April 22, 2008
Reel Toronto: Strange Brew
Toronto's extensive work on the silver screen reveals that, while we have the chameleonic ability to look like anywhere from New York City to Moscow, the disguise doesn't always hold up to scrutiny. Reel Toronto revels in digging up and displaying the films that attempt to mask, hide, or—in rare cases—proudly display our city.
The two great Canadian heroes prep for an adventure, Shakespeare-style.
Strange Brew is not a great film, but it sure is a fun film. If you first saw it as a kid, you probably didn't realize that it's really "Bob and Doug do Hamlet." Reel Toronto loves it because it gives us a chance to relive the era of stubbies and yellow cop cars.
The recent announcement that the Mackenzie brothers are staging yet another comeback made this a perfect time to check out this Cancon classic.
Bob & Doug were meta before anyone even knew what meta was.
It's in the opening sequence, even before the credits, during which you really get to see a nice slice of downtown Toronto. We open to see a horrible low-budget sci-fi film produced by the brothers, which an audience turns out to be watching inside the University Theatre.
Art deco, shmart deco. We want our gourmet kitchenware!
When the audience realizes the movie sucks, our heroes are forced to avoid a riot, dashing outside onto Bloor Street, which allows us to see the theatre exterior.
Once a landmark movie house, in 1986 the University preceded the Eglinton and Uptown into oblivion. Its façade was left to stand on Bloor Street for years and years before being integrated into the Pottery Barn store. You can still see it, even on Google Maps' satellite photo.
From Danish jewellers to faux-hipster cafés, this locale has seen it all.
The boys dash across to their van, which is parked outside of Georg Jensen, at 95A Bloor Street West. The 1956 building is notable for being the only known Toronto building by the Montreal architectural firm of Rother, Bland, Trudeau, and it was added to the city's heritage inventory in 2003. The silversmith closed up shop years ago and, more recently, the building served as the home for Coke's failed Far Coast café.
With this much Toronto-love before the credits, how can you go wrong?
Finally, it's time for the credits and some downtown cruising, starting with the Bay-Bloor area.
Before Broadway North, there was Ed's Warehouse.
Before you know it, they're cruising down King Street and passing the now-gone-but-fondly-remembered old Ed's Warehouse. The Mackenzie-mobile even cruises through Chinatown.
Eventually, they make it home, where their dad is voiced by Mel Blanc and their dog drinks beer from its bowl. The suburban street scenes were shot in Etobicoke and Ajax.
It's two, two, two architectural triumphs in one!
Most of the movie takes place inside the Elsinore Brewery. The exterior is a really great bit of design, combining two Toronto landmarks: Casa Loma (on the left) and the RC Harris filtration plant (on the right).
As in Undercover Brother, the poor building gets blowed-up. Blowed-up real good.
After that, there is an Oktoberfest finale which, as far as we can tell, was filmed at the big do in Kitchener, but it's hard to tell for sure. Either way, there's no major Toronto scenery after that. That doesn't mean you can't enjoy remembering what Brewer's Retail stores used to look like, but if you wanna see the flick, come for the Toronto shots but stay for the beer and hockey jokes.
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Love this series!
You should do the ever so topical "Prom Night" with Jamie Lee Curtis, filmed mostly in Scarborough. Well, near the bluffs, at least.
David; "Strange Brew is not a great film, but it sure is a fun film."
Come on - the film is hilarious! What about falling off the pier near cherry beach and drinking beer underwater? Or all the fantastic hockey scenes....or the dog flying to Oktoberfest!
The film is a classic! I laugh every time i see it...... STEAMROLLER!
Strange Brew really is a whole lot of fun. And I'd completely forgotten about Toronto's cadmium yellow police cars until I saw the movie! "It's a Toronto skunk -- my jurisdiction," has to be one of the best lines, but it's up there with Airplane! for quotability. And contaminated beer creating remote-controlled hockey zombies? That has to be some kind of Cronenberg reference.
For the uninitiated: this is proto-Wayne's World, to put it generously. Less generously, Wayne and Garth are a complete lift of Bob and Doug.
This is the conversation that took place in my dorm, first year, when some friends made me watch this for the first time.
Me (Arts student): "Dudes, this is like totally Hamlet!"
Them (Hoser engineers): "Stop ruining it!"
"Not a great film" my butt.
Koo-roo-koo-koo-koo-koo-koo-koo!
Love the limited selection of beers on the wall in the beer store. Life was much simpler 'back in the day'.
I first saw this movie when I was about twelve and thought it was brilliant. I still do and maintain it has to be one of the greatest English language adaptation of Hamlet ever. And yes, we too remember the yellow cop cars and going to the Ex to see the Jays.
Is the road in front of Elsinore Brewery not Rosedale Valley Road?
Tuds
Such a fun movie.
I'm pretty certain that the Oktoberfest finale was filmed on the grounds of the former Lakeshore Psychiatric Hospital, which closed in 1979, and is now occupied by Humber College's Lakeshore campus.
The scene at the Beer Store was shot at Eglinton and Midland Avenues. Plaza on the northeast corner, easternmost storefront along on the row. It has never been a Beer Store.
My old high school was just along Eglinton, where the condo now stands on the north side of the street opposite Kennedy station. I stood and watched them filming for about 10 or 15 minutes, although very little was happening at that moment. All of the guys were just standing around in costume shooting the shit.
Part of the joke was that beer stores at the time were called "Brewers Retail" (I think they dropped the apostrophe) rather than "Beer Store", even though the latter was the more common term. The writers however called theirs "Beer Store". Perhaps they influenced the big breweries to change the name of their retail chain to the commonly used, and in many respects more obvious term.
Tuds,
The road in the picture looks like the lower part of Bluffer's Park Road, at least from what I can tell in this still.
Presuming they had the same location manager, a lot of locations, both in the movie and in their SCTV days, were shot in Scarborough because the studio they used, Magder's, was around Pharmacy and Eglinton.
-Uncle Bobby