‘Rowdyman’ set the stage for a variety of writers and actors

Mark Critch, Allan Hawco and Andy Jones share their thoughts on the legacy of ‘The Rowdyman’

Editor’s note: Telegram reporter Barb Sweet is taking a look back at “The Rowdyman,” a Canadian film written by and starring Gordon Pinsent. This year marks the 50th anniversary of its release, but the memories and love of the movie remain fresh in the minds of the cast, crew and extras. This week, you will also get insights from some fans who, at the time, were making their livelihood in the pulp mills upon which the culture of the movie is based. We also discovered a bit of a tangly situation we’ll share later in the week. This is the third part of the series.

“The Rowdyman” was more than a groundbreaking Newfoundland and Labrador film — both writer/actor Gordon Pinsent and the movie itself inspired the passion of Mark Critch and Allan Hawco.

Critch — of “This Hour Has 22 Minutes” and “Son of A Critch” fame — was a kid when he saw it on TV, he thinks on the old station ASN.

“It was too mature, but it was like, ‘Well it’s Gordon Pinsent,’” he said in a phone interview from Halifax. “It was like Moses with the tablets — you have to pay attention.”

The movie’s legacy is that it sparked the notion that film and TV could be made right here.

“You hear the whistle out at the mill and you hear the Newfoundland voices and you see Newfoundlanders on the screen,” says Critch.

The lasting legacy the film and Pinsent left with people Critch’s age is clear: Pinsent, a fellow Newfoundlander, was able to make a career in film and television plausible and demonstrated that a film could be made here.

“This was a Newfoundlander making a Newfoundland film in Newfoundland. That was unheard of,” Critch said.

“I think there’s ‘The Rowdyman’ the film and then there’s the echoes of having done it. I think just by planting that flag, he made it possible for the whole industry to happen here.”

BUILDING CONNECTIONS

Critch eventually cold-called Pinsent with an idea to have him in a tuxedo by the fireplace reading from teen sensation Justin Bieber’s biography. It was comedy gold, but also cemented for Critch an appreciation for how supportive Pinsent is for the arts community.

“Anything he could ever do for anyone to give them a hand up and he was more than happy to do it,” Critch said.

He “punched” Pinsent on “This Hour” in a brilliant “Rowdyman 2” send up and acted in “The Grand Seduction” with Pinsent.

“Doing ‘The Grand Seduction’ together — that was a real dream come true, walk through the looking glass for a kid who grew up when the Newfoundland movie was ‘The Rowdyman,’” said Critch, who counts among his prized possession a full set of “The Rowdyman” lobby cards.

WHEN GORDON PINSENT LENDS YOU HIS VHS TAPE

Allan Hawco had left Newfoundland to attend the National Theatre School and, after graduation, was working with Soul pepper theatre Company in Toronto. Among the cast was the late Charmion King, who he didn’t realize at first was Pinsent’s wife.

“There was no internet then, no Googling,” he said.

“I am not a celebrity gossip kind of person … and she told me and I was ‘Oh my God.’ At this point, I am 21 or 22 and I had been following everything he had done in his career … Mother even said to me when I moved to Toronto, ‘You should find Gordon Pinsent and tell him to look after you.’”

He met his idol when Pinsent picked King up for lunch and they became friends.

Pinsent lent him his VHS copy of “The Rowdyman.” It was around 2000. He knew of the movie — Hawco’s uncle had been a huge fan — and had read the book but hadn’t seen the film from start to finish.

“Watching ‘The Rowdyman’, I just was watching someone who became my friend in this feature and the fact he did it — and he did it home,” Hawco said.

“I didn’t just want to make film and television. I wanted to make it home. I wanted to move home. The minute I left Newfoundland, I wanted to move back and wanted desperately to create film and television and opportunities to grow our crew.”

INSPIRATION FOR JAKE DOYLE

A couple of years ago, Hawco was asked if he was interested in doing a reboot of “The Rowdyman.”

“And I was kind of like, I already did it on ‘Republic of Doyle,’” Hawco said of his successful 2010-2014 series.

“You can definitely see traces of ‘The Rowdyman’ in Jake.”

He points to a scene where Jake Doyle runs from a house — there’s a similar scene in “The Rowdyman.”

“I didn’t give it a second thought because I had already felt like ‘The Rowdyman’ inspired Jake Doyle so much that there was nowhere else to go with it,” Hawco said.

“His version of ‘The Rowdyman’ for the time and place it’s almost like somebody redoing Steve Mcqueen’s (1968 action thriller) ‘Bullitt.’ It’s not going to be better, let it stand for what it is.”

Did you know Pinsent was originally who Hawco had in mind to play Jake Doyle’s father?

“He was first in my mind when I first started developing Doyle. Literally, that first year when I met him was when I was really starting to parse out the idea of what Doyle would be,” he says.

It took about a decade more before Republic of Doyle became a reality.

“(It’s) is a miracle when you think about it that I ever got to make it at all,” Hawco said.

“Pinsent was always going to play the father but by the time we got to do it, he was like, ‘I don’t know if I want to do another series. It’s a lot of time to devote your life to.’ … I said ‘OK, that’s no problem. I’ll write you a part of some kind.’ So he and I worked on it, what we would do and I developed this kind of idea with him to play my nemesis … and he kept coming back.”

Pinsent’s Maurice Becker was the first guest role that Hawco wrote for the show.

“And the same spirit of the guy who made ‘The Rowdyman’ is still in him. He’s still like a kid who is just starting in the business,” Hawco said.

Pinsent, he adds, has been supportive since the first day they met.

“He treated me when I first met him as if I was his peer even though I was 20 years old,” Hawco said.

“I owe that movie and him, personally, for the inspiration of being where I am today, not just from the theoretical perspective, also him personally. You stand in a room with Gordon Pinsent talking to you like you are a pro and the whole room is paying a different level of attention to you as a young actor. And that’s never left me.”

“You stand in a room with Gordon Pinsent talking to you like you are a pro and the whole room is paying a different level of attention to you as a young actor. And that’s never left me.” Allan Hawco

ANDY JONES AND “THE ROWDYMAN” LEGACY

Renowned actor, comedian, writer and storyteller Andy Jones agrees “The Rowdyman” is an important film.

“I think that this film has a profound effect on Newfoundland culture and certainly on Newfoundland filmmaking,” said Jones, who noted it gave a lot of first jobs to people who came to prominence in film.

Among them are his late brother, Mike, who was the second camera on “The Rowdyman.”

He went on to become a prominent Canadian director and screenwriter.

The Jones brothers went on to make “Faustus Bidgood,” the first feature film exclusively produced entirely in the province with a Newfoundland crew and cast.

‘“Obviously (‘The Rowdyman’) had a big influence on my brother Mike Jones because he got to be on the set. He learned. So when we went to make ‘Faustus Bidgood,’ in 1977, we started to write the script… we didn’t actually release it until 1986… I would say that Mike’s relationship with Gordon … made a big difference to my brother and to our thought we could do this here,” Jones said.