Now That April's Here
Now That April’s Here is a 1958 English-Canadian feature from William Davidson and Norman Knelman based on short stories by Morley Callaghan.[1]
Now That April’s Here | |
---|---|
Directed by | William Davidson |
Produced by | William Davidson Norman Klenman |
Written by | Norman Klenman |
Starring | Don Borisenko Judy Welch John Drainie Katherine Blake Tony Grey Walter Massey Beth Amos Alan Hood Nancy Lou Gill Fred Diehl Anne Collings Kathy McNeil |
Narrated by | Raymond Massey |
Music by | John Hubert Bath |
Cinematography | William H. Gimmi |
Edited by | William Davidson Norman Klenman |
Distributed by | International Film Distributors |
Release date |
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Running time | 84 minutes |
Country | Canada |
Language | English |
Budget | $75,000 (estimated) |
Synopsis
An early English-Canadian movie shot on the streets of Toronto in 1957 and one of the first Canadian feature films to be produced outside of Quebec. Producers William Davidson and Norman Klenman[2] chose as their source a collection of short stories by Morley Callaghan that had been written in the 1930s known as Now That April’s Here[3] (curiously the four they selected to film did not include the title story: ‘Silk Stockings,’ ‘Rocking Chair,’ ‘The Rejected One’ and ‘A Sick Call’). The screenplay was written specifically as a feature, not as a series of short television dramas, with a common Toronto locale, and the filmmakers got the tacit support of producer/exhibitor Nat Taylor. It was released with some fanfare in the summer of 1958.
Raymond Massey provided the voice-over narration linking the four stories; however, the film was dismissed by Variety for its ‘amateurish production and acting values’ and it died at the box office.[4]
References
- Morris, Peter (1984). The Film Companion. Toronto: Irwin Publishing. pp. 84–85. ISBN 0-7725-1505-0.
- Morris, Peter (July 2002). "Before the Beginning: William Davidson's & Norman Klenman's Now That April's Here". Take One: Film & Television in Canada. 11 (38): 12–18.
- Callaghan, Morley (1936). Now That April's Here. Random House. Retrieved June 17, 2017.
- Plummer, Kevin. "Historicist: Now That April's Here". Torontoist. Retrieved June 17, 2017.