Newfoundland's first cinema was The Nickel, which opened in St. John's in 1907.
Within a few years movie houses were operating all over the island and people were
lining up to see the latest adventures and romances from Hollywood.
The earliest Newfoundland filmmakers were hobbyists using cameras to record
local events, family outings, scenery and travels. The first of them may have
been Eric Bowring and Judge Harry Winter, a pair of St. John's men who began
collecting footage in 1904. The work of another amateur cameraman, John Munn,
includes a protest at the Colonial Building in 1932 and scenes from Amelia
Earhart's visit to Harbour Grace. One of the few early photographers to see
his footage turned into a finished film was a missionary named Monsignor O'Brien.
He first came to Labrador in 1928 and continued to visit regularly for the next
20 years, always accompanied by his film camera. In 1979 O'Brien worked with
the Memorial University Extension Service to assemble his footage from Davis
Inlet and Northwest River into a film called The Indians' Father Whitehead.
Colonial Building, April 5, 1932.
A crowd in front of the Colonial Building during the riot of 1932.
Courtesy of the Centre for Newfoundland Studies
Archives, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St.
But in the first half of the 20th century, films of Newfoundland and Labrador
were usually created by outsiders: Producers and directors arriving with film
crews from Canada, Great Britain or the United States. The earliest silent movies
associated with the island are Moose Hunting In Newfoundland (1905) by the American
Mutoscope and Biographical Company and Stalking And Shooting Caribou In Newfoundland
(1907) by the Edison Company, though there is evidence to suggest the moose hunting
film may have been done elsewhere and subsequently mislabelled. Other companies
followed, and for the next 20 years most of the movies shot in Newfoundland were
travelogues designed to promote the island and Labrador as hunting and fishing
In 1922 an American named Varick Frissell arrived in Labrador as a volunteer
with the Grenfell Mission. Frissell worked with the mission for several years,
often shooting film of his travels throughout the region. He completed three
documentaries about Labrador, including The Great Arctic Seal Hunt (1928).
Frissell's fascination with the seal hunt lead him to create the first Hollywood-
style sound film ever made in what is now Canada. Frissell wrote a screenplay about
two sealers, their rivalry for a woman's love and their adventures on the seal hunt.
He formed a company to finance the project and generated interest from several
distributors. With a cast of New York actors and an American film crew, Frissell
filmed most of The Viking (named for a sealing ship) in Quidi Vidi in 1930.
Determined to supplement the story with images showing "the hardihood, skill and
courage of the Newfoundland seal hunt," Frissell then took his crew to the Grand
Banks and Labrador to collect realistic footage and do the more exciting action
The Viking debuted with a private showing at the Nickel in March of 1931. Frissell
came away convinced that his movie needed more real scenes from the Labrador ice flows.
He assembled another small film crew and within days had joined the real Viking for
its annual seal hunting voyage. On March 15, as the Viking sat trapped in ice near
the Horse Isles, an explosion in the powder room destroyed the back of the ship and
killed 27 men. Frissell's body was never found. That summer The Viking was released
in Toronto, New York, London and Paris.
Varick Frissell, n.d.
Varick Frissell and his dog Cabot. Both died when the Viking sank off
Newfoundland in 1931.
Courtesy of the Centre for Newfoundland Studies
Archives (Col - 203), Memorial University of Newfoundland, St.
For the next 40 years dramatic films would be rare and unusual occurrences in
Newfoundland. In 1941 the British Ministry of Information sent a crew to Canada
to make a film called 49th Parallel as part of its wartime propaganda campaign.
It included a special effects scene in which a German submarine actually a
plywood structure fitted with dynamite and gunpowder was exploded in waters
near Corner Brook. In 1946 the Newfoundland Commission of Government paid a
British company $200,000 to profile the island and its way of life through a
drama called Island Story. Cast with local actors and filmed in St. John's, it
was released in 1949. St. John's audiences were unimpressed and the film was
ultimately seen by few inside or outside the province.
But documentary-making increased steadily during the war years and the decades
that followed. The National Film Board of Canada first came to the island in 1940
to make Toilers Of The Grand Banks, a nine-minute film about fishermen. The war
effort and the Newfoundland lifestyle were the subjects of several other short
NFB films in the pre-Confederation years. After 1949 films about Newfoundland
and Labrador fell under the NFB's mandate ("...to help Canadians in all parts of
Canada to understand the ways of living and the problems of Canadians in other
parts.") and production increased accordingly. During the 1950s and 1960s the
board produced over 50 short films and vignettes in the province.
Meanwhile, Newfoundlanders were stepping behind the camera more frequently. W.J.
Ryan of St. John's made a silent film of the 1946 Victory Day parade and documented
several other events. Other independent filmmakers included Lionel Burry in Labrador
and Len Earle of St. John's, who made travel films at home and abroad under the
sponsorship of Harvey's Travel. In 1959 the Memorial University Extension Service
created a "media unit" with the intention of filming lectures and other information-
based films for distribution around the province. This idea eventually evolved into
a television program called Deck's Awash. But by the 1960s, the Extension Service had
broadened the scope of its film work. The media unit produced short documentaries on
all aspects of life in the province. It also recorded news conferences, meetings,
debates and public events. A scan through its catalogue reveals films about seal
pelt quality, bookkeeping, school concerts, teenage sexuality and everything in between.
W.J. Ryan, n.d.
Courtesy of the Centre for Newfoundland Studies Archives (C12 - 1.01.516), Memorial University of Newfoundland, St.
The Extension Service also cooperated with the National Film Board on several
ventures, most notably the "Newfoundland project." In 1967, the NFB sent a crew
to Fogo Island to make a one- hour documentary, with the help of field workers
from MUN Extension. People in the community were invited to help set the agenda
for the film and participate in the production and editing process. The one-hour
documentary was eventually scrapped in favour of a series of short films done
over a two-year period. The Fogo Island series ultimately became as much a product
of the community itself as that of a visiting film crew. The exercise was used for
several other NFB projects, including an eight-hour documentary made in Port aux Choix.
The provincial government began making films in the 1950s and 1960s. Most Newfoundland
communities were still without television, so promotional and educational films that
could be shown in theatres were seen as important tools for reaching the people.
Most of the films provided practical information or celebrated various government programs.
They were also used to promote the province to outsiders. The hunting and fishing films
of American naturalist Lee Wulff, who had been visiting and filming in the Newfoundland
wilderness since the 1930s, were perhaps the most popular government-sponsored films
of this era.
By the late 1960s young independent filmmakers were dabbling in the medium for
the first time. Mike Jones was a teacher at Brother Rice High School when he made
his first silent films. David Pope did a series of silent shorts while studying at
Memorial University. John Doyle studied film in Toronto. Derek Norman was working
with MUN Extension. They were among the first members of the Newfoundland Independent
Filmmaker's Cooperative, which was formed in 1975.
NIFCO began with 14 charter members (13 men and one woman) and a small cache of
used and borrowed equipment provided by MUN Extension. The Extension service also
gave NIFCO $7,000 and the NFB donated office space at its building in Pleasantville.
Operating money from the Canada Council and the NFB helped sustain NIFCO in the early
years as filmmakers volunteered on each other's films and obtained small grants for
their individual projects. The first generation of NIFCO members laid the groundwork
for the contemporary Newfoundland film industry and gave the province its first significant
library of independently produced documentaries and short films. Most of the early members
of the co-op remain active in the industry today.
Though much of the early film shot in Newfoundland and Labrador was lost or destroyed,
a valuable and significant archive has been preserved. The Provincial Archives
includes footage by pre-Confederation filmmakers like John Munn, Varick Frissell's
The Viking and The Great Arctic Seal Hunt, and many government films from the 1950s
and 1960s. Memorial University, NIFCO, the National Film Board and the public library
system maintain rich collections of much of the work done since Confederation.
©2000, Jamie Fitzpatrick