Bye Bye Blues Hello Happiness
October 1, 1989
By Bruce Kirkland, Sun Media
Bye Bye Blues is what happens when Mother Earth and the Eccentric Angel get together to make a big movie with a little heart and a lot of music.
Mother Earth is Edmonton director Anne Wheeler, a golden-hearted woman who is maturing into one of Canada's most satisfying filmmakers.
The Eccentric Angel is Rebecca Jenkins, an ebullient singer with golden pipes. Formerly a backup vocalist with The Jane Siberry Band and Parachute Club, she is now launching herself both as a solo singer and as an exciting new actress who most certainly will be vying for a 1989 Genie Award.
Jenkins adores Wheeler. The feeling is mutual.
"She is Mother Earth,'' Jenkins enthuses. "She's just so fabulous." Everyone loves her who works with her. You can't not, really!''
Wheeler says she had grave doubts when she first cast such an inexperienced, if willing, actress in her film - "it was a scary thing'' - but now she is delighted with Jenkins' performance.
Bye Bye Blues, the lavish $4.5 million production Wheeler produced, wrote and directed with Jenkins as the star, is set to open in Toronto Oct. 6. It made its world premiere as a Gala at the Festival of Festivals, inspiring a prolonged standing ovation.
Set in the 1940s and based on the experiences of Wheeler's mother, it tells the semi-autobiographical story of what happens to a wife and mother left behind by war when her husband is captured and held incognito by the Japanese for four years.
Far from wallowing in self-pity, the Alberta heroine establishes herself in a local western swing dance band and supports her children alone. Fighting the demons of her attraction to another man - the vagabond American trombonist - she tries to hang onto the fading memory of her great love for her husband. The story is told with an incandescent spirit that elevates the melodrama.
"It was very much unfinished business,'' says Wheeler, who made a 1982 docu-drama called A War Story. That honest, disturbing chronicle told how her late father, Major Ben Wheeler, survived internment in a horrific Japanese prisoner-of-war labor camp in Formosa (now Taiwan). Wheeler, a doctor who never told his family about his experiences, saved many lives and allowed others to die with dignity. The film was based on his exhaustive diaries. He died in 1963 when Anne was 17.
"I wanted to tell both sides of the story in A War Story,'' says Wheeler about her mother, Nell Homer (who plays piano on one of the songs in Bye Bye Blues). "But it was too much material for one film.'' She concentrated on her father's story first. "But it is important to tell the story of women left behind by war. I had never seen a film made on this particular theme. Coming Home is that in some ways but the men in that film are still very much part of the tapestry.''
Bye Bye Blues is not strictly Nell's saga. It serves more broadly as a universal story of the angst and unexpected joys of survival back home.
"If you simplify the story and tell it in a very brief way, it is my mother's story,'' says Wheeler. "It's when you get into the other characters who enter her life and the other situations that come about after she returns to Canada (from India, where Nell was stationed with the major before he transferred to Singapore, where he was captured) and gets well established in the band - that's when the story verges into fiction.''
Wheeler's mother actually teased her daughter about trying to turn her life into a movie. When daughter first announced her intentions, mother said: "Honey, I don't think people are going to want to watch that.''
Daughter wrote the script anyway.
"So I tell her what happens in the story and she just laughs and says: 'I don't know where you get your imagination, dear. It's a better story than mine.' Waiting for five long years for someone can be extremely boring. I couldn't understand what you were going to do with it.' ''
Jenkins remembers that Wheeler refused to even introduce her to Nell Homer at first. Anne wouldn't allow me to meet her mother until we were well into the filming. She said, This is not what I want you to do. I don't want you to imitate her life at all or feel that you have to take on any of my mother's characteristics or anything about her.'
"All that I did was watch a videotape of her mother playing the piano. For the spirit of it, which is what Anne loved, which is what she wanted me to capture. It's her whole stride jazz thing and the joy with which she sang and played the piano.''
Music. Laughter. Humor. The energy bursting from the blues-jazz roots of the swing that the band in the movie plays with such conviction. The paradox of melancholy - people get happy listening to songs such as the title track or Who's Sorry Now, You Made Me Love You, If I Could Be With You and even Bill Henderson's brand new song with that old time feeling, When I Sing.
All these were factors in making the movie itself sing, says Wheeler. As musicians in The Stardusters, the heroine's band, Wheeler cast actors such as Wayne Robson, Stuart Margolin, Francis Damberger and Luke Reilly (as the world-weary wit, Max Gramley, that other man in the heroine's life). Each has a way with a light line of dialogue or an arch of the eyebrow.
With the humor and the music, Wheeler says, "I wanted to life the film because, if you played it straight, people would say: `OH NO! Another prairie Canadian depression movie!"
"I didn't want that because it's not the spirit of the people I know who live in the West. They're very funny, engaging, optimistic survivors, whatever comes their way.''
Jenkins herself is from the West. She is based now in Toronto - with her musician boyfriend Ken Myhr of The Jane Siberry Band - but was born in Innisfail, Alberta, eldest of six children in her family. She could relate to the characters and the story. But, most of all, she could sing!
"She had to sing!'' says Wheeler of casting for the role. But, obviously, Wheeler was worried that Jenkins, who had a small role in her movie Cowboys Don't Cry but had never starred in a feature, was so inexperienced.
"It's a scary thing anyway to have a movie that's going to rest on one person's shoulders, even an experienced actress, and we looked at all of the best actresses in Canada and Canadians living in other countries. I didn't want to make the choice without having looked at everyone, which I did, much to (casting director) Gail Carr's dismay.''
Demanding that the lead actress sing was crucial to making the movie work, says Wheeler. "I made life difficult for everyone but I felt more satisfied myself doing that because the songs in the movie aren't just performed. People don't just get up and sing a song. It's always a dramatic moment so there is a dramatic performance within the song as well as a musical performance. So it had to be that person's voice because they were going to go from singing to talking to reacting. I didn't want to have anyone dubbing a singing voice.''
Still, Jenkins admits Wheeler made her go through hell to win the part. "It's true, I did have to prove myself to her over and over again. It was gruelling and I worked for it really hard. In a way, I think it was good for me because, if you really want something, it makes it so much more valuable when you finally do get it.''
There will be a soundtrack album - a rarity for a Canadian film - but that is just one more factor that pushed the film's budget to such healthy proportions. Few Canadian producers spend $4.5 million on a film. Just don't use the word `lavish' around Wheeler.
"Everybody says: `Oh, it's such a big budget. It's so luxurious to have this much money.'
"But if I tell you how much all the songs cost; if I tell you how much it cost to produce the music; if I tell you how much it cost to go to India (for the film's opening sequences on location in Poona); if I tell you how much it cost to cloth two, four, six hundred extras for dance scenes, in period clothing with their hair done properly and the right shoes on their feet; then it wasn't luxurious at all!''
But the luxury is in the eye of the beholder. Bye Bye Blues is Hello Happiness for audiences as well as the filmmakers.
Back to articles
October 1, 1989
By Bruce Kirkland, Sun Media
Bye Bye Blues is what happens when Mother Earth and the Eccentric Angel get together to make a big movie with a little heart and a lot of music.
Mother Earth is Edmonton director Anne Wheeler, a golden-hearted woman who is maturing into one of Canada's most satisfying filmmakers.
The Eccentric Angel is Rebecca Jenkins, an ebullient singer with golden pipes. Formerly a backup vocalist with The Jane Siberry Band and Parachute Club, she is now launching herself both as a solo singer and as an exciting new actress who most certainly will be vying for a 1989 Genie Award.
Jenkins adores Wheeler. The feeling is mutual.
"She is Mother Earth,'' Jenkins enthuses. "She's just so fabulous." Everyone loves her who works with her. You can't not, really!''
Wheeler says she had grave doubts when she first cast such an inexperienced, if willing, actress in her film - "it was a scary thing'' - but now she is delighted with Jenkins' performance.
Bye Bye Blues, the lavish $4.5 million production Wheeler produced, wrote and directed with Jenkins as the star, is set to open in Toronto Oct. 6. It made its world premiere as a Gala at the Festival of Festivals, inspiring a prolonged standing ovation.
Set in the 1940s and based on the experiences of Wheeler's mother, it tells the semi-autobiographical story of what happens to a wife and mother left behind by war when her husband is captured and held incognito by the Japanese for four years.
Far from wallowing in self-pity, the Alberta heroine establishes herself in a local western swing dance band and supports her children alone. Fighting the demons of her attraction to another man - the vagabond American trombonist - she tries to hang onto the fading memory of her great love for her husband. The story is told with an incandescent spirit that elevates the melodrama.
"It was very much unfinished business,'' says Wheeler, who made a 1982 docu-drama called A War Story. That honest, disturbing chronicle told how her late father, Major Ben Wheeler, survived internment in a horrific Japanese prisoner-of-war labor camp in Formosa (now Taiwan). Wheeler, a doctor who never told his family about his experiences, saved many lives and allowed others to die with dignity. The film was based on his exhaustive diaries. He died in 1963 when Anne was 17.
"I wanted to tell both sides of the story in A War Story,'' says Wheeler about her mother, Nell Homer (who plays piano on one of the songs in Bye Bye Blues). "But it was too much material for one film.'' She concentrated on her father's story first. "But it is important to tell the story of women left behind by war. I had never seen a film made on this particular theme. Coming Home is that in some ways but the men in that film are still very much part of the tapestry.''
Bye Bye Blues is not strictly Nell's saga. It serves more broadly as a universal story of the angst and unexpected joys of survival back home.
"If you simplify the story and tell it in a very brief way, it is my mother's story,'' says Wheeler. "It's when you get into the other characters who enter her life and the other situations that come about after she returns to Canada (from India, where Nell was stationed with the major before he transferred to Singapore, where he was captured) and gets well established in the band - that's when the story verges into fiction.''
Wheeler's mother actually teased her daughter about trying to turn her life into a movie. When daughter first announced her intentions, mother said: "Honey, I don't think people are going to want to watch that.''
Daughter wrote the script anyway.
"So I tell her what happens in the story and she just laughs and says: 'I don't know where you get your imagination, dear. It's a better story than mine.' Waiting for five long years for someone can be extremely boring. I couldn't understand what you were going to do with it.' ''
Jenkins remembers that Wheeler refused to even introduce her to Nell Homer at first. Anne wouldn't allow me to meet her mother until we were well into the filming. She said, This is not what I want you to do. I don't want you to imitate her life at all or feel that you have to take on any of my mother's characteristics or anything about her.'
"All that I did was watch a videotape of her mother playing the piano. For the spirit of it, which is what Anne loved, which is what she wanted me to capture. It's her whole stride jazz thing and the joy with which she sang and played the piano.''
Music. Laughter. Humor. The energy bursting from the blues-jazz roots of the swing that the band in the movie plays with such conviction. The paradox of melancholy - people get happy listening to songs such as the title track or Who's Sorry Now, You Made Me Love You, If I Could Be With You and even Bill Henderson's brand new song with that old time feeling, When I Sing.
All these were factors in making the movie itself sing, says Wheeler. As musicians in The Stardusters, the heroine's band, Wheeler cast actors such as Wayne Robson, Stuart Margolin, Francis Damberger and Luke Reilly (as the world-weary wit, Max Gramley, that other man in the heroine's life). Each has a way with a light line of dialogue or an arch of the eyebrow.
With the humor and the music, Wheeler says, "I wanted to life the film because, if you played it straight, people would say: `OH NO! Another prairie Canadian depression movie!"
"I didn't want that because it's not the spirit of the people I know who live in the West. They're very funny, engaging, optimistic survivors, whatever comes their way.''
Jenkins herself is from the West. She is based now in Toronto - with her musician boyfriend Ken Myhr of The Jane Siberry Band - but was born in Innisfail, Alberta, eldest of six children in her family. She could relate to the characters and the story. But, most of all, she could sing!
"She had to sing!'' says Wheeler of casting for the role. But, obviously, Wheeler was worried that Jenkins, who had a small role in her movie Cowboys Don't Cry but had never starred in a feature, was so inexperienced.
"It's a scary thing anyway to have a movie that's going to rest on one person's shoulders, even an experienced actress, and we looked at all of the best actresses in Canada and Canadians living in other countries. I didn't want to make the choice without having looked at everyone, which I did, much to (casting director) Gail Carr's dismay.''
Demanding that the lead actress sing was crucial to making the movie work, says Wheeler. "I made life difficult for everyone but I felt more satisfied myself doing that because the songs in the movie aren't just performed. People don't just get up and sing a song. It's always a dramatic moment so there is a dramatic performance within the song as well as a musical performance. So it had to be that person's voice because they were going to go from singing to talking to reacting. I didn't want to have anyone dubbing a singing voice.''
Still, Jenkins admits Wheeler made her go through hell to win the part. "It's true, I did have to prove myself to her over and over again. It was gruelling and I worked for it really hard. In a way, I think it was good for me because, if you really want something, it makes it so much more valuable when you finally do get it.''
There will be a soundtrack album - a rarity for a Canadian film - but that is just one more factor that pushed the film's budget to such healthy proportions. Few Canadian producers spend $4.5 million on a film. Just don't use the word `lavish' around Wheeler.
"Everybody says: `Oh, it's such a big budget. It's so luxurious to have this much money.'
"But if I tell you how much all the songs cost; if I tell you how much it cost to produce the music; if I tell you how much it cost to go to India (for the film's opening sequences on location in Poona); if I tell you how much it cost to cloth two, four, six hundred extras for dance scenes, in period clothing with their hair done properly and the right shoes on their feet; then it wasn't luxurious at all!''
But the luxury is in the eye of the beholder. Bye Bye Blues is Hello Happiness for audiences as well as the filmmakers.
Back to articles