Seen at...
Winter Kept Us Warm
- Director: David Secter
- Writer: John Clute; Ian Porter
- Producer: David Secter
CGiii Comment
One for [Canadian] cineastes! And...the film that led David Cronenberg into film!
Not the first Canadian film dealing with homosexuality, that honour goes to Claude Jutra's 1963 À tout prendre - but, this was the first English-speaking Canadian film to be screened at Cannes! For added context, the last man to be imprisoned in Canada for homosexual acts was 1965! Incarcerated just before this film was released.
By no stretch of the imagination can this be called a great film, it's a curious one. And, open to interpretation...unrequited same-sex love...or, over-possessive friend? The 'infamous' blink-and-you'll-miss-it back-washing scene is more circumstantial than concrete - it's actually very innocently and fleetingly done - but, it is one strand of quite a few, the frolic in the snow being a significant other.
To err on the side of caution is sometimes a necessity rather than a choice, David Secter had no choice, he erred wisely rather than rightly.
Being a student film, it is naïve and a little rough around the edges. But, considering its subject matter, the time, the place and the law - everyone involved deserves to be applauded...more so now, 60 years on.
Trailer...
The(ir) Blurb...
It's the 1960s at the University of Toronto. Doug is a well-liked senior with an equally popular girlfriend. Peter is a shy freshman, and new to the big city. Peter and Doug become best friends and soon start going to concerts, drinking, and playing in the snow together. When Doug brings Peter to a steam bath and washes his back, the friendship seems headed to a whole new level, at least in Doug's mind. But when Peter emerges from a party after having sex with a co-ed, things get even more complicated.
Cast & Characters
John Labow as Doug;
Henry Tarvainen as Peter;
Joy Fielding as Bev;
Janet Amos as Sandra;
Iain Ewing as Artie;
Jack Messinger as Nick;
Larry Greenspan as Larry;
Sol Mandelsohn as Hall Porter;
George R. Appleby as House Don