{"id":9837,"date":"2014-10-10T23:42:15","date_gmt":"2014-10-11T03:42:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=9837"},"modified":"2014-10-11T01:23:53","modified_gmt":"2014-10-11T05:23:53","slug":"cancon-101-the-simcom-trilogy-prom-night-melanie-and-curtains","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=9837","title":{"rendered":"CanCon 101: The Simcom Trilogy – Prom Night, Melanie, and Curtains"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Curtains1983_BR\"<\/a>When I was a kid, there were perhaps 3 movie trailers (all TV versions) which genuinely terrified me: The Shining<\/strong><\/a> (1980), with that slow, electrified wailing as a child is chased by an ax-wielding \u2018Johnny\u2019 down a snowy maze; It\u2019s Alive<\/strong><\/a> (1974), with that bloody hand sticking out of the Davis baby\u2019s cradle; and that slo-mo TV spot for Curtains<\/strong> (1983) in which a skater hears heavy thunks in the distance, turns to see a figure, and realizes it\u2019s a hag-masked-scythe-wielding killer coming hard and fast to lop off her head.<\/p>\n

\"PromNight1980_BR\"<\/a>These were memorable ad campaigns for very flawed films that evolved into genre cult favourites (and deservedly so), but Curtains<\/strong>, unlike its sister film Prom Night<\/strong> (1980), was troubled during post-production, and when it did emerge on home video to the burgeoning masses of renters, it looked like crap.<\/p>\n

When I caught the film on TV, \u00a0I laughed at its apparent technical stupidity: banal grainy visuals, and shots where a mic boom pops in and out of view during lengthy dialogue scenes.<\/p>\n

This ‘look’ was somewhat synonymous with Canadian films seen on TV, largely because they may have been 16mm reduction prints for TV airings, or just awful full screen transfers made from widescreen prints.<\/p>\n

Another reason ‘the Canadian look’ seeped into the consciousness of kids is something that did exist: CBC light.<\/p>\n

Back in film school, we were told to have all stock developed at something called CBC light – a setting the CBC assigned to all exposed footage slated for developing. From what I recall, it was a neutral benchmark setting that supposedly allowed the network to later time (grade) final answer prints prior to the video transfer needed for network airing.<\/p>\n

The problem? As my classmates all realized pretty quickly, CBC light made all our hard work look like shit, and worse, our footage looked like the final transfers CBC aired during prime time – grainy, washed out, and sort of brown-green (like their banal series \u00a0Seeing Things<\/a><\/strong>).<\/p>\n

It’s a look that instilled a truly negative reaction towards Canadian films due to bad print timing, poor transfers, if not a general carelessness on the part of networks whose only concern was to meet the minimum CanCon requirements and air film, TV shows, shorts, and documentaries with Canadian content to keep the\u00a0CRTC (our regulatory body) off their backs.<\/p>\n

The end result: to several generations of kids, \u00a0not only did our films look like shit, but it seemed there was no way to make 16mm nor 35mm film stock look good. Somehow, the rest of the world knew the secret to good cinematography.<\/p>\n

That\u00a0Curtains<\/strong> was able to transcend ugly TV and home video transfers and impress horror fans is remarkable, because unlike some beat-up, lost gem made in the U.S., this look permeated many films on TV during the eighties.<\/p>\n

As Synapse\u2019s 2K restoration proves, Curtains<\/strong> had money in its budget: lush cinematography, detailed set design, elegant costumes, and decent effects; proof we could, in fact, make nice widescreen films free from the docu-drama aesthetic of the CBC and the NFB.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ciupka had originally directed a slightly arty psychological thriller, but its pacing and lack of graphic oomph apparently irked producer Peter R. Simpson, Simcom\u2019s co-owner.\u00a0<\/span>Two years after principal photography had ended, the film emerged after heavy re-shoots and re-cutting; director Richard Ciupka claimed 40% of his work was all that existed in the final cut, and he used the moniker of the film’s egotistical director, Jonathan Stryker, in place of his own, yet even with all of Simpson’s retooling, Curtains<\/strong> kind of works, even though I’d argue from the surviving original material and traces of the original script, it could have been a more interesting film.<\/span><\/p>\n

A copy of Ciupka’s original edit reportedly survived up until the early 2000’s, but its loss (perhaps tossed, along with other stored film cans, after Simpson’s death in 2007) can never be gauged as it’s all moot, and with one production still surviving from the original ending, there’s little to reconstruct beyond anecdotes about lost trims, lost scenes, and chunks of the reshoots that were never used.<\/p>\n

It’s also\u00a0Curtains<\/strong>, not\u00a0The Magnificent Ambersons<\/strong><\/a> (1940), but there is a sense Ciupka’s vision had psychological oomph. Certainly due to Synapse’s efforts in restoring Curtains<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Prom Night<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>on Blu,\u00a0there’s a proof to naysayers that those full screen tax shelter films which populated TV during the seventies and eighties were derived from movies made with more than middling competence.<\/p>\n

\"Melanie1982_poster_s\"<\/a>Alongside reviews of Synapse’s gorgeous 2K transfers, I’ve added M<\/strong>elanie<\/strong><\/a>, a classic orphan CanCon film that’s available nowhere because no one cares.<\/p>\n

Well, it’s on YouTube<\/a>, but its maudlin premise of an illiterate mother who travels across state lines to reclaim her snatched child from a drunkard husband probably makes it rate low on the ‘rediscovery’ meter, if not due to music rights issues, because the heroine soon develops what could be seen \/ is an improbable relationship with a fading rock star, played by Burton Cummings (who’s actually quite good).<\/p>\n

Writer Robert Guza, Jr. was involved in these three Simpson productions, plus composer Paul Zaza, and even from the massively compressed images on YouTube, it’s clear the cinematography by Ciupka is lovely. Melanie<\/strong> is the\u00a0film that probably got him the\u00a0Curtains<\/strong> job as director, and maybe by reviewing this small film (which also co-stars Don Johnson and Trudy Young), it might materialize in a less shitty state. Worse case scenario: you now know it exists, and maybe you’ll give it a peek if it shows up on TV.<\/p>\n

Coming next<\/em>: Fritz Lang’s mean yet pulpy WWII thriller\u00a0Man Hunt<\/strong> (1941), from Twilight Time on Blu.<\/p>\n

Cheers,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Mark R. Hasan<\/strong>, Editor
\nKQEK.com<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the latest CanCon 101 installment, we look at 3 films made back-to-back by Simcom’s Peter R. Simpson: Prom Night (1980) and Curtains (1983), new on Blu from Synapse Films + the forgotten drama Melanie (1982) with Glynnis O’Connor, Trudy Young, and Burton Cummings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9849,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[3053,3072,2562,2563,3076,3068,3075,3071],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/PromNight1980_featured.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-2yF","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9837"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9837"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9837\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9865,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9837\/revisions\/9865"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}