CANADIAN BACON (FILM)

'''Canadian Bacon''' is a 1995 comedy/satire, and the only film written, directed and produced by Michael Moore billed as a work of fiction. It was the last film released to star John Candy.

Contents

Plot

Cast

Production

Facts and Figures

See also

External links

Plot

A U.S. president (played by Alan Alda), faced with falling public opinion ratings, decides to go to war to distract voters (especially one Larry Rathbun) from domestic troubles and invigorate the economy, a plan supported by his National Security Advisor Stuart Smiley (played by Kevin Pollack) and General Dick Panzer (Rip Torn [also relating to Rathbun]). The problem with this plan is that with the demise of the Soviet Union, there's no one left to go to war with. But some brainstorming by Smiley leads to an attempt to start a cold war with Canada ("everyone hates Canadians"), using media manipulation as the main tool to stoke the passions of the US public. Unfortunately, a local sheriff, Bud B. Boomer (John Candy, a Canadian in real life), in a town along the US/Canada border, takes it a bit further.
'Tagline:' ''You surrender pronto, or we'll level Toronto.'' Another tagline on the poster was ''Help America Fight the Canadians''.

Cast

★ Alan Alda as ''The President/Norman Bates''

★ John Candy as Sheriff Bud B. Boomer

★ Rhea Perlman as Deputy Honey

★ Kevin Pollak as Stuart Smiley, ''National Security Advisor''

★ Rip Torn as General Dick Panzer

Production

The movie was filmed in Toronto, Hamilton and Niagara Falls, Ontario. The Parkwood Estate in Oshawa was the site for the White House, and Dofasco in Hamilton was the site for Hacker Dynamics. The scene where the American characters look longingly home at the US across the putative Niagara River is, in fact, them looking across Burlington Bay at Stelco steelworks in Hamilton, Ontario.

Facts and Figures

★ The film is noted for its high number of cameos by Canadian actors. As an example, Dan Aykroyd, who is Canadian, appears in the movie uncredited as an Ontario Provincial Police officer. He stops Sheriff Boomer's truck which has anti-canadian graffiti painted on it in English and lets Boomer and his "heroes" go after the truck has been sprayed painted with anti-Canadian graffiti-in French.

★ Oliver North appears at the end in a photograph with Stuart Smiley as the newly-elected president.

★ The sequences in the American President's war room are strongly influenced by Stanley Kubrick's black comedy ''.

★ Director Moore appears in a fake news broadcast as one of a group of redneck, gun-toting Americans ready to go to war against Canada. One of his lines is "It's time we put the 'America' back in 'North America'!"

★ The end credits state that no Canadians were harmed during the making of the movie, and thank Johnny La Rue for the opening helicopter shot of Horseshoe Falls. This is a reference to a running gag on SCTV where LaRue (a character played by John Candy) famously went over budget for his talk show ("Street Beef") by insisting on ending the show with a long shot from a rented helicopter.

★ This film was shot before ''Wagons East!'', but was released a year later.

See also

★ ''Dr. Strangelove''

★ ''The Mouse that Roared''

★ ''Wag the Dog'', a 1997 film about a war devised for similar reasons

★ '', which also features war between the U.S. and Canada

External links

★

★ Original Film Review (Video)