The Best Butler in the Business: Tom Daly of the National Film Board of Canada

M. Wayne Cunningham is the director, Academic and Career Programs at the
College of the Rockies/East Kootenay Community College in British
Columbia.

In this book, D.B. Jones, a film professor and the author of Movies and
Memoranda: An Interpretive History of the National Film Board of Canada,
presents a rich and balanced portrait of one of the most dedicated and
longest-serving members of Canada’s National Film Board.

Veteran producer George Pearson once said of Tom Daly: “He could, on
occasion, be arrogant, vain, hard-headed and patronizing. He drove
higher-level managers to distraction with what they considered his
unrealistic, even unworldly, approach to matters of administration,
organization, financing and policy.” On the other hand, Pearson, among
others, considered Daly to be “a great film teacher.” Moreover, it
was under Daly’s supervision that Unit B produced some of the
award-winning experimental and documentary films that brought worldwide
recognition to the NFB. Daly’s philosophy of filmmaking, inherited
from John Grierson and Stuart Legg, was fortuitously supplemented by a
determination to assist others in the development of their films. The
Best Butler in the Business provides an insightful picture of this major
contributor to Canadian filmmaking.