For the Record (Canadian TV series) explained
| Genre: | Drama anthology |
| Country: | Canada |
| Language: | English |
| Num Episodes: | 51 |
| Company: | CBC Television |
For the Record is a Canadian television drama anthology series that aired on CBC Television from 1976 to 1985. The series aired docudrama-style television films on contemporary social issues, typically airing between four and six films per year.[1]
After a nearly decade run, the series was cancelled in 1985, although the CBC opted to continue commissioning similar television films as standalone productions, beginning with 1986's Turning to Stone.[2]
Concept
For the Record was intended as a series of dramas which would take an honest look at problems in Canadian society, among them many about mental illness and "flawed social institutions".[3] It evolved out of the anthology series Performance, with some of its early films having been originally announced as entering production for that series before ultimately airing as episodes of For the Record instead.
Critical assessment
Gail Henley remarked in 1985 that For the Record dramas were "information laden" when compared to their more emotional American counterparts and emphasises the importance of research and documentation for the series. As Bill MacVicar put it:
Topicality is both a blessing and a bane for television. Since the time from concept to telecast can be much shorter than for movies, television appears better briefed and more up-to-date. But the voraciousness of the medium encourages clumsy or cynical abuse of topicality; all too often (as in the slack Lou Grant the mere act of raising an issue is assumed to be tantamount to solving it; in other cases, solutions are so slickly simplified that what purports to be an investigation is little more than a case of special pleading. In contrast to this frequent shortcoming, the CBC's For the Record series tends to do justice to the problems it airs.[4]
Episodes
1976
| Number | Title | Director | Writer | Cast | Date |
|---|
| 1 | "The Insurance Man from Ingersoll" | Peter Pearson | Peter Pearson, Norman Hartley | Michael Magee, Charlotte Blunt, Warren Davis, Mavor Moore | 8 February 1976 |
| align=left colspan=6 | An opposition MPP in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario makes explosive charges of political corruption against the government.[5] |
| 2 | "A Nest of Shadows" | Peter Carter | Michael Mercer | Louise Rinfret, Ralph Endersby | 15 February 1976 |
| align=left colspan=6 | |
| 3 | "A Thousand Moons" | Gilles Carle | Mort Forer | Carole Laure, Nick Mancuso, Adeline Coppaway | 29 February 1976 |
| align=left colspan=6 | An elderly Métis woman living in Toronto wants to return to her hometown before her death.[6] |
| 4 | "Kathy Karuks Is a Grizzly Bear" | Peter Pearson | Ralph L. Thomas | Lesley Angus, Red Burnett, Rudi Lipp, Donnelly Rhodes, Dixie Seatle | 7 March 1976 |
| align=left colspan=6 | A swimmer who aspires to perform a marathon swim across Lake Ontario copes with an unscrupulous coach.[7] |
| 5 | "What We Have Here Is a People Problem" | Francis Mankiewicz | Michael Mercer | George Waight, Heath Lamberts | 1976 |
| align=left colspan=6 | | |
1977
| Number | Title | Director | Writer | Cast | Date |
|---|
| 6 | "Maria" | Allan King | Rick Salutin | Diane D'Aquila, Enzina Bertini, Jean Gascon | 9 January 1977 |
| align=left colspan=6 | A woman organizes a labour union.[8] |
| 7 | "Someday Soon..." | Don Haldane | Rudy Wiebe, Barry Pearson | John Vernon | 16 January 1977 |
| align=left colspan=6 | Farmers in Manitoba try to resist a hydroelectric dam development that threatens to flood their land.[9] |
| 8 | "Dreamspeaker" | Claude Jutra | Anne Cameron | Ian Tracey, George Clutesi | 23 January 1977 |
| align=left colspan=6 | Adaptation of Anne Cameron's novel Dreamspeaker.[10] |
| 9 | "Hank" | Don Haldane | Don Bailey, Ralph L. Thomas | Bob Warner | 30 January 1977 |
| align=left colspan=6 | |
| 10 | "Ada" | Claude Jutra | Claude Jutra, Margaret Gibson | Janet Amos, Jayne Eastwood, David Fox | 6 February 1977 |
| align=left colspan=6 | Several women struggle in the mental health system.[11] |
| 11 | "The Tar Sands" | Peter Pearson | Peter Pearson, Peter Rowe, Ralph L. Thomas | Kenneth Welsh, Ken Pogue | 12 September 1977 |
| align=left colspan=6 | | |
1978
| Number | Title | Director | Writer | Cast | Date |
|---|
| 12 | "A Matter of Choice"[12] | Francis Mankiewicz | Anne Cameron | Michael Ironside, Roberta Maxwell, Fiona Reid, Gary Reineke | 29 January 1978 |
| align=left colspan=6 | After being sexually assaulted by her acquaintance David (Reineke), Carol (Maxwell) struggles with the moral and legal complexities of whether to report her assault to the police. |
| 13 | "Scoop"[13] | Anthony Perris | Douglas Bowie | Scott Hylands, Lloyd Bochner, Deborah Templeton, Sabina Maydelle | 12 February 1978 |
| align=left colspan=6 | |
| 14 | "Dying Hard"[14] | Don Haldane | Bill Gough | Neil Munro, Clyde Rose, Claude Bede, Austin Davis, Estelle Wall | 12 March 1978 |
| align=left colspan=6 | |
| 15 | "Seer Was Here"[15] | Claude Jutra | Claude Jutra, Don Bailey | David Hemblen, Robert Forsythe | 3 December 1978 |
| align=left colspan=6 | | |
1979
1980
| Number | Title | Director | Writer | Cast | Date |
|---|
| 22 | "The Winnings of Frankie Walls" | Martin Lavut | Rob Forsyth | Al Waxman, Chapelle Jaffe | 2 March 1980 |
| align=left colspan=6 | Blue collar worker Frankie Walls (Waxman) struggles to find a new job after being laid off. |
| 23 | "Harvest" | Giles Walker | Rob Forsyth | Jan Rubeš | 9 March 1980 |
| align=left colspan=6 | |
| 24 | "Maintain the Right" | Les Rose | Tony Sheer | Laurie Brown, Nicholas Campbell | 16 March 1980 |
| align=left colspan=6 | After political activist Jane Kohl's (Brown) apartment is robbed, RCMP officer Tom Kelby (Campbell) is forced to decide whether to stand with her in the face of evidence that his superiors may be engaging in surveillance of Jane.[18] |
| 25 | "A Question of the Sixth" | Graham Parker | Grahame Woods | Lawrence Dane, Maureen McRae | 23 March 1980 |
| align=left colspan=6 | Garnet Burton (Dane), a middle-aged hog breeder, fights to be allowed to die by assisted suicide after being diagnosed with terminal cancer.[19] |
| 26 | "Lyon's Den" | Graham Parker | Tony Sheer | Mary Bellows, James Blendick, Mogens Gander | 1980 |
| align=left colspan=6 | | |
1981
| Number | Title | Director | Writer | Cast | Date |
|---|
| 27 | "A Far Cry from Home" | Gordon Pinsent | Helen Weils, Bill Gough | Mary Ann McDonald, Richard Monette | 1 February 1981 |
| align=left colspan=6 | |
| 28 | "Snowbird" | Peter Pearson | Margaret Atwood | Robert Christie, Jayne Eastwood, Doris Petrie | 8 February 1981 |
| align=left colspan=6 | |
| 29 | "The Running Man" | Donald Brittain | Anna Sandor | Chuck Shamata, Barbara Gordon, Colm Feore, Kate Trotter | 22 February 1981 |
| align=left colspan=6 | A married man struggles to come to terms with his homosexuality.[20] |
| 30 | "Cop" | Al Waxman | Grahame Woods | | 8 March 1981 |
| align=left colspan=6 | |
| 31 | "Final Edition" | Peter Rowe | Tony Sheer | Alan Scarfe, Neil Munro, Donald Davis, Robert Clothier, Michael Hogan | 22 March 1981 |
| align=left colspan=6 | A media company decides to shut down its long-running flagship newspaper.[21] | |
1982
| Number | Title | Director | Writer | Cast | Date |
|---|
| 32 | "An Honourable Member" | Donald Brittain | Roy MacGregor | Fiona Reid, Don Francks, Eric House | 28 February 1982 |
| align=left colspan=6 | Trish Baldwin, a backbench Member of Parliament, is named to the Cabinet of Canada but struggles to balance her political ambitions with her personal integrity when she has to defend a major government project in her riding to which she is personally opposed.[22] |
| 33 | "By Reason of Insanity" | Donald Shebib | David McLaren | Patricia Collins, John Wildman, Hrant Alianak | 7 March 1982 |
| align=left colspan=6 | Psychiatrists try to evaluate whether or not an accused murderer is insane.[23] |
| 34 | "High Card" | Bill Gough | Anna Sandor | Chuck Shamata, Celine Lomez, Helen Hughes | 14 March 1982 |
| align=left colspan=6 | A photographer gets himself into financial trouble by overusing his credit cards.[24] |
| 35 | "Becoming Laura" | Martin Lavut | Gordon Knot | Jennifer Jewison, Tom McCamus, Shelley Thompson | 21 March 1982 |
| align=left colspan=6 | A troubled teenager tries to establish her identity.[25] |
| 36 | "Blind Faith" | John Trent, Jack Nixon-Browne | Ian Sutherland | Sneezy Waters, Florence Paterson, Peter MacNeill, Martha Burns | 28 March 1982 |
| align=left colspan=6 | Marge Aylesworth (Paterson) inherits her late husband's horse racing business.[26] | |
1983
1984
1985
| Number | Title | Director | Writer | Cast | Date |
|---|
| 47 | "The Boy Next Door" | John Hunter | John Hunter | Chris Owens, Chapelle Jaffe, Michael Hogan | 10 February 1985 |
| align=left colspan=6 | A mother struggles to cope with the behaviour of her troubled teenage son.[30] |
| 48 | "Where the Heart Is" | Carol Moore Ede | Suzette Couture | Margo Kane, Gary Farmer, Tantoo Cardinal, Tom Jackson | 23 February 1985 |
| align=left colspan=6 | After divorcing from her white husband, an indigenous woman discovers that she has lost her First Nations status. |
| 49 | "The Front Line" | Douglas Jackson | Ken Mitchell | Brent Carver, Monique Mercure | 3 March 1985 |
| align=left colspan=6 | An activist priest encourages his congregation to protest a local factory which is manufacturing parts for military equipment. |
| 50 | "Tools of the Devil" | Peter Yalden-Thomson | Don Truckey | Marc Strange, Heath Lamberts | 10 March 1985 |
| align=left colspan=6 | A journalist (Strange) tries to investigate the secret agenda of a politician (Lamberts).[31] |
| 51 | "The Exile" | Gordon Pinsent | Michael Mercer, Peter Lower | Denis Akiyama, Robert Ito, Hiroshi Nakashimi, Jim McLarty | 15 September 1985 |
| align=left colspan=6 | Three generations of a Japanese Canadian family deal with the ongoing consequences of the Japanese Canadian internment in World War II.[32] | |
Notes and References
- "Lightyears ahead". Cinema Canada, March 1977.
- Sid Adilman, "Movie dramatizes horrors of prison". Toronto Star, February 21, 1986.
- Book: Collins . Richard . Culture, Communication and National Identity: The Case of Canadian Television . 1990 . University of Toronto Press . 0802027334 . https://books.google.com/books?id=DNjlDQAAQBAJ&q=%22For+the+Record%22&pg=PT461 . 4 July 2020 . National culture; or, Where is here?.
- MacVicar . Bill . Reach for the topical . . 1 March 1982 . 5 July 2020.
- "Everything but reality in TV show". The Globe and Mail, 5 February 1976.
- "Important' CBC drama still dreary". The Globe and Mail, 27 February 1976.
- "Dynamo filmmaker with a patriot's passion: For Peter Pearson the only word is win". The Globe and Mail, 13 March 1976.
- "TV drama explores union organizing". Toronto Star, 4 January 1977.
- "Docu-dramas: reality meets fiction". The Globe and Mail, 15 January 1977.
- "TV choice". Toronto Star, 22 January 1977.
- "Jutra brings warmth, humanity to mental hospital drama". The Globe and Mail, 5 February 1977.
- "Reality of rape in CBC drama". The Globe and Mail, 28 January 1978.
- "CBC's slick journalistic drama carries a Hollywood trademark". The Globe and Mail, 11 February 1978.
- "Has docu-drama gone too far?". The Globe and Mail, 11 March 1978.
- "Prison show deserves at least a life sentence". The Globe and Mail, 3 December 1978.
- "Cementhead is minor league". The Globe and Mail, 17 February 1979.
- "Tangled tale tedious". The Globe and Mail, 17 March 1979.
- Betty Swimmings, "RCMP drama misses mark". Ottawa Citizen, March 14, 1980.
- Stephen Gauer, "Mercy killing as high drama". Ottawa Journal, March 22, 1980.
- "Shamata to play in CBC TV drama". The Globe and Mail, 16 July 1980.
- [Gerald Pratley]
- "Fiona Reid enters the political arena". The Globe and Mail, 27 February 1982.
- "Trained shrinks sent in to score for the defence: Does insanity excuse murder?". The Globe and Mail, 6 March 1982.
- "Failure of comic touches deals High Card a fatal blow". The Globe and Mail, 13 March 1982.
- "Torturers and the tortured go on record in TV special". The Globe and Mail, 20 March 1982.
- "Sneezy Waters won't let success go to his head". The Globe and Mail, 26 November 1983.
- "Pinsent's past helped with role in farm drama". Broadcast Week, 5 March 1983.
- Carlo Coppola, "Reviewed Work: "Reasonable Force". Television drama for the series "For the Record," by BRIAN KIT MCLEOD, PETER LOWER". Journal of South Asian Literature Vol. 21, No. 1, SOUTH ASIAN WOMEN WRITERS: THE IMMIGRANT EXPERIENCE (Winter, Spring 1986), pp. 181-185.
- "In black and white". The Globe and Mail, 18 February 1984.
- "Record shows rare gems, many duds". The Globe and Mail, 23 February 1985.
- "Producer knows how to use 'tools' of trade". The Globe and Mail, 9 March 1985.
- "Pinsent proves again that he can do it all". Broadcast Week, 7 September 1985.
