Rare young footage of a pre-007 Sean Connery to air on CBC in Canada this Thursday
21-Jan-2004 • Media Alert
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This is CBC`s Macbeth, circa 1961. And the unknown actor? It`s Sean Connery months before he metamorphosed into James Bond.
Sean Connery was unknown in North America when the CBC offered him the lead opposite Zoe Caldwell in Macbeth. Less than a year later, he landed the breakthrough role as James Bond in Dr. No.
"I think it`s wonderful CBC has found my version," says the director, Paul Almond, who was only 30 himself when asked to direct the classic. The 90-minute production wasn`t made by CBC`s drama department but by National School Telecasts, a CBC department that from 1940 to the 1970s, produced radio and TV programs broadcast to classrooms across Canada.The result can be seen again after an interval of 40-odd years on CBC`s Opening Night series Thursday at 7 p.m.
Aimed at senior high school students across the country, the 90-minute version ran in five half-hour blocks on CBC at 3 p.m. Almond was interviewed at the end of each program and there was commentary by high school teachers as well as some of the actors.
"I think of it as a live production," Almond says. "We rehearsed for two weeks and then taped it all in three days. There was no stopping for retakes in those days." Almond was in the control room choosing the camera shots as the production rolled along.
"I liked it at the time," he says. "And when it was reshown last year at a retrospective of my work I thought it held up quite well. It`s very distinctive."
Today`s audiences will be watching out of curiosity to see how Connery looked and acted 42 years ago. Almond says he was in England shopping for a Scottish actor when he caught Connery in a live BBC drama and thought the young actor would be perfect.
"So I approached him. You must understand he wasn`t public school educated. He had heard of Macbeth but never read the play. So his interpretation was very fresh, without affectations." Connery had made a handful of films since his London stage debut as one of the singing sailors in South Pacific. In 1961 he had a film, The Frightened City, in release with another, On The Fiddle, on the shelf.
"Sean was wonderful to work with," Almond says. "He fluffs a few lines here and there but covers quickly. He certainly looks the part. We were all so delighted with him."
Zoe Caldwell was Lady Macbeth, Sharon Acker (later a Hollywood star) Lady Macduff and the cast included Powys Thomas (Duncan), William Needles (Banquo), Robin Gammell (Malcolm), Ted Follows (Macduff), Eric Christmas (porter).
The production was shot in the Yonge St. studio near Davisville, a reconverted Pierce Arrow car showroom that later hosted Front Page Challenge.
"It`s very long and narrow," Almond says. "So designer Rudi Dorn used this in his castle which is impressionistic, it seems huge, a character itself. The actors are introduced in silhouette, the pillars are heavy slabs dominating every scene, their massiveness contrasting with the actors who seem quite small. Bill Needles has since complained the swords were so heavy the actors could scarcely hold them but this was historically correct."
The Star`s drama critic, Nathan Cohen, wrote at the time: "The result was a vigorously interesting and honest interpretation."
Legend has it Connery was in Toronto when he received a telephone call from London offering him the Bond role. At any rate he never had to appear again in a television drama. He flew from Toronto to France to begin shooting The Longest Day.
Almond says Macbeth was finally reassembled and shown on CBC`s Folio series in 1962, "when Sean had become big. In those days we did that sort of thing on a weekly basis. I`d do Julius Caesar, Under Milkwood, Pinter, a modern play."
Almond later went on to direct movies (Isabel, Act Of The Heart) but after heart surgery, retired to write novels in Malibu. "It was very frantic, very creative," he says of those days. "CBC had this wonderful producer, Robert Allen, who supported us. It was all first class. Lots of fun!"
The Macbeth special airs on CBC this Thursday 22nd February 2004. Check local listings for times.
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