Reel Toronto: Quality Cinema Grab-Bag

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.

By Torontoist

It’s not scientific, but we suspect the average Rotten Tomatoes rating for a Reel Toronto film is likely no better than a six out of 10. That’s just the way it is.

But it’s about time we acknowledged that there have been some quality films shot here. Heck, some of them are bona fide classics with an Oscar or two on the shelf. Okay, they were shot a long time ago, but films like Network, Moonstruck, and The Paper Chase were shot here, though there isn’t much to spot.

Take 1976’s Network, considered one of the seminal films of cinema’s seminal decade. It was nominated for a Best Picture Oscar the same year as Taxi Driver and Rocky and many still think it should have won. It’s set in New York and uses a bunch of New York locations, but it was actually largely shot here. It’s about a TV station, so the studio they used, the one where Peter Finch does his “I’m mad as hell” rant? That’s CFTO’s Scarborough offices.

Norman Jewison is a master of using alternate locations. To avoid an obviously unpleasant atmosphere, he famously shot In the Heat of the Night in Illinois rather than the southern U.S. and he’s shot several films here (including The Hurricane). One of them is the otherwise-apparently-steeped-in-New York Moonstruck. Virtually all the set interiors were shot here at the old Leslie Street Studios.