Cinema
Goin' Down the Road
Donald Shebib · 1970
Synopsis
Pete and Joey, two unemployed young men from Cape Breton, set off for Toronto in an old Chevrolet convertible, full of optimism. Pete's parents, who live there, take them for vagrants and refuse to receive them. The two friends get jobs in a soft-drink bottling plant and, in the evening, drink and chase girls on Yonge Street. Joey gets Betty, a waitress, pregnant, marries her and buys everything on credit. When summer ends, they are laid off and find only poorly paid jobs.
Context
The film cost about eighty-five thousand dollars, including a nineteen-thousand-dollar grant from the Canadian Film Development Corporation, and was shot on 16 mm in the streets, bars and restaurants of Toronto. The music is by Bruce Cockburn. It stayed for nearly six months at a Toronto cinema. At the 1970 Canadian Film Awards, it received the awards for best feature film, original screenplay and male performance, shared between Doug McGrath and Paul Bradley. A sequel was shot forty years later with some of the original cast.
Who it is for
Eighty-seven minutes, shot in the street in the manner of cinéma vérité, in the speech of the Maritimes.
Prizes and reception
Present in all four decennial rankings of the ten best Canadian films by the Toronto festival, from 1984 to 2015; designated a masterwork of audiovisual heritage in 2000.
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