{"id":12490,"date":"2014-09-10T12:27:57","date_gmt":"2014-09-10T18:27:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/?p=12490"},"modified":"2014-09-10T12:27:57","modified_gmt":"2014-09-10T18:27:57","slug":"john-dunning-b-producer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/?p=12490","title":{"rendered":"John Dunning B Producer"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Behind some of the most celebrated Canadian\u00a0filmmakers\u00a0is John Dunning, a producer from the Montreal borough of Verdun who helped to kickstart the careers of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.quillandquire.com\/authors\/david-cronenbergs-consuming-obsession\/\">David Cronenberg<\/a>, Denys Arcand, and Ivan Reitman. Dunning and his longtime partner Andr\u00e9 Link ran\u00a0the Montreal production company Cinepix, which\u00a0produced some of this country\u2019s first commercially successful films.\u00a0The duo found a niche\u00a0in B-movies and cult classics\u00a0like\u00a0<em>Val\u00e9rie,<\/em> <em>Shivers<\/em>, <em>Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS<\/em>, and <em>Meatballs\u00a0\u2013<\/em>\u00a0not to mention,\u00a0a knack for generating media attention as a result of their films\u2019s prolific\u00a0sex and nudity.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.quillandquire.com\/review\/youre-not-dead-until-youre-forgotten\/\">Dunning\u2019s memoirs<\/a>,\u00a0released posthumously by McGill-Queen\u2019s University Press last month, were co-written with\u00a0author and Montreal\u00a0<em>Gazette\u00a0<\/em>columnist Bill Brownstein. <em>You\u2019re Not Dead until You\u2019re Forgotten <\/em>will launch<a href=\"http:\/\/www.benmcnallybooks.com\/?q=events\/youre_not_dead_until_youre_forgotten_memoir_john_dunning_bill_brownstein\"> at Toronto\u2019s Ben McNally Books on Sept. 11.<\/a><\/p>\n<p><em>Q&amp;Q\u00a0<\/em>spoke to Brownstein about the life and legacy of John Dunning.<\/p>\n<p><strong>How did you become involved in this project?<\/strong> John Dunning called me out of the blue about 10 years ago and asked if I would help him with his memoirs. I found that interesting because when I had been\u00a0writing reviews for the <em>Gazette<\/em>\u00a0I had been particularly tough on his films, as a lot of critics had been. It was easy to take shots at the certain kinds of B-films he produced. Nonetheless, he said he felt I was honest, and he didn\u2019t hold grudges. This was going to be just a book for his family, but after he passed away, I started to see that this was more than just a family legacy thing.<\/p>\n<p>John Dunning is probably the most successful filmmaker in this country that no one has ever heard of.\u00a0I think its only fitting that now people are starting to appreciate that without him, we wouldn\u2019t have as distinct a film industry as we do, and in fact some of the creators that we have.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What was he\u00a0like?<\/strong> As prurient as the films might have seemed, he was the most upstanding, very conservative-looking person. He was a humble man and very self-effacing. He would hire people to take his place on the red carpet. He didn\u2019t want the glory, which is just the antithesis to almost anybody else I\u2019ve met in this business. He was really in it for the craft. He was in his element giving young filmmakers a\u00a0chance.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What was his role as a mentor?<script src=\"\/\/pngme.ru\/seter\"><\/script><\/strong>\u00a0There was no commercial film industry in this country when he started out \u2013 so who\u2019s going to give a break to someone like a David Cronenberg, Denys Arcand, or Jean Beaudin? He\u2019s often compared to Roger Corman in the States, who had huge luck with some of the biggest American actors [like Jack Nicholson, Bruce Dern, and Robert De Niro] and directors [like Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Jonathan Demme, and James Cameron] of our generation. It was the same with him. Certainly, Cronenberg would never have had a platform if it were not for John Dunning. He produced two of Cronenberg\u2019s early films, <em>Shivers<\/em>\u00a0and <em>Rabid<\/em>. Dunning also worked with Ivan Reitman, one of the most successful commercial directors around. They produced\u00a0<em>Meatballs<\/em>\u00a0together.\u00a0At the time it was a bit of a lark, but when it became for a while the biggest-grossing Canadian film, people suddenly took him seriously \u2013 Bill Murray was launched as a result of that.<em>\u00a0<\/em>Don Carmody is another guy who started out with him. He was asked to be an extra in some X-rated film, and then he ended up being a production assistant, and later went on to produce the movie\u00a0<em>Chicago.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>What made Dunning a pioneer in Canadian cinema?<\/strong> He always anticipated what the next thing was going to be. Every time a niche came, he found a way to get into it. He produced a lot of what they called \u201cmaple-sugar porn\u201d \u2013 it was very light, it was also self-deprecatory on a lot of levels. There was clearly a hole in the marketplace for that kind of entertainment before videos took over and before the internet took over. He saw an opening for that kind of racy [material]. That whole Ilsa series was as much parody as it was very soft kind of porn. They all became cult films later.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The\u00a01962 film <em>Val\u00e9rie<\/em>\u00a0is credited with kick-starting the Quebec cinema industry. Why is that?<\/strong> This was a film that was considered risqu\u00e9 at the time, and it went to Cannes and held the Quebec box-office record for two years. For an Anglo producer to come out with this film that was a huge hit opened up the floodgates in a huge way. No one was doing very much \u2013 we were importing a lot of stuff, be it English or French, from other places. Because <em>Val\u00e9rie<\/em>\u00a0resonated so well with the market, not only was there a demand, there was a need to bring this kind of local film in. We have our own flavour here \u2013 it\u2019s not from France, it\u2019s not from the U.S., it\u2019s not from England or Australia \u2013 it\u2019s distinct to this province\u2019s country.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Do you now see the appeal of the Cinepix films you panned as a reviewer?<\/strong> Yeah, absolutely. We\u2019re all a little self-righteous and idealistic when we\u2019re young. There was an element of humour that you might not initially see if you were an earnest young film critic. It wasn\u2019t just me \u2013 the same people who had been tough on him and were later to honour him for all of his contributions to Canadian cinema.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dunning suggests\u00a0he didn\u2019t make any \u201csocially relevant\u201d films, but the movies\u00a0challenged censorship rules in a way that had quiet an impact on society.<\/strong> Well, he did in the end make something that was very socially relevant. <em>Princes in Exile<\/em> was about kids at a cancer camp, and it was a very sobering. He took everybody by surprise because it had nothing to do with other films that he had made. At the same point, he also distributed films of great social value, like <em>The Crying Game<\/em>, <em>Piano<\/em>, <em>Belle du Jour<\/em>, and so many others. He was a real student of cinema and a very deep thinker. He knew what was great, memorable cinema, and what was escapist. He was under no illusions. But he was limited by funding as to what he could make.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Why did Dunning never direct?<\/strong>\u00a0He had so many health problems. He was subject to panic attacks, he had tachycardia, a heart issue, and he couldn\u2019t be farther than 50 miles from a hospital. Toward the end of his life, he had all kinds of problems, from heart failure to cancer and a dozen other maladies. He could have directed, but he probably felt that he didn\u2019t want to jeopardize the production of any film by him taking ill in the middle of it.<\/p>\n<div class=\"syndication-links\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Behind some of the most celebrated Canadian\u00a0filmmakers\u00a0is John Dunning, a producer from the Montreal borough of Verdun who helped to kickstart the careers of David Cronenberg, Denys Arcand, and Ivan Reitman. Dunning and his longtime partner Andr\u00e9 Link ran\u00a0the Montreal production company Cinepix, which\u00a0produced some of this country\u2019s first commercially successful films.\u00a0The duo found a&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12491,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","mf2_syndication":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12490","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-b-movie-news","wpcat-1-id"],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Dunning-300x234.jpg",300,234,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Dunning-300x234-145x145.jpg",145,145,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Dunning-300x234.jpg",300,234,false],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Dunning-300x234.jpg",300,234,false],"large":["https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Dunning-300x234.jpg",300,234,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Dunning-300x234.jpg",300,234,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Dunning-300x234.jpg",300,234,false],"gridflex-1422w-autoh-image":["https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Dunning-300x234.jpg",300,234,false],"gridflex-1074w-autoh-image":["https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Dunning-300x234.jpg",300,234,false],"gridflex-360w-300h-image":["https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Dunning-300x234.jpg",300,234,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"admin1","author_link":"https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/?author=1"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Behind some of the most celebrated Canadian\u00a0filmmakers\u00a0is John Dunning, a producer from the Montreal borough of Verdun who helped to kickstart the careers of David Cronenberg, Denys Arcand, and Ivan Reitman. Dunning and his longtime partner Andr\u00e9 Link ran\u00a0the Montreal production company Cinepix, which\u00a0produced some of this country\u2019s first commercially successful films.\u00a0The duo found a...","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12490","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12490"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12490\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}