Big Screen Country: Making Movies in Alberta

M. Wayne Cunningham is a past executive director of the Saskatchewan
Arts Board and the former director of Academic and Career Programs at
East Kootenay Community College.

Edmonton author Bill Marsden is eminently qualified to document the
establishment and development of the Alberta motion picture industry. He
co-founded and later served as president of the Alberta Motion Picture
Industries Association, served as the Director of Film Industry
Development for the Alberta government, and established the Alberta
Motion Picture Development Corporation. Prior to these positions, he
worked as a still photographer, film producer, and owner of William
Marsden & Associates. His career spanned the years 1950 to his
retirement in 1993, and he clearly relished his work, whether crafting
television commercials, making an industrial film for Anvil mines,
shooting a documentary about Banff Indian Days, talking with Friz Lang
about feature films, or flying a helicopter with Clint Eastwood to find
locations for The Unforgiven.

Marsden’s breezy style embellishes numerous anecdotes about
filmmaking in Alberta. Some of the artists with whom he worked, such as
filmmakers Fil Fraser, Mark and Reveen Dolgoy, Tom Radford, and Anne
Wheeler, were long-time Albertans. Others, such as actresses Juliette
Lewis, Ellen Burstyn, Marilyn Monroe, and actors Christopher Reeve, Burl
Ives, and a young Ron Howard, came to work on films shot at Alberta
locations.

Supplementing the narrative of Marsden’s history of the Alberta film
industry are the many black-and-white stills he includes from various
productions. A long section at the back of the book lists movies made in
Alberta from 1946 to 2003, and another list includes the television
series made there. The index names an amazing array of directors,
actors, and actresses who have passed through the province to work in
films and television productions.

Mardsen’s nostalgic, informative book will be of particular interest
to filmmakers and students or historians of film.