| A Pacemaker and a Sidecar | |
| Native Name: | |
| Director: | André Forcier |
| Producer: | Bernard Lalonde |
| Starring: | Jean Lapointe |
| Music: | André Duchesne |
| Cinematography: | François Gill |
| Editing: | André Corriveau |
| Studio: | Les Productions André Forcier ACPAV |
| Runtime: | 94 minutes |
| Country: | Canada |
| Language: | French |
A Pacemaker and a Sidecar (French: L'Eau chaude, l'eau frette, lit. "Hot Water, Cold Water") is a Canadian black comedy film, directed by André Forcier and released in 1976.[1]
The film centres on a group of residents of a rooming house in a working class neighbourhood in Montreal, who have gathered for the birthday party of their landlord Polo (Jean Lapointe), a local crime boss and loan shark.[2] The guests at the party include Amédée (Albert Payette) and Panama (Guy L'Écuyer), a gay couple who cater the party, and Carmen (Sophie Clément), a woman who owes Polo money for her daughter Francine's (Louise Gagnon) pacemaker and decides to pay the debt off with sex.[3] Meanwhile, Francine and her boyfriend Ti-Guy (Réjean Audet), who both dislike Polo, hatch a plot to kill him which backfires when another guest at the party dies instead.
The film premiered in the Directors' Fortnight program at the 1976 Cannes Film Festival,[4] and was later screened at the 1976 Festival of Festivals.[5] Its screening at Toronto sparked a dispute between the festival and the national Film Festivals Bureau, with festival organizers claiming that they had been denied a screening on the grounds that the festival was too new and unimportant,[6] while the Festivals Bureau claimed that it was simply a scheduling conflict, as the film's sole English print had already been booked by the Chicago International Film Festival, which was running at the same time as Toronto's festival.[5] A compromise was reached whereby the print was shipped to Toronto for a screening in the early part of the festival, so that it could then be sent back to Chicago in time for that festival's scheduled screening.[5]
Due to a technical issue with the film's original print, which was not noticed by theatrical audiences but became visible only when the film was transferred to higher-definition digital formats, it remained unavailable for many years on DVD or streaming platforms.[4] A full digital restoration of the film was released to streaming platforms in April 2020.[7]