Town almost a character in Canadian western Gunless
Gunless - a wily Canadian western comedy starring Paul Gross that opens next Friday - might never have made it to the screen had its co-producer, Niv Fichman, the Toronto filmmaker renowned for such high-toned movies as Passchendaele, The Red Violin, Ravel’s Brain and Silk, not stumbled into a mountain-ringed valley during a wine tour of B.C.’s Okanagan region with fellow connoisseurs du vin, former Governor-General Adrienne Clarkson, and writer John Ralston Saul.
“It was beautiful country . . . it looked like a desert surrounded by snow-capped mountains, with lots of dust, and even sagebrush blowing around,” Fichman told the Star.
“I couldn’t believe we were in Canada, in this wonderful restaurant in B.C. wine country. There was something authentically western about it - big blue skies, lots of sunshine. I promised myself that if I ever made a western, this would be the perfect location.”
As it turned out, Fichman soon found himself working on a script with Vancouver writer-director Bill Phillips and co-producer Steve Hedges, about an American outlaw, the Montana Kid (Gross), who inadvertently winds up in a tiny hamlet, Barclay’s Brush (pop. 17), on the northern side of the U.S.-Canada border in the late 1800s, a place where handguns are illegal and gunslingers have no cachet.
“Everyone was thinking we should shoot in Alberta, till I remembered this little valley in B.C.,” Fichman said. “When the others saw it, there was no doubt about where Barclay’s Brush would be built.”
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“It was beautiful country . . . it looked like a desert surrounded by snow-capped mountains, with lots of dust, and even sagebrush blowing around,” Fichman told the Star.
“I couldn’t believe we were in Canada, in this wonderful restaurant in B.C. wine country. There was something authentically western about it - big blue skies, lots of sunshine. I promised myself that if I ever made a western, this would be the perfect location.”
As it turned out, Fichman soon found himself working on a script with Vancouver writer-director Bill Phillips and co-producer Steve Hedges, about an American outlaw, the Montana Kid (Gross), who inadvertently winds up in a tiny hamlet, Barclay’s Brush (pop. 17), on the northern side of the U.S.-Canada border in the late 1800s, a place where handguns are illegal and gunslingers have no cachet.
“Everyone was thinking we should shoot in Alberta, till I remembered this little valley in B.C.,” Fichman said. “When the others saw it, there was no doubt about where Barclay’s Brush would be built.”
FULL ARTICLE