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October 26, 1958

Season One

The first and only season of 'The Candid Eye' was a collection of Documentaries filmed by the National Film Board of Canada spanning from 1958 to 1961.

01. Blood and Fire

This short documentary by Terence Macartney-Filgate focuses on the men and women who dedicated their lives and service to the Salvation Army.

30min
October 26, 1958

02. A Foreign Language

This short documentary focuses on a Montreal public school where thousands of immigrant children learn English for the first time.

30min
November 2, 1958

03. Country Threshing

A day spent harvesting and threshing grain on a dairy farm, using methods already becoming old-fashioned in 1958.

30min
November 9, 1958

04. Pilgrimage

Chronicles the annual pilgrimage to St. Joseph's Oratory, a Montreal landmark where a humble faith-healing staff member of the church gained international renown for his apparent ability to perform miracles.

30min
November 16, 1958

05. Memory of Summer

An attempt to recapture the magic of childhood as the cameras follow children at play.

30min
November 23, 1958

06. Police

The misbehaving public performs for the camera in a half-hour miscellany of misdeeds. In a behind-the-scenes look at the hour-by-hour operation of a large metropolitan police force, this film presents a fair sampling of what keeps Toronto's police officers busy twenty-four hours a day.

30min
November 30, 1958

07. The Days Before Christmas

A look at how mid-20th century Montreal celebrated Christmas.

30min
December 7, 1958

08. Glenn Gould: Off the Record

No details

30min

09. Glenn Gould: On the Record

No details

30min

10. Emergency Ward

This 1959 documentary short is a frank portrait of the daily operations inside the Montreal General Hospital's emergency ward.

30min

11. The Back-Breaking Leaf

Here is a graphic picture of the tobacco harvest in southwestern Ontario. At the end of July, transient field workers move in for a brief bonanza when the plant is ripe. The tobacco harvesters call it "the back-breaking leaf."

30min

12. The End of the Line

A film about the railway transition from steam locomotives to diesel engines.

30min

13. The Cars in Your Life

From a used-car lot to the public highways, slow-motion and stylized photography provide a provocative, revealing look at a people's obsession with cars.

30min

14. Festival in Puerto Rico

Canadian contralto Maureen Forrester is to perform at the fourth annual Casals Festival (so named after cellist Pau Casals) in June, 1959 in San Juan, Puerto Rico, the performance specifically of "A Hymn for the Madonna" by Domenico Scarlatti, the manuscript for which has just been rediscovered, this to be only the second performance of such since this rediscovery.

28min