Candid Eye

195830m

Shot unscripted and unrehearsed, this NFB documentary series for television is a seminal offering in the history of doc filmmaking. Aired on CBC in 1958.

Production

Logo for ONF | NFB

Seasons

14 Episodes • Premiered 1958

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

Still image for Candid Eye season 1 episode 1: Blood and Fire

1. 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.

Still image for Candid Eye season 1 episode 2: A Foreign Language

2. A Foreign Language

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

Still image for Candid Eye season 1 episode 3: Country Threshing

3. Country Threshing

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

Still image for Candid Eye season 1 episode 4: Pilgrimage

4. 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.

Still image for Candid Eye season 1 episode 5: Memory of Summer

5. Memory of Summer

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

Still image for Candid Eye season 1 episode 6: Police

6. 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.

Still image for Candid Eye season 1 episode 7: The Days Before Christmas

7. The Days Before Christmas

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

Still image for Candid Eye season 1 episode 8: Glenn Gould: Off the Record

8. Glenn Gould: Off the Record

Still image for Candid Eye season 1 episode 9: Glenn Gould: On the Record

9. Glenn Gould: On the Record

Still image for Candid Eye season 1 episode 10: Emergency Ward

10. Emergency Ward

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

Still image for Candid Eye season 1 episode 11: The Back-Breaking Leaf

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."

Still image for Candid Eye season 1 episode 12: The End of the Line

12. The End of the Line

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

Still image for Candid Eye season 1 episode 13: The Cars in Your Life

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.

Still image for Candid Eye season 1 episode 14: Festival in Puerto Rico

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.

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