blue_lotus13 | The Tommy Douglas Story

For the past few days, Dad and I have been watching Prairie Giant; The Tommy Douglas Story. . This is a mini-series that aired on CBC a few weeks ago, and I had my mom tape it for me because I had a scheduling conflict with our VCR. (Note to self- Teach roommates how to program VCR). It was much more enjoyable to watch this mini-series in my home province, and to listen to Dad's commentary as I watched it since he had the historical background and memories to add to the viewing experience.

To be honest, I didn't know much about Tommy Douglas, other than that he was from Saskatchewan and founded medi-care in the province, which eventually spread to the whole country. Last year, Douglas was voted the Greatest Canadian in a contest on the CBC. He's also Kiefer Sutherland's grandfather.

Anyway, I highly recommend this mini-series as I felt I learned a lot from it. Douglas started out as a Baptist minister in Weyburn, and eventually resigned from the ministry to run for office in Weyburn. There are a lot of good details in the movie and the lead actor, Micheal Therriault, did an excellent job of playing Douglas. Apparently he had never heard of him before, but read everything he could and studied tapes to imitate his speaking style. Dad said he was bang-on, and he was really impressed with Therriault's work. We were also impressed with the make-up and costuming, since the story spans 30 odd years.

A lot of Canadian actors are involved with the series, which was filmed in Saskatchewan. Paul Gross plays John Diefenbaker (complete with Diefenbaker's trade-mark gestures, according to Dad) and is completely unrecognizable as Paul Gross. Ian Tracey is Charlie Lawson, who represents a composite of several people Tommy knew. Don McKellar plays a financial advisor, and was quite good except he continually mispronounces, "Saskatchewan". I'm surprised that was never corrected.

There are a lot of recognizable Saskatchewan actors as well. I recognized Brad Grass and Henry Woolf, and a couple more in bit parts. Unfortunately, my mom taped over the credits so I didn't get to see the full cast list, which was disappointing.

This mini-series caused a fair amount of controversy, as Jimmy Gardiner (former premier)'s relatives did not like how he was portrayed in the movie. Shirley Douglas (Tommy's daughter and Kiefer's mom), was a consultant but pulled out for some reason. This might be why Shirley appears as a child and then is not shown again for a long time.

I was also impressed with the portrayal of the relationship between Tommy and his wife Irma. She was shown as being a well-rounded and intelligent woman who supported her husband, while stating her opinion, even if he didn't always agree with it.

Apparently there are over 3,000 extras in the production and they all worked for free. Many of the Saskatchewan people involved in the production opened their homes to the actors and the crew during filming, since they were so supportive of the project.