What Canadian TV Series Should Be Revived?

The big news on American TV these days concerns the revival of past series hits.
Gilmore Girls is back for a limited run. and I;m, watchging and enjoying it as I find out what happened to the original characters.
So I'm thinking back on all the Canadian TV sets I was on and wondering which ones could be successfully revived.
The new Anne Of Green Gables is all the ratings rage on CBC-TV these days. So why not revive some other big hits over the years?
One of the first sets I ever attended was up at CFTO studios in Agincourt: Headline Hunters with Charles Templeton.
It was a piece of inexpensive Canadian content and it ran from 1972 through 1983.
And if CTV doesn't want it what about CTV News or even History Channel?
In fact I've already told current CBC programmers Front Page Challenge would be a dandy choice for revival.
I'd use Peter Mansbridge as host and a new gallery of panelists that might include Wendy Crewson, Martin Short, Art Hindle and perhaps one of the stars of Schitt's Creek.
Riverdale was a short lived soap opera on CBC running three years (1997 through 2000).
The reason it failed was simple: lack of money.
Had CBC been able to finance a year of the story instead of just 12 episodes per season the soap would have thrived.
But this one never even came out on .DVD. I'm told some of the sets are still standing and used on the various Degrassi series.
 I simply feel an hour revival would make it if heavily promoted and allowed to flourish for a full year of episodes.
A series far older was Quentin Durgens M.P. starring a very young and lean Gordon Pinsent.
The show debuted in 1966 when I was still a student at the University of Toronto and lasted until 1969 in increments of about six episodes a year.
What I'd do is recast the lead with Leah Pinsent, Gordon's talented actress daughter.
Then I'd plop her into the turmoil of the Canadian House of Commons and be immersed in a great political scandal not of her making.
Then I'd plop in Gordon as the aged but politically cagey Quentin who comes to the rescue of his daughter who represents the Ontario riding he once represented 40 years before.
E,N.G. was a popular hourlong drama running on CTV from 1990 through 1994.
I have no idea why this popular series has never come out in a boxed set.
The clerk at HMV Video told me it was one of the most requested Canadian series not on video.
Sara Botsford and Art Hindle were the stars of this newsroom story and I'd bring them back as the station is threatened with foreclosure by failing ratings.
They want to reinvent TV news by giving it a harsher coverage, confident that telling the truth for once on TV will reap big audiences.
Canadian sitcoms that could be reinvented include Maniac Mansion, Frontier Rabbi and Maniac Mansion.
Some Canadian sitcoms did not make it because they needed more work --that's my rationale for reviving In Opposition and Not My Department.
King Of Kensinton starred the gifted Al Waxman --he has passed but I'd recreate the show with his TV partner played so tellingly by Fiona Reid.
One of the first CBC TV events I ever attended was the lavish premiere for  Whiteoaks Of Jalna which ran for 12 hours starting in January 1972.
Did you know French TV later tried a version with the great French star Danielle Darrieux?
I say try again --but this time use only the original story by Mazo de la Roache. TV's version added a secondary modern story with the same bunch of actors also playing their ancestors.

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I Remember Robert Osborne

The first time I met Robert Osborne it was 1993 and the genial old movie host was giving interviews at the annual launch for AMC (American Movie Classics).
That's what I said AMC!
Turns out Osborne never did officially join that old movie channel but instead accepted a better bid to become the night time host of TCM ( Turner Classsic Movies).
And for a decade after Osborne joined me in a bid to force the Canadian Radio-television Commission to allow this great haven of film classics to be admitted to the Canadian cablde TV dial.
I remember one CRTC bureaucrat actually telling me TCM was ineligible because there was no Canadian content.
So I got to talk to Osborne on the phone all that time and later when TCM finally hit Canadian TV.
The most important fact: Osborne never did directly program the films shown daily.
"That's a job in itself," he told me. "But there is a lot of give and take. And when I get the lists I get to work researching all films I'll introduce."
When I first met him he'd recently caused some controversy but stating it was TCM's mission to show Congo Maisie as much as it was to show Gone With The Wind."
"Every movie tells us a lot about the times and the people involved in the filming. I guess GWTW is the most shown movie on TCM. But Congo Maisie deserves our attention, too."
AMC was there first and showed the collections of Paramount, Universal, RKO and 20th Century-Fox."
That left Turner with Warners, MGM and RKO (shared with AMC). TCM recently Columbia pictures were added. And now MCA (Paramount and Universal) has also joined.
These days TCM is the last major movie channel around using hosts.
In Canada we had the energetic Elwy Yost in TVOntario for over 20 years. But these days TVO is out of the movie business entirely.
Most people did not know that while Osborne lived in Manhattan he had to fly to TCM headquarters in Atlanta to tape his introductions.
"I started in Hollywood under contract to Lucille Ball as part of a company of aspiring young actors. Lucy trained us in workshops, gave us bit parts in our shows, then told me I should be behind the lights. It was the best career advice ever given to me."
He lived in an apartment in New York called The Osborne. "But it was not named after me! Honest!"
For the past few days TCM has been rerunning all his hour interviews with the likes of Betty Hutton, Debbie Reynolds and Norman Jewison.
In 2011 Osborne was off camera for months recovering from a serious illness and when he returned young Ben Mankiewicz was spelling him off more and more.
Osborne chuckled when I told him Canadian viewers were often perplexed by his introductions. Recently he'd introduced "Claude Rains in a Hitchcockian romance."
Instead Rains appeared in Saturday's Children and not Notorious as Osborne had obviously been publicizing.
"In Canada we have to change seven per cent of titles which we do not own," he admitted. "I dearly wish they'd change the intro, too."
And I'm missing him already.

All About The Joan Crawford--Bette Davis Feud

On Sunday March 5  at 10 p.m. FX begins showing the new miniseries The Feud : Bette And Joan starring Jessica Lange as Joan Crawford and  Susan Sarandon as Bette Davis.
Well, I know a lot about that feud, I met both ladies on several occasioned and interviewed many of their co-workers over the decades.
From my archives I've culled the juiciest quotes to illustrate the great hatred that always exiusted between Joan and Bette.:
VINCENT SHERMAN: I directed Bette in Mr. Skeffington (1944)  and Joan in The Damned Don't Cry (1950). Bette was the more versatile actress but Joan was a star over a longer period and this irritated Bette.
I also had love affairs with both. On Mr Skeffington (1944) Bette's second husband had just died under mysterious circumstances and she was very needy. She wanted me to leave my wife and children and after I refused we never worked again.
Joan used sex to counter her feelings of loneliness. She always became the character she was playing. In the second film we did together Harriet Craig (1950) I used her compulsive need to dust and clean --she was cleaning away one day during a take when she looked up and said "I'm playing myself, right?" And she was right.
EDWARD DYNTRYK: When I directed Where Love Has Gone (1964) I had to cope with the hatred between Bette and Susan Hayward who was a toughie in her own right.
Bette not only had to take second billing but she was playing Susie's mother and was only a decade older than Susie.
Bette would storm onto the set shouting "Don't worry boys I've rewritten a few lines!"
Whereupon Susie would storm off the set, slam her dressing room shut and refuse to leave until all her lines were properly restored.
After I shot the last scene Bette turned to me and said "Am I finished, Mr. Director?"
I assured her that was so and she took off her white wig and tossed it at Susie and it bounced off her forehead.
"You disgusting old bitch!" shouted Susie as Bette exited Stage Left.
IRVING RAPPER: I had just finished directing The Gay Sisters (1942) with Miss Barbara Stanwyck who everybody loved when Warners announced I'd be directing Bette for the first time in Now, Voyager (1942) and Barbara gifted me with a wreath of black roses. She knew the travails I was going to face!
ANNA LEE: On the set of Whatever Happened To Baby Jane (1962) I had the dressing room between Crawford and Davis.
I could feel the great waves of hatred emanating from both dressing rooms. I felt quite noxious at times.
In one Bette had to drag Joan across the living room and Joan claimed Bette had deliberately kicked her in the face.
To retaliate Joan had jockey weights sewn into the hem of her skirt so when Bette had to drag her some more in the next scene the weight was so much Bette's back popped out a d she had to be taken to the hospital.
BETSY PALMER: On every picture Joan had to have a scapegoat and usually it was a young girl just starting out.
On Goodbye, My Fancy it was Janice Rule as the ingenue and Joan barked at her mercilessly.
On the picture I did with her Queen Bee (1955) she latched onto pretty little Lucy Marlowe and in one scene when Lucy forgot her lines because she was frightened Joan sucker punched her just like that!
GERALDINE FITZGERALD: Bette took me under her wing in Dark Victory (1939) which was my first big picture at Warners. I'd been warned by the director she'd try to get me out of focus during my big speech which is why I'm holding onto the piano with all my might. But you see I posed no thereat to her.
But Bette was never collegial. She'd just finished The Old Maid (1939) opposite Miriam Hopkins the greatest scene stealer of them all. Miriam appeared on set the first day wearing one of Bette's dresses from her past hit Jezebel and Bette went crazy.
VINCENT SHERMAN: On Old Acquaintance (1943) Bette and Miriam went on a dizzy field trip of trying to upstage each other. The day I had to photograph Bette slapping Miriam the rafters were filled with employees, Miriam was hated so. And Bette drilled one so hard Miriam's head bobbled up and down.
The next day Miriam phoned in sick saying she was suffering from a huge headache and her absence cost the studio thousands of collars.
GEORGE CUKOR:  On The Women (1939) Joan was forced to take second billing to Norma Shearer and she hated this. During line reading rehearsals she'd click her knitting needles every time Norma had to make a speech. Finally I told her to stop at once and Joan fled from the stage in tears and wouldn't return that day.
CURTIS BERNHARDT: I directed Bette Davis as twins in A Stolen Life (1946) and then Joan Crawford in Possessed (1947) which she took over when Bette went on maternity leave. Joan took an Oscar nomination and Bette was not at all happy I can tell you.
They loathed each other because they saw themselves in each other. Both came from poverty. Both had been deserted by their fathers. Joan's childhood was more oppressive but neither had happy memories of their younger days. Joan would be in full makeup at 9 a.m. and nobody worked harder. Bette needed a lot of direction because she had a tendency to go over the top. Their dressing rooms were side by side but they never talked to each other. Joan was a diet freak, she'd nibble carrots at lunch. Bette would pork it on and then go on killer diets. I think they fascinated each other, they never stopped competing.
JOSEPH COTTEN: Joan started HUSH HUSH SWEET CHARLOTTE (1964) but claimed Bette was harassing her. Crawford had collected IOUs for the female stars up against Davis for the Oscar for Whatever Happened To Baby Jane and when Ann Bancroft won but couldn't make it (she was on Broadway) Joan whisked past Bette backstage and walked out and took the Oscar and made a great speech for Ann. Needless to say Bette was seething.
VINCENT SHERMAN: Joan pretended she had a virus and was in hospital when I visited her. She claimed she was in perfect health but had faked it to "get away from that bitch!" Then she jumped stark naked out of  bed and we made furious love on the floor of the hospital room.
GERALDINE FITZGERALD: In 1977 Bette was the first woman to win the AFI award,Koan had just passed and I wonder what she would have made of this! Bette was astonished so many of her co-workers refused to attend including Robert Montgomery, George Brent, Irving Rapper and Vincent Sherman. Bette forgot how viciously she'd fought for her place in the sun.
NOTE: In i977 I interviewed Davis at her Hollywood apartment and told her that I had to leave at 5 p.m. to attend the Joan Crawford Salute at the Academy Awards theater.
BETTE DAVIS: Who'd salute that bitch?
ME: Well, the welcoming committee at the door includes John Wayne, Myrna Loy, Robert Young, Virginia Grey, Steven Spielberg (who'd directed Joan on TV's Night Gallery).
BETTE DAVIS: Well, I never said she wasn't important. She was old Hollywood, she worked at it harder than anyone I knew, that stardom which she truly believed in. But she was one tough broad is all I'll say.
VINCENT PRICEL: On Bete's last completed picture The Wales Of August (1984) Bette was her usual obstreperous self. She started picking on Lillian Gish and Miss Lillian was 91 for heaven's sake.
Director Lindsay Anderson was lining up a close-up of Miss Lillian when Bette burst in "Oh, fer gawd's sake, that old bitch invented the close-up!" That's Bette! Feuding and fighting and fussing!
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Good News: CTV's Cardinal Is Coming Back

Best news of the week" CTV's Cardinal is coming back for two more seasons.
And Cardinal may be the wave of the future for Canadian TV drama.
The first season ends tonight at 10 on CTV and ran a short term of just seven  hourlong episodes.
But audience reaction was fierce: so CTV has ordered two more "cycles" of six hours each.
In the past a Canadian TV series like the currently running Saving Hope would glide along with 13 hours and try competing against the U.S. imports of 22 hours per season.
I think Cardinal works because it is unrelentingly Canadian --it was photographed in Sudbury and North Bay. Although Billy Campbell (The Killing)  is American Karine Vanasse is from Quebec and other  key parts are played by Canadians.
Based on Gilles Blunt's 2000 novel Forty Words For Sorrow the story has cops Campbell and Vanasse figuring out that there was a serial killer in their community.I thing what made the story was the beautifully austere landscape which always seemed so threatening, menacing.I thought Campbell finely cast --I first interviewed him on the set of Dynasty way, way back and we reconnected on the set of Once And Again where he blurted out --"I really hate this character!".
Maybe so but he aced that guy and does so again here.
In past years Canadian TV has been too quick to ditch concepts that were not entirely working.
I'm thinking of CBC's attempts to float a series set in the Eastern Townships starring Nathaniel Parker. Iy was abandoned after one TV movie.
The success of Cardinal comes from the immaculate adaptation by Aubrey Nealon and Daniel Grou's sturdy direction.
The series has already been sold to BBC meaning it must be very good indeed.
You can check out the seasonal finale wednesday night at 10 on CTV.

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