Camera Canada

1961 Canadian TV series or program

Camera Canada

Country of origin| Canada
Original language| English
No. of seasons| 2
Production
Executive producer| Thom Benson
Running time| 60 minutes
Original release
Network| CBC Television
Release| 13 November 1961 (1961-11-13) –
14 January 1963 (1963-01-14)

Camera Canada was a Canadian documentary television series which aired on CBC Television from 1961 to 1963.

## Premise

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This was an occasional series of documentaries concerning modern Canadian history, filmed by various producers. It was inspired by the results of various CBC documentaries broadcast in mid-1960.

## Scheduling

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The series was randomly scheduled approximately once per month between 13 November 1961 and 14 January 1963. Camera Canada episodes were generally hour-long productions which were frequently broadcast on Mondays, usually in place of the normal Festival time slot.[1]

## Episodes

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* "The Annanacks" (René Bonnière producer/director; Lloyd Bochner narrator; Crawley Films company), featuring an Inuit community
* "Big Country" (Norman Caton; Len Peterson writer; Don Francks narrator), concerning a western Canadian cattle drive
* "Boys Village" (Ron Kelly director), concerning a reform school
* "Camera on Canada" (Gene Lawrence director)
* "Campus in the Clouds" (Norman Caton producer), featuring the Banff School of Fine Arts
* "The Changing Island" (J. Frank Willis producer/host)
* "Ciao Maria" (Ron Kelly; Bruno Gerussi narrator), featuring Italians in Toronto
* "False Faces" (René Bonnière producer/director; Crawley Films company), featuring an Iroquois-Huron ceremony in 1961. Bonnière later made a fictional feature film with Crawley Films called Amanita Pestilens (released in 1963).
* "Gold: The Fabulous Years" (Gene Lawrence producer; Hugh Kemp writer)
* "High Arctic Hunter" (Gene Lawrence producer; Doug Wilkinson writer/director)
* "Hockey: An Affectionate Look"[1]
* "Last Summer" (Thom Benson writer), regarding mating in nature; aired 11 December 1961[2]
* "The Looking Glass People" (Norman Campbell producer/director; George Salverson writer; Budd Knapp narrator), regarding ballet
* "The Lost Decade" (Ben Maartman writer; Ron Kelly director), concerning the Great Depression
* "The Measure of Man" (Norman Caton producer), featuring the study of the mind and its methods
* "My Enemy" (Bob Orchard; Michael Rothery producers), from the Andre Chamson short story
* "The Opening of the West" (Gene Lawrence producer; Scott Young writer; J. Frank Willis narrator)
* "Pelly Bay" (Ron Kelly), regarding the activities of an Inuk person
* "The Promised Land"[1]
* "The Short Sweet Summer" (Norman Campbell producer; Hugh Kemp writer), featuring the 1963 tour of the National Youth Orchestra of Canada.
* "Tale of Three Cities"[1]
* "The Unknown Country Revisited" (Bruce Hutchinson) – Canadians' express views about their nation. This documentary followed Hutchinson as he revisited parts of Canada he documented in his 1942 book The Unknown Country: Canada and Her People.
* "Upper Canada Village" (Gene Lawrence producer)
* "The View From Geneva" (Maurice Taylor director; Hugh Kemp writer; Princess Grace (Monaco) narrator), featuring the Red Cross
* "Wilderness" (Norman Caton), regarding the wildernesses of Alberta, British Columbia and the Yukon; a plane crash killed Caton and two camera operators during production of this documentary.[3]
* "The World of Bobby Hull" (Scott Young writer)
* A documentary comparing current and 1930s university graduates (Hugh MacLennan)
* A feature on the newly created Canada Council and its first director, A. W. Trueman.

## Controversy

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"Ciao Maria", broadcast in January 1963, portrayed the lives of some selected Italian-Canadians. However, the portrayal of that community drew outrage from Toronto Italian community leaders such as broadcaster Johnny Lombardi and Toronto Roman Catholic priest Emmanuel Faraone. They complained that the documentary provided a distorted, low-brow view of Italians and failed to show the community's positive moral and cultural attributes.[4]

After the end of this series, the CBC produced documentaries in anticipation of the 1967 Canadian Centennial under the Canada 98, Canada 99 and Canada 100 titles.

## References

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1. ^ a b c d Rutherford, Paul (1990). When Television Was Young: Primetime Canada 1952-1967. University of Toronto Press. p. 406. ISBN 0-8020-5830-2.
2. ^ "Today's TV Previews". The Gazette. Montreal. 11 December 1961. p. 14\. Archived from the original on 10 November 2023. Retrieved 10 July 2018.
3. ^ Corcelli, John (May 2005). "Camera Canada". Canadian Communications Foundation. Archived from the original on 10 June 2011. Retrieved 7 May 2010.
4. ^ Rutherford, Paul (1990). When Television Was Young: Primetime Canada 1952-1967. University of Toronto Press. pp. 421–422. ISBN 0-8020-5830-2.

## External links

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* Allan, Blaine (1996). "Camera Canada". Queen's University. Archived from the original on 24 September 2015. Retrieved 7 May 2010.

*[No.]: Number