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| Binky Marks and Arnold Roberton |
Separate from League Against War and Fascism, Dad and Binky Marks managed to purchase a copy of Sergei Eisenstein’s film The Ten Days That Shook the World, a film based on journalist John Reed’s book about the Russian Revolution. Sometime in 1935 they took it “on the road” in Ontario. Dad recalls:
“It was a long film. I think it was about eight or ten reels. It was based on John Reed’s book of the same name. John Reed, as you know, was a young American journalist who went to Russia to study the Russian Revolution from an academic point of view. It became a very famous book. The film was made and based on that book and directed by Sergei Eisenstein. Binky Marks and I bought a copy of that film down on Broadway, New York. We went down there to interview a man about films and we bought this copy and showed it through Canada, through Ontario.
That was a most interesting phase of my film business because nearly every town that we went into in Ontario refused allowing the showing of any picture of Russia. It was just a wall of blank refusals that we met. So I had to devise a program to overcome that wall of resistance. Other times it was just pass-the-buck resistance – “well it’s alright with me if you see the Chief of Police and get his approval and if you see the Mayor and get his approval”. Always passing-the-buck.... Many times you’d get what you thought was the necessary approval and then the Fire Chief would appear and say you had too many people for the hall. All kinds of open and hidden resistance had to be overcome. I found the most successful tactic was to point out the fact that John Reed’s book was available in every public library in North America. “Now as Mayor, you don’t want to put yourself in the position of banning a film, the book of which is available in every public library.” That was a good one! Any sort of ridicule in the press and it was a successful tactic in dealing with the small political opportunists that were mayors and fire chiefs and police chiefs.
There was tremendous [interest]. Sometimes the fire chiefs had a legitimate complaint! The crowds were so big that it was dangerous. Aisles had to be cleared etc. But the interest at the time was tremendous. Nothing in the press...you know Russians were just a bunch of bastards. People knew nothing about Russia. They’d just been led to believe the North American press that the Russian people were just a bunch of nudnicks walking neck-deep in snow. You know, the idea that Americans have of Canada...so all these prejudices had to be broken down. There were dozens and dozens of cases where they told us we couldn’t proceed with showing a film about Russia but they couldn’t make it stick. We overcame it by open ridicule and sheer logical insistence. There was one case I remember: We said “Well if you don’t allow us to run this film we’ll run another film and I’ll use the platform time explaining to the audience that you wouldn’t allow us to show it and giving your reasons and discuss that aspect of democratic government. They couldn’t stand that. It was most interesting to see the ingenious ways to pass the buck from one department to the other.”
“It was a long film. I think it was about eight or ten reels. It was based on John Reed’s book of the same name. John Reed, as you know, was a young American journalist who went to Russia to study the Russian Revolution from an academic point of view. It became a very famous book. The film was made and based on that book and directed by Sergei Eisenstein. Binky Marks and I bought a copy of that film down on Broadway, New York. We went down there to interview a man about films and we bought this copy and showed it through Canada, through Ontario.
That was a most interesting phase of my film business because nearly every town that we went into in Ontario refused allowing the showing of any picture of Russia. It was just a wall of blank refusals that we met. So I had to devise a program to overcome that wall of resistance. Other times it was just pass-the-buck resistance – “well it’s alright with me if you see the Chief of Police and get his approval and if you see the Mayor and get his approval”. Always passing-the-buck.... Many times you’d get what you thought was the necessary approval and then the Fire Chief would appear and say you had too many people for the hall. All kinds of open and hidden resistance had to be overcome. I found the most successful tactic was to point out the fact that John Reed’s book was available in every public library in North America. “Now as Mayor, you don’t want to put yourself in the position of banning a film, the book of which is available in every public library.” That was a good one! Any sort of ridicule in the press and it was a successful tactic in dealing with the small political opportunists that were mayors and fire chiefs and police chiefs.
There was tremendous [interest]. Sometimes the fire chiefs had a legitimate complaint! The crowds were so big that it was dangerous. Aisles had to be cleared etc. But the interest at the time was tremendous. Nothing in the press...you know Russians were just a bunch of bastards. People knew nothing about Russia. They’d just been led to believe the North American press that the Russian people were just a bunch of nudnicks walking neck-deep in snow. You know, the idea that Americans have of Canada...so all these prejudices had to be broken down. There were dozens and dozens of cases where they told us we couldn’t proceed with showing a film about Russia but they couldn’t make it stick. We overcame it by open ridicule and sheer logical insistence. There was one case I remember: We said “Well if you don’t allow us to run this film we’ll run another film and I’ll use the platform time explaining to the audience that you wouldn’t allow us to show it and giving your reasons and discuss that aspect of democratic government. They couldn’t stand that. It was most interesting to see the ingenious ways to pass the buck from one department to the other.”
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