by Sarah Benson-Lord
Trail Museum and Archives
In July 1989, UBC student filmmaker John Pozer took to the streets of Trail for three days to capture scenes of a fictional industrial town for his film, “The Grocer’s Wife.”
The film, a noir-style dark comedy, tells the story of Tim Midley, a smelter worker tasked with pollution control living with his overbearing mother.
She falls ill, due to the toxicity of the air in the town, and is admitted to the hospital, where she eventually dies.
In the meantime, Tim invites a disillusioned exotic dancer to stay the night.
She effectively replaces Tim’s mother, refusing to leave.
Tim also experiences advances from Mrs. Friendly, the title’s reference.
The writer and director (pictured at far right) was born in Kamloops, studied filmmaking and writing at UBC, and earned his Masters of Fine Arts in Cinema from Concordia.
In a March 2017 blog, he wrote of his first encounter with our fair city:
“I first drove into the city of Trail, British Columbia, in 1986. The huge smelter was roaring; the air was swirling with smoke: and the radio news was in Italian.
"I had lived in British Columbia all my life but I’d never experienced anything like this: I felt lost, frightened and small. I was a stranger here.
"The smelter in Trail sits atop a hill overlooking the town. It reminded me of the Acropolis of Athens, but re-imagined as a post-industrial nightmare.
"Being curious, I signed up for a tour through the factory, venturing down into the bowels of the operation where hot molten steel was processed and poured.
"The guide spoke about the environmental damage to the surrounding area, the “heavy water” plant that contributed to the making of atomic bombs, and the fact that Trail was on Hitler’s top ten ‘hit list’ of North American cities.”
Trail’s industrial architecture was the ideal visual Pozer required to tell this story.
The cast, consisting predominantly of Vancouver-based actors, arrived in mid-July 1989.
They filmed along the Victoria Street Bridge, Groutage Avenue, and the Esplanade, as seen in this photo.
The film included Simon Webb as Tim and Susinn McFarlen as dancer Anita Newlove, who only months after the shoot married Rossland actor, Kevin McNulty.
The film was shot on 16mm black and white film then, according to Pozer, each frame re-photographed to 35mm in order to achieve a grainy effect.
His budget of $50,000 was a small one and did not factor any post-production, which happened in Montreal and Toronto over two years.
Described by the Canadian Film Encyclopedia as “a decidedly dark, surreal comedy…shot in dense, menacing black and white and featuring a bizarre, epic soundtrack,” the film was touted a masterpiece by critics.
Blog posts online of Pozer’s tell the story of the film’s selection for the Toronto Festival of Festivals (now the Toronto International Film Festival) in 1991, as the unique film impressed selection judges.
There, it received a Special Mention from the Best Canadian Film jury.
It also featured at the Cannes Film Festival during Critics’ Week, and earned other Canadian film awards.
“The Grocer’s Wife” and Pozer himself are credited with the onset of the “West Coast Wave” of filmmakers emerging from Vancouver.
The Trail Museum and Archives has ordered a copy of the film from Library and Archives Canada for its Research Collection.
