Book looks at early days of film making in Alberta

By Justin Seward - Lethbridge Herald on June 22, 2023.

Herald photo by Justin Seward Author Mary Graham speaks with Mark Cogan, an assistant locations manager from Directors Guild of Canada, after her book presentation recently at the Galt Museum

The Galt Museum hosted author Mary Graham recently to talk about early filmmaking through her book “A Stunning Backdrop: Alberta in the Movies, 1917-1960.

The book tells the untold story of six rollicking decades of filmmaking in Alberta.

Graham uses her 12 years years of research to talk about a film history unlike any other.

“It was just a love song to Alberta,” said Graham.

“I hated Alberta when I came here. My kids were born here and I had to really learn to love the landscapes. And it’s like an Ian Tyson song, I mean every Ian Tyson song since he lived in Alberta is a love song to Alberta, and I guess it’s almost a love song to Alberta. Then you know, I knew the film industry, it looked like it was big, but it’s never been put together, and now when you put it together, Vancouver and Toronto may have more filming done but we have the most historically significant film industry, and that’s been fascinating. It’s never been boring.”

It started out 12 years ago when Graham would Google the glimmers of the early filmmaking industry.

“And I Google say, Morley, and then in 1917, there was a little two-line story in the LA Times that said Frank Borzage, who won the first Academy Award, had just come back from filming, Until They Get Me at Morley,” said Graham.

“I just kept following those hunches and they always played out. It just kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger, and it was too much to do the whole history in one book, so I had to split it and concentrate on the early film history.”

What fascinated her about writing the book at first was the local stories, the archives and what filming meant to each community.

“But as I got researching, I started realizing how big the directors who came here were,” said Graham.

“You know a lot of it was self-taught, a lot of it was just looking for minor connections between people and that was just endlessly fascinating. It never stopped being fascinating.”

While writing the book, Graham realized how beautiful southern Alberta is.

“The colours are very cinematic, they’re incredibly beautiful (and )they’re variable, “she said. “You’ve got everything from the plains, the prairies, the grasslands, which they (filmmakers) love, and the mountains and the badlands and these coulees. So you’ve got really unique landscapes and there’s been a lot of films actually shot in Waterton. Watertons one of my favourite places.”

Graham also recognizes the small prairie towns.

“Like I’ve just drove through Fort MacLeod and it’s got modern elements,” she said. “But it’s also got very untouched areas and I was actually looking for the Brokeback Mountain apartment because I think it’s actually off the road and they can access it privately. So there’s still elements of it could be America Mid-west 100 years ago and it could be the great plains of Montana, it could be anything.”

Graham highlighted the friendly partnership between American filmmakers and Indigenous communities, which provided economic opportunities that allowed for retaining of religious and cultural practices that were not allowed by the Canadian government.

“But in 1915, sort of the noble savage was kind of a trope in early movies and then it got really racist, a lot of that was government.”

“They (filmmakers) came here to work with our Indigenous populations in 1917 (with) Frank Borzage again at Morley because they were, quote-unquote, less hostile. He worked with them for three movies (and) he could film them in a natural setting. They were just used to working with white people, and the relationships, even though the Canadian settlement of the west was as odious as the American, it wasn’t as violent.”

Graham is working a second book that will look into 1960 until present day.

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