Julian Biggs Trailers
A Little Fellow from Gambo: The Joey Smallwood Story TrailerPaddle to the Sea TrailerEach Day That Comes Trailer
Julian Biggs (1920–1972) was a director and producer with the National Film Board of Canada and its first Director of English Production. Over the course of his 20-year career, he created 146 films, two of which (Herring Hunt (1953) and Paddle to the Sea (1966)) were nominated for Academy Awards. His film 23 Skidoo (1964) received two BAFTA nominations, including the BAFTA United Nations award.
Biggs was born and raised in Port Perry, in southern Ontario. When World War II broke out in 1939, he joined the Canadian Army and then transferred to the Canadian Navy, where he spent the rest of the war serving on mine-sweepers. He then attended the University of Toronto and, in 1951, was hired as a production assistant by the National Film Board of Canada. He directed his first film, The Son, a year later.
From 1956 to 1958, Biggs produced the Perspective series (paralleled by the similar series in French Passe-partout), which was 35 30-minute dramas with an emphasis on social themes such as alcoholism, drug addiction, adolescence, the elderly, racial problems etc. One such film, Monkey on the Back, directed by Biggs, was a bleak, tragic story of man's unsuccessful struggle to free himself from drug addiction. Similar to Robert Anderson's Drug Addict (1948), which had been banned in the U.S., it was the type of film that caused the NFB to reconsider its role in producing socially relevant films. There was an unwritten policy and priority to shift away from social realism to the 'art' of film.
Most Popular Julian Biggs Trailers
Total trailers found: 32
01 January 1966
The story of two young women who go to the city to work in a dress factory, and who share a room to ease their expenses and their loneliness.
01 January 1956
This short documentary profiles the uniquely cloistered wildlife of Sable Island, known as the “Atlantic graveyard” due to its inhospitable conditions.
01 January 1964
If you erase the people of downtown America, the effect is bizarre, not to say disturbing. That is what this film does.
25 September 1957
In Toronto, early twenty-somethings Judy Monroe and Roy Kirby are in love and are planning to get married.
01 January 1961
This short drama is a portrait of colonial administrator, Governor General and statesman Lord Durham (1792-1840).
31 December 1962
For Alexander Galt it was the middle of the road, until he saw some hope for his dream of a united Canada.
01 January 1961
This short drama is a portrait of Nova Scotian journalist and politician Joseph Howe (1804-1873) and his battle for freedom of press.
01 January 1961
This film is a reconstruction of Robert Baldwin’s involvement in the Upper Canada Rebellion of 1837.
01 January 1961
This short drama is a portrait of Quebec lawyer and politician Louis-Joseph Papineau (1786-1871). A proud, defiant man, skillful in parliamentary debate, and Speaker of the Lower House, his heart was with the people being pillaged by the business elite.
01 January 1962
This short biopic profiles Montreal lawyer-turned-politician George-Étienne Cartier as he campaigns to unite English and French Canada under Confederation.
01 January 1954
People are interviewed in Dresden, Ontario, to sample local attitudes towards racial discrimination against black people that brought this town into the news.
01 January 1965
A dizzying view of Manhattan in the 1960s, the tallest town in the world, and the men who work cloud-high to keep it growing.
01 January 1957
Two generals prepare for battle at the Plains of Abraham.
01 January 1959
This short film tells the story of Lord Elgin, a man’s whose faith in a nation’s right to self-determination was stronger than the threat of the mob or his own fear of failure.
06 March 1958
The story of a fishing family, their daily lives, and the son’s wish for a modern boat
01 January 1957
This feature-length drama, originally broadcast in two parts as part of the NFB television series "Perspective," tells two sides of the same story to illustrate the lack of communication between employer and employee.
03 February 1952
A record of the living conditions and military operations of the 25th Canadian Infantry Brigade during the Korean War.
01 January 1957
A dramatization of Canadian author W.O. Mitchell's penetrating story about the racial prejudice encountered by a Polish immigrant farmer in a rural Saskatchewan community.
01 January 1963
Glimpses into the lives of three artists: Erhabor Amokpae of Lagos; Cid de Sosa Pinto of Sao Paulo; and Gord Smith of Montréal.
01 January 1951
This short film is an introduction to oyster farming in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Showing the various stages of oyster cultivation, the film highlights the sampling of larvae by Department of Fisheries biologists, the staking of oyster beds by farmers, the nurturing of spat, and underwater scenes showing the dragging of the seabed with cotton mops to ensnare starfish, which prey upon the oyster.
01 January 1956
Fred Davis introduces us to Canadian Air Force operations in Zweibrucken, West Germany. Follow Green Section as they perform drills and explain what it takes to be a fighter pilot.
01 January 1957
Howard Mitchell is a responsible young man who will soon be graduating from high school. He works at Resnick's Pharmacy to be able to earn enough money to put himself through college.
16 October 1953
Herring Hunt is a 1953 French-English language documentary about the operations of a herring boat off the coast of British Columbia, directed by Julian Biggs, written by Leslie McFarlane, and produced by Guy Glover.
20 June 1965
After literally swimming across the Atlantic Ocean, an Englishman takes a country trip across Canada on a railcar.
30 October 1965
In the fall of 1964, just over a year before his death, Buster Keaton traveled to Canada to make The Railrodder, a short subject that now enjoys a small cult following.
01 January 1970
This feature-length documentary paints a lively portrait of Father of Confederation and first premier of Newfoundland Joseph Roberts Smallwood, or "Joey," as he is known to most Canadians.
01 January 1964
A young, unmarried teenager finds herself pregnant. The film mirrors the state of her mind as she worries about the possible positive and negative reactions of her parents, boyfriend, etc in a series of vignettes.
01 January 1956
Photographed on the grassy uplands of the British Columbia interior, the ageless theme of a shepherd caring for his flock is presented without spoken commentary.
01 February 1966
A boy's carved boat travels through the Canadian wilderness until it reaches the ocean.
01 January 1957
The big whale round-up at Trinity Bay, Newfoundland, is brought to the screen with a realism not often found in fish stories.
01 January 1966
A glimpse into the nature of loneliness. Frances Hyland plays the part of a small-town girl who enjoys position and respect in her community as the owner of a successful dress shop, but who wonders if marriage might not have been a better choice.
05 April 1963
A glimpse into the lives of three grandmothers in an African village compound in Nigeria, in a hill city in Brazil, and in a rural community in Manitoba.
