Skip Tracer

There was a screening of Skip Tracer tonight in Vancouver (24 March 2011), at art-house cinema Pacific Cinémathèque, the first in perhaps twenty years in the city where the film was made. The screening was presented by writer and critic Michael Turner, and some of the cast and crew from 1977 were in attendance, including lead David Petersen. Following the screening there was an informal back and forth among Turner, cast and crew members, and the audience. More than one of the cast members mentioned that the film has always been more highly regarded in England and Europe than it ever was here in Canada, and the location of all the previous reviewers would seem to confirm that judgment.

I agree with the general consensus among previous reviewers that Skip Tracer is a small gem. And as a Vancouverite, the film has the added resonance of depicting the recent past of a city that has been changing at a bewildering pace. I think Skip Tracer's vision of a raw, nasty Vancouver was getting at something that might still be here, albeit polished over with the wealth and gloss of thirty years of high-end development.

An audience member asked Petersen if he could speculate a bit on the character of John Collins. "He's a bit ambiguous," the audience member said, "quite an a**hole throughout, although at the end I guess he's sort of redeemed." Petersen thought for a while, took his time, and then just replied, "No."

I don't think Collins is meant to be an a**hole. He's a deeply conflicted character, just as trapped as the 'clients' he mercilessly hounds, and there's plenty of humanity buried beneath the steely, almost catatonic demeanour. If there wasn't, the film would be far less interesting. You could certainly read the whole thing as a Marxist critique of the emotional and psychic damage wrought by capitalism and its often seedy workings. But that would also diminish much of the film's three-dimensionality. Nevertheless, Skip Tracer's exploration of the toxicity of debt, and our hunger for money, certainly feels timely. The film has aged well.

I was unsurprised, but disappointed to see that this film has no overall rating in the IMDB Ballot List. I have only ever seen it mentioned in one Film Guide. It falls into that unhappy category of films which are not from a major producer or ArtHouse or director, and which feature a cast of unknowns. I don't suppose it's being Canadian helps either, being a bit too close to the saturation Hollywood market. It's been on TV in the UK twice, I think, and not at peak viewing time in either case.

I'm kidding myself that this might prompt some casual browser to pause before pressing the remote switch if it ever hits his or her TV Channel. If it's in your local Video Rental Agency it's probably buried in the 2 for a $ section. Give it a look.

Skip Tracer Can. 1977 Dir: Zale R Dalen

Low budget tale of the ambitious loan agent (tracing 'skips' who have defaulted on payment) culminating in his juggling of customers plight with personal conscience. In England, first seen on terrestrial television early to mid 1980's on BBC2's forerunner to the Moviedrome collections.

The mental angst of the hunter grabs your intetest at the outset, but it slowly develops into vulnerability, demonstrating that pressure can make you thrive, but can also leave the door open to compromise and ultimately weaken you. It sets out as a study in power, developing into empathy and ultimately redemption.

Vancouver is set as an unspectacular backdrop; it's portrayed modesty is a comfort - ordinary City, ordinary people like the Skip Tracer. The violence is justified by the subject matter as are the flirtations with sleaze.

I have been hooked from that first showing and it is now 2018, a good time to edit my original review. Skip Tracer was a promising personal vehicle for Peterson. His character, John Collins, made an impression on me. The man was so natural, it didn't seem like acting at all. Effortless and effective - that is a gift. The movie was more popular in England than in Canada; I dont know why? Perhaps because Canadians didnt find it out of the ordinary - I did. Urban Vancouver looked good to me. It is a unique film memory, which has become an English cult following.

I often feel that if my user comments on this website are to achieve any purpose, it will not be by scribbling yet another eulogy on "The Third Man" or toppling the sacred cow of "Citizen Kane"; rather should I be drawing attention to little known films that have excited me in the hope that they may be discovered and find other admirers. "Skip Tracer" is a classic example of one that seems to have sunk without trace (excuse the pun) possibly because it was made in the wrong place (Canada has a great tradition of French-Canadian cinema, but Vancouver is outside this scene), at the wrong time (the '50's was the decade when they made films like this) and contains no familiar faces. How else to explain the neglect of a work that I honestly believe to be a near-masterpiece! Significantly the only other user comments are from UK viewers who seemed to have discovered it as I did when it got an airing on British TV in the early '80's. The central character, John Collins, is a debt chaser for a loan firm in Vancouver. It is an occupation that demands single-minded toughness and a complete suppression of moral feeling or any form of human pity. Collins appears to have what it takes to make it as he has already amassed several "man of the year" awards in a row, but slowly little chinks in his armour appear such as the time when he advises an elderly prospective client who needs a loan for his wife's kidney treatment to look to a bank instead. "Skip Tracer" is about Collins's odyssey towards a form of moral salvation, not a quest he actively seeks, but rather something foisted on him as he becomes increasingly more sickened by what he is doing. Not only is David Peterson's performance wonderfully sustained, he is supported by two perfectly contrasted colleagues, the hard-bitten middle-aged Leo who has completely suppressed any desire to be liked to the extent that he can say anything to anyone - even verbally abusing a strip dancer as she performs in public, and the gangling, inexperienced and rather effeminate young Brent, who fails to make his quota as he has not got it in him to be nasty enough. The scene where he visits Collins in hospital after Collins has been beaten up by a client is as great a scene between two men facing a moral divide as one is likely to see outside the Brando/Steiger conversation in the cab in "On the Waterfront". That one can mention "Skip Tracer" in the same breath as Kazan's masterpiece gives some idea of its extraordinary quality. Both are about men whose gradual awareness of what they are gives them the strength to transcend what they might become.

This grainy, grimy filmed story of a collection agency superstar (top guy four years running) is one brutal unrelenting piece of dark independent cinema. Director writer Zale Dalen in economically imaginative fashion follows the day to day efforts of an unctuous process collector John Collins (David Petersen) and the sadistic delight he gets on forclosing on anything that isn't nailed down, perfectly summed up as he reposesses a small TV set that a child is watching cartoons on.

Played with a very effective bland indifference by Petersen, Dalen makes no attempt to soften Collins or his pond scum associates. "You wanna be loved be a minister," roars one in a sleazy strip joint scene that beautifully sums up the depraved lifestyle and occupation.

In addition to his uncompromising storyline, Dalen does some interesting work with his soundtrack to emphasize pressure and inner turmoil as Collins deconstructs and makes a desultory attempt at redemption but not before a brutally powerful reckoning that makes this bleak story bleaker. Unrelenting grim stuff.