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..."
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..."