Alien Thunder | |
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![]() Video cover | |
Directed by | Claude Fournier |
Written by | George Malko |
Produced by | Marie-José Raymond |
Starring | Donald Sutherland Gordon Tootoosis Chief Dan George Kevin McCarthy Jean Duceppe |
Cinematography | Claude Fournier |
Edited by | Yves Langlois |
Music by | Georges Delerue |
Production company | Onyx Films |
Distributed by | Ambassador Film Distributors (Canada) American International Pictures (USA release) Cinerama Releasing Corporation |
Release date |
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Running time | 93 minutes |
Country | Canada |
Language | English |
Budget | $1,500,000 |
Alien Thunder (also known as Dan Candy's Law) is a 1974 Canadian Northern film directed by Claude Fournier and starring Donald Sutherland, Gordon Tootoosis, Chief Dan George, and Kevin McCarthy. Its original screenplay was written by W.O. Mitchell but Mitchell removed his name from the final release due to changes that were made. [1]
Set in the North-West Territories in the 1890s after the North-West Rebellion, Alien Thunder is based on a true story about a Woods Cree (Gordon Tootoosis in his first film role) who kills a North-West Mounted Police sergeant (Kevin McCarthy) under desperate circumstances. Hunted for two years by the sergeant's resolute partner (Donald Sutherland), the ending brings tragedy for all those involved.
The film is based on the interaction between a young Cree man, Almighty Voice, and the NWMP. Tootoosis's character is based on Almighty Voice, while McCarthy's character is based on Sergeant Colin C. Colebrook of the NWMP, who was killed by Almighty Voice in 1895. Sutherland's character is based on one of the Mounties who tracked down Almighty Voice in 1897.
The first version of the screenplay for Alien Thunder was written by W. O. Mitchell, a noted Saskatchewan author. However, as filming progressed and changes were made, he asked that his name not be used on the finished version. He was reported to have said: "It’s just not mine anymore." [2]
Alien Thunder was filmed in Saskatchewan at Battleford, Duck Lake, St. Isidore de Bellevue, and Saskatoon. During filming, Sutherland hired a local woman who ran a coffee shop in Bellevue to cook for him during the production, as there were few options for eating out in the small town. [3]
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police, which had originally seen the film as a centrepiece of its 1973 centennial celebrations, withdrew its backing. Sutherland stated that Fournier’s direction of the movie was "wretched". [4]
The film was not a financial success. [5] "Suspense is lacking and characters are generally underdeveloped, as is the tension between the Mounties and the Indians.", stated Natalie Edwards for Cinema Canada.[ page needed ]
An article in Luma found that "Though it laudably uses Indigenous (and principally Cree) actors and some of the Cree language, Alien Thunder is ultimately a film about Mounties and settlers; as sympathetic as it may be to the Cree, they are, as the native peoples of the Americas tend to be in Westerns, reduced to supporting players in their own story. " [1]
The film was also released in the United States, under the name Dan Candy's Law.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police is the national police service of Canada. The RCMP is an agency of the Government of Canada; it also provides police services under contract to 11 provinces and territories, over 150 municipalities, and 600 Indigenous communities. The RCMP is commonly known as the Mounties in English.
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Pîhtokahanapiwiyin, also known as Poundmaker, was a Plains Cree chief known as a peacemaker and defender of his people, the Poundmaker Cree Nation. His name denotes his special craft at leading buffalo into buffalo pounds (enclosures) for harvest.
Claude Fournier was a Canadian film director, screenwriter, editor and cinematographer. He is one of the forerunners of the Cinema of Quebec. He was the twin brother of Guy Fournier.
Chief Dan George was a chief of the Tsleil-Waututh Nation, a Coast Salish band whose Indian reserve is located on Burrard Inlet in the southeast area of the District of North Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. He also was an actor, musician, poet and author. The Chief's best-known written work is My Heart Soars. As an actor, he is best remembered for portraying Old Lodge Skins opposite Dustin Hoffman in Little Big Man (1970), for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, and for his role in The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976), as Lone Watie, opposite Clint Eastwood.
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Gordon Tootoosis, was a First Nations actor of Cree and Stoney descent. Tootoosis was a descendant of Yellow Mud Blanket, brother of the famous Cree leader Pîhtokahanapiwiyin. He was acclaimed for his commitment to preserving his culture and to telling his people's stories. He once said, "Leadership is about submission to duty, not elevation to power." He served as a founding member of the board of directors of the Saskatchewan Native Theatre Company. Tootoosis offered encouragement, support and training to aspiring Aboriginal actors. He served as a leading Cree activist both as a social worker and as a band chief. In Open Season and Boog and Elliot's Midnight Bun Run, Tootoosis was the voice of Sheriff Gordy.
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The Northern or Northwestern is a genre in various arts that tell stories set primarily in the late 19th or early 20th century in the north of North America, primarily in western Canada but also in Alaska. It is similar to the Western genre, but many elements are different, as appropriate to its setting. It is common for the central character to be a Mountie instead of a cowboy or sheriff. Other common characters include fur trappers and traders, lumberjacks, prospectors, First Nations people, outlaws, settlers, and townsfolk.
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Saskatchewan is a 1954 American Northern adventure film directed by Raoul Walsh and starring Alan Ladd, Shelley Winters and J. Carrol Naish. It was produced and distributed by Universal Pictures. The title refers to Fort Saskatchewan in present-day Alberta, Canada. Shooting took place in Banff National Park not far from the headwaters of the Saskatchewan River.
The Rocky Mountain Rangers were one of the volunteer militia units raised in Canada's North West in response to the 1885 North-West Rebellion. It was a body of mounted irregulars, mostly cowboys and ranchers from the area around Fort Macleod, the headquarters of the North-West Mounted Police (NWMP) at the base of the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, about 150 miles (240 km) west of Medicine Hat. This unit is not to be confused with the present-day Canadian Army Reserve unit The Rocky Mountain Rangers of Kamloops, British Columbia. Rather, it is the ultimate ancestor of the South Alberta Light Horse (SALH).
Tyrone Tootoosis was a Plains Cree storyteller, activist, culture keeper and dancer. He was born on May 9, 1958, in Canada on the Samson Reserve in Maskwacis, Alberta and raised on the Poundmaker Cree Nation Reserve in Saskatchewan. He was a member of the Tootoosis family and was a descendant of Yellow Mud Blanket, a brother of Pîhtokahanapiwiyin, also known as Chief Poundmaker. His grandfather was John Tootoosis, who was an activist for First Nations rights and founder of the Saskatchewan Indian Federation and he was the first born son of Wilfred Tootoosis, a historian and storyteller and Irene B. Tootoosis. He was married to Winona Wheeler, a professor of Indigenous studies at the University of Saskatchewan. Actor Gordon Tootoosis was his uncle.
Almighty Voice, was a member of the One Arrow Willow Cree and a fugitive. He is best known for evading the North-West Mounted Police for over nineteen months, his standoff against them, and his eventual death from the fight in 1897.