More Manitoba in Film: Mantrap (1926)

1926 movie poster (source)

I've profiled a couple of Manitoba's brushes with early Hollywood in the 1943 film 49th Parallel and 1953s Die Hölle von Manitoba. Now let's go wayyyy back to the '20s !

Lewis ca. 1922 (source)

In summer 1924 the noted American author (and future Nobel winner) Sinclair Lewis came to Manitoba to "regain his mental poise" after writing of a string of popular novels such as Main Street and Babbitt. Some media took that to mean that he suffered a nervous breakdown, one even reported that he had become an invalid, but his numerous appearances around Winnipeg proved the rumours incorrect.

Lewis and his brother Claude arrived in Winnipeg on June 6, 1924 and spent three days at the Royal Alexandra Hotel. While there he gave an interview to the Free Press saying that his intention was to get away to the wilderness. As a native of Sauk Center, Minneapolis, a town north-west of Minneapolis, the outdoors were no stranger to him.

Winnipeg Free Press, May 29, 1924

While in the city Lewis spoke at a Kiwanis luncheon at the Hotel Fort Garry, visited the General Hospital, got a tour of the Tuxedo Barracks and heard the PPCLI band play. He had a tour of the Legislature that was cut short when he was overhead saying to his guide that 'all buildings looked alike' to him. On his final day in the city he visited Stony Mountain penitentiary (no word if he met with inmates but he did spend 'several hours' there).

It was then off to The Pas by train where he met up with the federal government's Treaty Party Number 10 which was touring central Manitoba and Saskatchewan by canoe. Stops included Lac La Ronge and Prince Albert, a nearly 3,000 km journey !

On July 26, 1924 the Lewis' arrived back in Winnipeg and after a quiet weekend stay set off home to Minnesota.

Promo for Canadian release of the novel, July 1926

The following year Sinclair Lewis released the novel Mantrap inspired by his wilderness adventure.

The story is set near the fictional northern Canadian village of Mantrap, (that place name actually exists but in rural Minnesota). Most publicity material of the day said that the setting was Northern Manitoba, though some later writings say that it's based in La Ronge Saskatchewan.

The story is that of a burned out New York City divorce lawyer who goes on vacation to the Canadian wilderness to find some peace. On his travels he meets and falls for a lovely woman who was once a 'big city girl' but is now married to a trapper who is happy with bush life. What will our big city boy do ? Which man would she choose ?

Released in the U.S. in 1925 and Canada in 1926 the book was a hit. Paramount bought the rights and wanted to cash in on them right away as Lewis novels did well at the box office.

The movie, also named Mantrap, brought together director Victor Fleming with actors Clara Bow, Ernest Torrence (as the trader) and Percy Marmont (as the trapper).

Clara Bow was one of Hollywood's hottest actors at the time. She was the quintessential 'flapper girl' of 1920s on-screen and off. Wild, fun, sexy and sporting a short bob and skirts. As the 20s went on her party-girl roles became more demanding and Mantrap was considered a 'transition piece' to meatier parts.

The film was shot in California, though Canadian Literary Landmarks says that cinematographer James Wong Howe did come to Manitoba to shoot some footage.

The film opened in the U.S. in July 1926 and in Winnipeg at The Capitol on September 4, 1926. The film was another hit for Lewis.

Many involved with Mantrap went on to do great things.

Sinclair Lewis won the 1926 Pulitzer Prize (which he turned down) for Arrowsmith. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1930, a first for an American author.

In 1927 Clara Bow starred in "It" and the term "The It Girl" would forever be her trademark phrase. Mantrap did prove a stepping stone to more serious work as she landed the lead female role in Wings (1927) which won the first-ever Oscar for Outstanding Picture. Sadly, Bow's career came to a halt the day the stock market crashed in 1929. The happy, flirty, flapper image that she and her studio carefully cultivated through the 1920s was immediately deemed passé and even vulgar.

Fleming went on to direct a number of Hollywood classics including The Wizard of Oz and Gone with the Wind. For the latter he won the Academy Award for Best Director.

Related:
Video Clip TCM.com (7 min)
Mantrap - the full book online
Mantrap Movie Page Silents are Golden
The Sinclair Lewis Society

Manitoba is hell in Die Hölle von Manitoba

In 1943 a pure and good Manitoba was invaded by the Germans in 49th Parallel. A decade later ... (cue movie trailer voice-over guy) ... Manitoba was just. Plain. Hell ....

Die Hölle von Manitoba (the Hell of Manitoba) was a 1953 West German Western. It wasn't shot here and not really set in Manitoba as we know it. It was a generic town in the generic American 'wild west'. Strangely, the title of the English release had the opposite meaning: A Place Called Glory where, it seems, that the town's name is Glory and Manitoba is relegated to some regional reference.

The story follows two gunfighters who meet in a neighbouring town and decide to team up to rid Manitoba / Glory of a particularly bad crime problem. Little do they know that by being the two fastest gunslingers in town they must face each other in a duel to the death at the town's annual celebration.

"Manitoba" was one of five West-German westerns by the same producer and starred former Tarzan actor Lex Barker. To see a video clip from Die Hölle von Manitoba.

It was Manitoba's second appearance in West German pop culture in two years. In 1951 West German tennis star-turned singer and actress Marika Kilius had a hit with Zwei Indianer Aus Winnipeg (Two Indians from Winnipeg). Here is the 1963 version - I couldn't find one from 1951 so I am not sure if the ditty got better or worse with age.

Why Manitoba / Winnipeg references ? I've blogged before about Europeans loving stuff called Winnipeg.

Manitoba's Oscar winning past: 49th Parallel

Okay, here's a bit of movie trivia for you. What 1943 Oscar-winning movie was set and had many sequences filmed in Manitoba ?

Claimed at the time to be the the first major motion picture set and filmed in Canada, the British production 49th Parallel, (released in the U.S. as The Invaders), had Manitoba aflutter for a few weeks in the summer of 1940. Leslie Howard, Lawrence Olivier, Glynis Johns, Canadian actor Raymond Massey, (former Winnipegger) Carla Lehmann and Director Michael Powell were just some of the Hollywood elite that stayed at the Royal Alexandra Hotel at Higgins and Main during filming.

The storyline, in a nutshell: a Nazi U-boat ends up in Hudson Bay and is spotted by officials, German crew ditch it and try to make their way south to the 49th parallel and a still-neutral U.S.. Along the way they encounter good, upstanding Manitoba folk including French fur traders, 'Eskimos' and, of course, Hutterites !

Filming near Elie (source)

The film shot in a number of Western Canadian locales, including bits in B.C. and Saskatchewan, but Manitoba was home to most of the action. Locations included the banks of Hudson Bay, a Hutterite Colony near Elie and the area around Lac du Bonnet.

Winnipeg had a role as well. A number of local scenes were shot, including one involving 5,000 extras at Stevenson Field (the Winnipeg International Airport) but in the final version of the film, local media lamented, many of the urban scenes were cut out in favour of the rural ones. (Check out the 3 minute mark and 1h 13m mark for urban footage !)

49th Parallell was nominated for three Academy Awards in 1943 including Best Picture, the first time a British-made film earned that nomination.

On March 4, 1943 at the Coconut Grove of the Ambassador Hotel, Emeric Pressburger won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. Not bad considering it was up against the likes of Irving Berlin for Holiday Inn, the Lou Gehrig film Pride of the Yankees and Yankee Doodle Dandy. (The Powell / Pressburger partnership would go on to collaborate on over a dozen films).

It was a propaganda movie for sure but, as director Powell told the Tribune, "...all films, all books are propaganda in a sense. Every creative work of art must take sides on some issue".

It opened locally at the Capitol Theatre on January 15, 1943 to pretty good reviews from local papers despite the loss of local content. 

The film still pops up for discussion on classic movie sites. One calls it "one of the best-formulated propaganda movies of the war" and Movie-Film Review.com put it in their top 100 list of WWII movies.

Footnotes:

Source

- A sad note to the film involves Leslie Falardeau, a local teen with a fascination for photography and filming. He got himself a role as both a camera assistant and a double for Raymond Massey in a few scenes (above).

Source

In the time between filming and the film's premiere, he became Sargent Falardeau and was killed in action in October 1941. He never saw his work on the big screen.

- The sometimes over-the-top French Canadian accent used by Olivier was taught to him by a Quebecois soldier stationed in London who was assigned to the actor.

- Leslie Howard was killed when his plane was shot down by Nazis in WWII just a couple of years after making this film. He was a war correspondent for the BBC but rumours at the time were that he was also working in the higher levels of British Intelligence.

- Winnipeg-born and raised, though British-based, actress Carla Lehmann came to film scenes as an air stewardess. In the end, though, her scenes were left on the cutting room floor.

Related: 
49th Parallel full movie !
Hutterites Warm up to film folk Winnipeg Tribune Aug. 9, 1940
Film to depict Canada Today Winnipeg Tribune Aug. 9, 1940
49th Parallel Movie Trivia The Powell and Pressburger Pages