OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD. The squee, the flailing choruses of muppetry meeping, oh lord lord lordy lord.
Even if my dad wasn’t in this, I would have loved it. It is a testament to how awesome and really, really Caucasian Saskatoon was in the 50’s. It’s an example of what a good cop looks like (Sargeant Nordstrum, hisself, and a profile that would make Liam Neeson skulk away). It was a lovely dip into a completely different aesthetic. Women (what few of them there are in this land of order and harmony) are wearing such delightful fitted frocks, and the boys are all wearing striped shirts. The suits all look sort of shiny.
I could go on at length about my father’s appearance and demeanour in the film, but as he enjoys his modesty and is unhappy when some foolish or misguided person attempts to wrest it away from him, I will drop a curtain over that and review the technical excellences and cultural tropes which adorn this gem among sponsored films. For of course it was an ammo manufacturer who supported the work of the club and the making of the movie.
In brief, me dad played a street tough’s associate who went from shooting out streetlights to taking minutes for a gun club and learning how to shoot properly under the supervision of a policeman. In the meantime there are yummy period cars, perfect little square houses, an open rack of guns at the hardware store (owner just reaches back and hands the cop a gun – no locks, no nuttin honey), a simply amazing scene which looks for all the world like the cop is pulling a toddler on a tricycle over and then letting the kid off with a warning, the cop being shown as mostly walking from place to place although he does get in the cruiser too, the description of what steps he had to take to get a gun club for boys set up (it’s actually advertised as such – no gurlz), including getting the mayor on board, and buttering up the press, and getting freebies from the ammo company, and donations from local businessmen, and then like an idiot he leaves actually asking the boys if they will puhlease come out to the gun club to the very last. Ooowiee. Tension ensues. (The music at this point is trying to beat itself into a state of enthusiasm, with mixed results).
And it all comes out nicely in the end. Isn’t that lovely? Oh, how I wish those days of yore, when so many complicated social situations had yet to arise, were still extant.
