September 25, 1978

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Cover Story

Behind all that phoney tinsel are some equally phoney dealings

Ten years ago the Canadian film industry was a quiet little thing—so quiet it would have made a nun nervous. Every now and then it dabbed a little Evening at the National Film Board behind its ears and timorously trotted itself out into the public gaze. By Lawrence O’Toole10 min

Column

Watergate’s lessons do not travel well

For the past year, Canadians have been exposed to a daily fusillade of disclosures involving their most cherished national institution, the RCMP. The misdeeds, many of them illegal, have cast the Mounties in a new, unnerving context, watchmen who need watching. By Tom Wicker7 min

Canadian News

From bad to worst

When Jean Chrétien was appointed finance minister a year ago—the first-ever francophone to hold the job— he sailed in on waves of goodwill. He seemed to possess a zest for the job that his predecessor, Donald Macdonald, had lacked, and the general feeling was that at least things couldn’t get any worse. By Ian Urquhart7 min

Frontlines

Crime and blandishment

Working conditions in Canada? Rather better than in France,” wrote French film director Claude Chabrol in the weekly Pariscope, adding that among the Canadian actors and crew he has taken a shine to lately, the team spirit was “so obvious that it touched me.” By Marci McDonald6 min

Business

The kid never had a chance

Let us begin with a true story. The emphasis is on true because what follows is perhaps clouded by chicanery or, at the very least, incarcerated by ego. But on to the eternal verity: Muhammad Ali, whose sense of history begins with “I” and ends with “me,” in times past used to sit in the office of Teddy Brenner, recently retired matchmaker of Madison Square Garden, and talk of his favorite subject. By Joe Flaherty5 min

People

Sergeant Pepper (Anderson, that is), TV'S Police Woman, has turned in her badge at the poor-ratings desk and is making a film comeback as an ex-con. Angie Dickinson, once billed by Universal Studios as “The Girl with the Million-Dollar Legs,” is now hoofing it in Montreal in a $3.2-million FrancoCanadian production, Labyrinth.

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Science

Getting a jump on the whole wired world

The sound of a few drumrolls, cymbal crashes and trumpet fanfares echoing out of the corridors of the department of communications in Ottawa would certainly seem justified. Unveiled on Aug. 15 was a new tool that will make all the prospective marvels of future communications possible: a two-way computerized TV dubbed Videotex that will convert each household into an electronic action central, from which a family can order new clothes, bank, attend university or summon special medical aid. By Anne Collins5 min

World News

The desperate hours

It was like a brush fire fanned by a gale. In little more than a week of bitter fighting that left hundreds dead and half a dozen cities pockmarked by smoking ruins, Sandinista guerrillas opposing the dictatorship of President Anastasio Somoza had won control of large areas in northwestern and southern Nicaragua. By Michael Clugston5 min

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Art

Those not-so-obscure objects of disgust

During Mark Prent’s last show in Toronto in 1974 his dealer, Avrom Isaacs, was charged by the morality squad of the Metro Toronto Police with “knowingly, without lawful justification or excuse, publicly exhibiting a disgusting object.” By Christopher Hume4 min

Business

Daring young men on their farming machines

Victor Rice was outside Massey-Ferguson Ltd.’s 14th-floor downtown Toronto boardroom earlier this month waiting, as he always does, to report to the board, then leave. This time, however, he would enter when summoned and remain as president, chief operating officer and director. By Roderick McQueen4 min

September 181978