Paperback Hero

"Your head is full of little dingle balls..." This comment (a quote from the film) is probably the most apt description of Rick Dillon, the notorious star player of the Delisle senior hockey team and womanizing key figure in the 1973 film "Paperback Hero".

Set in the desolate agricultural town of Delisle, Saskatchewan, the plot surrounds Dillon's fall from grace as a reigning sports god. Once living in a world where his actions had no consequences, he suddenly finds his vaulted throne caught in a whirlpool. The troubled standing of the team, his own declining popularity, as well as being wanted by the law after one of his numerous romantic conquests goes sour.

The only people who stand by the self-appointed "Marshal" Dillon (played by Keir Dullea) are his teammate "Pov" (John Beck) and good-hearted barmaid, Loretta (played by Elizabeth Ashley). They see the childlike innocence of Rick's "boy dreams", while seemingly oblivious to the dangers the fantasy begins to take.

The classic tragic figure, Rick's demise is cleverly symbolized by the desolate prairie setting, interspersed with scenes of vast wheat fields and abandoned farm implements. The pathos is further entrenched by Gordon Lightfoot's hit tune "If You Could Read My Mind", the performing of which is one of the highlights of the screenplay.

This film was one in a number of pioneering efforts to establish the Canadian film industry that we know today. While crude and clumsy at times, the film is pretty successful in its mandate of putting Canadian identity into the cinema. Little touches like "brown stubby" beer bottles, Foster Hewitt calling play-by-play on Saturday night hockey games and dilapidated old smoke-filled arenas make it clear this is mid-seventies Canada. The plot, while far from classic, is still pretty watchable. I would recommend it to Canadians, or anyone wanting to know more about Canadian popular culture. If you are looking for the Canadian equivalent of "Citizen Kane", well ... you'd be best to keep searching. I give "Paperback Hero" TWO STARS out of FIVE.

Paperback Hero is this year's (2006) selection for the Toronto International Film Festival's Canadian Open Vault program, which is an annual special presentation of a recently restored iconic Canadian film. It's an honest, emotional, and lovingly presented portrayal of a small-town big-shot, Rick Dillon (Keir Dullea), whose loves and life are in a mess.

Beautifully written (Barry Pearson and Les Rose), directed (Peter Pearson -- no relation to the writer), and shot (Don Wilder), the film shows off Saskatchewan in sometimes stark, sometimes glowing splendor.

It's a treat to see Dullea, Elizabeth Ashley, John Beck, and Dayle Haddon as they looked in 1973, all of them portraying very convincingly the characters whose lives are circumscribed by the confines of a small prairie town.

Gordon Lightfoot's "If You Could Read My Mind", kicks up the emotional lift another notch. The original title of the film was to be "Last of the Big Guns", but after Lightfoot agreed to provide the music, the title changed to Paperback Hero, highlighted by the words from the song:

"If I could read your mind love

What a tale your thoughts could tell

Just like a paperback novel

The kind that drugstores sell

When you reach the part where the heartaches come

The hero would be me

But heroes often fail

And you wont read that book again

Because the ending's just too hard to take..."

There are a few really good reasons why people should make an effort to see this film.

First of all, it is a rare feature film unapologetically set in Saskatchewan that is above all entertaining. More importantly though, it is a good comment on Canadian culture being influenced by American culture in a fatal way.

I found Keir Dullea's character, Rick, charming as the wanna be sheriff of a small Saskatchewan town in the 70s, equipped with a holster, cowboy hat and chaps, and a sheriffs star on the side of his bright red car. More importantly, the town never mocked him, and when they did he would always stood up for himself and beat the crap out of people making fun of him .

In fact, as this dreamer he becomes the only interesting thing in the town which has you rooting for him throughout the film. If you're not reading between the lines of what this film is about though, it's still enjoyable to watch. And in its defence, it was made before the Tax Shelter era, so you can't write it off as a product of those days. It actually took heart to make this film, and it shows on screen.

I discovered this film several years ago and much of it has stuck with me. The director, Peter Pearson, sets out to do a back-door comparison of the Canadian and American West by examining a small-town hockey hotshot and his delusions of grandeur. Keir Dullea of 2001: A Space Odyssey fame plays the protagonist, whose swagger is both out of touch with the reality of contemporary living, but is also based on the fictions of the "Wild West"--hence the film's title. If life isn't going to be more exciting, he's not opposed to forcing it a little bit so he can play out his fantasy of being an American bad boy in a sleepy Canadian farming town.

This film beautifully illustrated the hazards of adopting an identity that was never our own.

I managed to get a VHS copy a few years back, and burned it to DVD-R for posterity.

Perhaps I'm oversimplifying by describing it as a "Canadian 'Breathless'", but I still find that the shortest good description I can come up with.

A lot less use of the Gordon Lightfoot music than I recall from years of watching it on Canadian TV, but that may just be fading memory rather than VHS music licensing problems.

I also liked 'Slipstream' http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0072181/combined more than another reviewer, but some people look at movies as dreams they'd like to be in and some look at them like they were traffic accidents, so there's always going to be disagreements...