Palais Royale

I was IN this movie, and it still took me by surprise. You might see thirty seconds of me at the drum set in the dance hall. Ric Georgi of The Rainbow Gardens Jazz Orchestra (now dormant) gives a very convincing turn as a gunshot victim (Tall Man). My thanks to Ric for a chance to try my chops as a "special extra".

Matt Craven plays a VERY low-level employee, at an advertising agency in Toronto, who is looking for the Big Idea to launch him into the Big Time. He become obsessed with cigarette-ad model Odessa Malone (Kim Cattrall) and attempts to infiltrate her world to gain her confidence. In the process he becomes enmeshed in some very dubious dealings, indeed. Craven and Catrall get excellent support from Dean Stockwell, Kichjael Hogan, a very frightening Kim Coates and Helen Hughes.

This is a well-crafted film with unexpected quality of direction, editing and sound-track. My high-school class-mate, the late Earl Seymour, created a lush lounge-music score for this film, which makes "the band" look and sound very good, even though it ain't us playing the music! There are plenty of hidden pleasures for historians, as the attention to detail and continuity are amazing. And, if you are looking for a concise definition of the Canadian personality, here it is, except most Canadians don't have QUITE that much kinky sex!

A businessman (Craven) is drawn to a mysterious billboard model (Cattrall) who he meets at the `Palais Royale' nightclub. He is soon drawn into her connections with organised crime, first acting as a getaway driver, then as the successful operator of some "shell' companies the mob owns. Unfortunately, he runs afoul of Cattrall's psychotic assassin boyfriend and is soon trying to avoid both him and the local detectives. Set in Toronto in what appears to be the early-1930's, the film tells a familiar tale with some measure of success; fans of Cattrall will enjoy seeing her in this crime-romance outing.

Matt Craven plays as Gerald Price, an idealistic and romantic bookkeeper who desires to open his own advertising agency and whose obsession with a billboard cigarette model displayed opposite his place of employment leads to a meeting with her and his life, as a result, becomes radically affected due to involvement with her "social" set, composed in the main of organized crime figures. This is a splendid achievement, with Martin Lavut's direction a marvel of inventiveness as he utilizes a well-crafted script to mold a nicely wrought tale that, within its noirish mode, provides plentiful dollops of humour, romance and suspenseful melodrama. Creative cinematographic and lighting effects are utilized with ingenuity throughout, the cast responding to Lavut's able leadership with nicely developed performance from all players, notably leads Craven and Kim Cattrall as the nicotinic object of his affection; charismatic Kim Coates as a coldly unbalanced mobster; and Victor Ertmanis as a principal henchman, with acting honours going to Dean Stockwell who creates his role as gangland boss Don Dattalico only three days before beginning a nearly identical turn in Jonathan Demme's MARRIED TO THE MOB. The setting is in 1959 Toronto and the well-edited affair markedly benefits from close attention to period detail in the production/art design of Reuben Freed and decors of set designer Elinor Ross Galbraith for an effectively paced story wherein such detail is vital to maintenance of continuity. A tasteful swing and blues sound track is most appropriate for the storyline milieu, with music an integral part of a plot wherein organized underworld operations are beginning to make inroads into the vitals of a city noted at the time for its freedom from the Forces of Evil. In sum, this little known motion picture is brimful with style, wit, and valuable contributions by cast and crew, each scene offering elements of these that will hold particular interest to a cinephile. This reviewer, fearful of having suffered an attack of encomia, watched the film a second time and remains filled with astonishment that such a quality piece has been permitted to slip quietly into the Memory Hole.