZDF (I can't remember which) picked up the live feed: There were searchlights and men dressed in vintage uniforms manning an ack-ack gun placement. I could hardly wait to see the movie.

Unfortunately, producing-studio and distributor United Artists lost a lot of money on Battle of Britain. The film did not 'travel' much outside of Europe (read: the USA), which it had to do in order to make back the investment. As a tie-in documentary hosted by actor Michael Caine outlined most effectively, regular folk, including those on the Isles, could tell you next to nothing about the battle. And this was less than thirty years after the events. The idea of an ignorance of one's own history as being an 'American' thing is a false one. (Author Clive Cussler recounts a sobering personal experience in his terrific non-fiction book, The Sea Hunters, where he was taken aback by some of his fellow Americans ― politicians in this case ― not knowing, or, more importantly, not even caring, about their own history.)

Director Guy Hamilton, guiding light of Battle of Britain, claimed that United Artists lost ten million dollars (late 1960s currency) on the deal.

As a child what I liked was Battle's spectacle: The wide-screen; the colour; the music; the you-are-there vibe.

The now-defunct "Festival Theatres" repertory chain here in Toronto would screen the film every few years, and I would be there with interested friends.

As I've told people over the years: "Battle of Britain was my Star Wars."

Battle of Britain 85th: Battle of Britain DVD

Battle of Britain

Directed by

Guy Hamilton

United Artists

1969

Battle of Britain 85th: The Film Score

Battle of Britain

- Original MGM Motion Picture Soundtrack -

Music Composed and Conducted by

Ron Goodwin

"Battle in the Air" Composed by

Sir William Walton

Battle of Britain 85th: The William Walton Score

Walton

Battle of Britain Suite

- Sir William Walton's film music Vol. 2 -

Sir Neville Marriner Conducts

The Academy of St. Martin in the Fields

Chandos Records Ltd

1990

Battle of Britain 85th: Final Thought for the Day

"Music blazed from sparking loudspeakers as fireworks of all colours and stripes rose streaking from a barge anchored to the sparkling waters before us. For many Brits here, this sight and sound must have been emotional."

― September of 1990, as I stood near the River Thames for a "Battle of Britain" 50th Anniversary commemoration.

Athot for the Day: About Time!

Wearing an analogue wrist watch again for the first time in a while reminds me that time is fluid.

Space:1999/50 ― Space:1999, Cancelled:1977

To be honest, I don't remember hearing that Space:1999 had been cancelled. It probably just fell by the wayside as we geeks went on to something more interesting. The second season ended and a third season never arrived. (No doubt TV Guide's end-of-book yellow 'teletype' page made note of the show's axing. In late 1975 it was that page that announced Space's renewal for another television season of twenty-four shows.)

Clipping from Starlog Magazine, number 5.

(click on picture to blow up)

Space:1999 was cancelled ― or left adrift ― in early 1977, or as some pundits have put it: Space:1999, Cancelled:1977. After two bumpy seasons of meteor storms, face-paint aliens, two-dimensional characterizations, soap bubbles, and even worse, disappointing viewer numbers, the colourful SF/horror UK-import television series finished its run of metaphysical mumbo jumbo and simple creatures not-so-great, ending up discarded mid-Atlantic. (The show never really caught on here in North America). Sir Lew Grade's, and ATV's, initiative to leave cathode ray marks through its own solar-deficient star-fields, while valiant, and not without conviction, was not to meet a successful syndication package. Forty-eight films did not provide enough linear celluloid to make for lucrative "stripping" (Monday to Friday at 5pm, kind of thing). If a commitment had been made to produce another twenty-four shows, more people reading this might have an idea as to what a "space nineteen ninety-nine" is. However, history has made its judgement, cheating me out of a potential conversation with someone, even someone my own age, about a "remember that show?" and leaving me with a dialogue-killing "I don't think I know that one".

It's possible that Space:1999 was simply ill-conceived, getting off to the worst possible start, cutting itself off at the landing pads, leaving itself with enough leverage to break the Earth's moon out of Earth orbit, and sending it straight to oblivion instead of planets of interest. Going through a black hole (or a "Black Sun", in Space's case) knocked the series even further from what the audience expected. Audience expectation should never be overrated. In fact, it's important for the bottom line; the return on investment. It's a business. Introducing the viewer to something a little off the beaten astro path is fine, but any such re-education program is doomed to fail if that new way of looking at space phenomena is too obtuse, and worse, unforgivingly boring. The remote channel-changer was becoming more commonplace in the mid-seventies. Treating its controllers to almost static forward narratives in the first few minutes of an episode will leave that "ep" prone to being abandoned for a mindless sitcom, and television station schedulers moving the series to a less prime time slot, or dropping it altogether mid-run.

Space's second season was aware of what had come before it, and it reorganized its own DNA as best it could without becoming another series all together, and entertained that built-in audience, if leaving those fans who truly believed that the first batch of twenty-four somehow constituted profundity feeling forgotten. While Year Two, on average, was more fun and presented characters at least resembling human beings, it was saddled with that cosmic albatross around its neck: a dusty moon running at indeterminable speeds uncontrollable and, too often, misguided. And stories demanding, but not delivering, enticing drama.

No, I'm not a "hater" of Space:1999, to use modern parlance. I was there, after all, to give something new and seemingly exciting, according to the prerelease publicity machine and its materials, a chance, but this then fourteen-year-old knew what constituted good drama and a solid sense of storytelling. I'll nuke a too-often repeated lie that we Trekkers were hostile to the new kid on the block. To use UK parlance: Rubbish! We were there with bells on! Many of us were kids, and dry sponges ― the fannish protective and reactive baggage was a few years away, at least. Keep in mind that two years earlier my friends and I welcomed The Starlost. If we became quickly disillusioned and disappointed by some strange new space vehicle, it may have been due to a feeling we were being sold VHS box cover "not exactly as advertised" content. (As collectors of physical media will tell you, what's on the covering artwork is often better than the movie itself; like finding one of those binned videotapes marked down: "Was $19.99, now $0.99!") Many of us may have gravitated back to our Star Trek reruns, which were in high rotation in 1975 - 1977, but if we ultimately rejected Space:1999, we did so because we felt that too much promised cosmic-level quality content had been left in the promotional artwork, and in the heavens, not through any perceived encroachment on our precious star treks.

I was there.

Yes, indeed.

And I remember the fabulous sights, sounds, and, disappointments... all leading to my look-back at a television series that could have been so much better, but is now wrapped tidily in nostalgia.

... and that concludes our 50th Anniversary 13-part retrospective of Space:1999. We now rejoin our regularly-scheduled programming....