The Grey Fox

TAKE ONE, June-Sept, 2004 by Blaine Allan

1983 91m director Phillip Borsos, script John Hunter, producer Peter O'Brian, cinematographer Frank Tidy, editor Frank Irvine, music Michael Conway Baker and The Chieftains; with Richard Farnsworth, Jackie Burroughs, Kenneth Pogue, Wayne Robson, Timothy Webber and Gary Reineke

The Grey Fox imagines a mythic past for the Pacific Northwest and British Columbia out of a brief moment in actual history. British Columbia-based director Phillip Borsos draws on local lore as the source of Bill Miner's story, and envisions the U.S. train robber as a courtly gent who still can handle a Colt Peacemaker while he also charms the sweet Canadians of Kamloops. The film finds its soft-spoken Miner in Hollywood stuntman-turned-character-actor Richard Farnsworth and a proto-feminist love interest in photographer Kate Flynn, played by Jackie Burroughs. The script draws on extensive research, historical accounts and court records to give characters measured and dignified voices that sound of the Edwardian era. Beguiling locations, from the Washington coast to the ranch land of the B.C. interior to the eastern foothills, captured with restraint and order by Frank Tidy's camera, convey "a country in transition, filled with beauty and despair." A rendition of the Western, released when Westerns were generally not in vogue, The Grey Fox earned domestic acclaim among Canadian audiences for showing them a corner of Canada's past with both implied authenticity and the fantasy of historical romance, but it was also able to attract international audiences to the story of Miner's quiet invasion.

AWARDS: Genie Awards--Picture, Director, Screenplay, Foreign Actor (Farnsworth), Supporting Actress (Burroughs), Art Direction, Musical Score; Montreal World Film Festival--International Critics Prize, Out-of-Competition Best Canadian Film; London Critics Circle Film Awards--Actor (Farnsworth); Motion Picture Sound Editors, USA--Best Sound Editing; Western Writers of America--Best Movie Script; AV Trust--Masterwork