A short interpretation of Nettie Wild's past work, and what she has to say about the making of:

FIX: The Story of an Addicted City

 

(First published in Take One magazine, issue: March 2003. Mark Take One, March-May 2003 v11 i41 p24(3) A passion for social justice: the activist films of Nettie Wild.(Critical Essay). Lyons, Tom.

Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2003 Canadian Independent Film & Television Publishing Association )

 

Vancouver, 1981: The game-show contestant is nervous.
The host of the show has just asked her what she would do if she won an expensive new home. The clock is ticking. The studio audience is restless and the time-up buzzer is about to blare. "I'd live in the house!" guesses the contestant, a polite lower-middle-class lady who works as a dental hygienist to pay her rent and support her son.

Wrong. The host shakes his head. The audience groans.
The next contestant is the lady's greedy landlord. He says he'd sell the house and use the profits to buy and sell more real estate. The host smiles. The audience cheers. The landlord wins a stack of cash and the right to evict his tenant. That's because, the host explains, the money-grasping landlord is on the inside track! Just like the title of the game show, which is called The Inside Track! Get it? A laugh riot, right?

Apparently not, judging by the underwhelming public response to the 1981 film that features the game-show parody. Titled Right to Fight, the satirical documentary on Vancouver's housing crisis livens up its earnest interviews with not only wacky game-show parodies but also anti-capitalist tap dance numbers and bouncy cabaret pieces about the evils of unregulated land speculation. Despite its rousing pleas for social justice, and its energetic hoofing, the "springtime-for-Stalin" movie fails to attract much of an audience. Its novice writer/director, Nettie Wild, who doubled as the nervous game-show contestant, also fails to win much attention. [...]

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Tom Lyons is a Toronto-based freelance writer with the Canadian Press. His articles for CP have appeared in daily newspapers across the country.