Filmmaker Larry Kent on filming at The New Penelope
Image: Larry Kent, Montreal, August 2019. Mitch Davis (photographer), copyright 2019. Courtesy of Mitch Davis
Credit: ARCMTL collection. Interview was conducted in Montreal on May 27, 2021 with Larry Kent by Louis Rastelli, Director of ARCMTL.
Duration: 1:59 min
In this interview conducted in May 2021 by Louis Rastelli, Director of ARCMTL, filmmaker Larry Kent describes how his movie High was filmed in different parts of Montreal in 1967, including at The New Penelope.
Transcription:
Larry Kent: It was all shot in Montreal.
Louis Rastelli: You didn’t have to shut down streets and have permits every time, uh, for every scene I assume, in those days? How did it work out?
Larry Kent: We just, we just shot what we wanted to shoot. I mean, we, we were not a big crew or anything, so I mean, we were not all bringing trucks and all of that. Probably, the crew was three and, uh, you know, we went into Ben’s, shot in there.
The shooting wasn’t, was no more than four weeks, but I mean the pre-production and the post-production, about three months. I think it was mostly in the west side, you know, west side of Montreal. And it was also in the waterfront area, the restaurant. The demolished area was in the, uh, Bleury, St. Laurent, but down towards the waterfront area, you know.
Louis Rastelli: Okay. That’s before they demolished all those buildings for the highway. I don’t suppose anybody bothered you with the filming.
Larry Kent: I don’t, I don’t think anybody knew we were shooting! We had to ask permission from, I mean, the only people when we shot in the Penelope, we just asked the, the guy who, yeah, we only got permission from Gary [Eisenkraft]. Gary knew we were gonna shoot there, and that was it. I mean, it was not a Hollywood or not an NFB [National Film Board] production, you know, it was real, you know. And the unused footage was thrown away. [Laughs.] I edited High at Onyx Films. In old Montreal, on Bleury Street.