Canadian International Pictures, sister company to the great Arbelos Films, takes upon itself the noble mission of restoring and releasing lesser-seen films from up north. Their next project is a film I’d frankly never heard of, but upon watching a trailer for its restoration I can’t see it soon enough: Allan Moyle’s The Rubber Gun stars Stephen Lack (Scanners) as a Montreal drug-pusher whose makeshift family is put under threat. Ahead of bicoastal premieres––Los Angeles’ American Cinematheque on March 6 (with a Moyle Q&A) and New York’s Roxy Cinema on March 11 (where Lack will do a Q&A on March 15)––we’re pleased to exclusively debut said trailer.
Here’s the synopsis: “Charismatic painter Steve (Scanners star Stephen Lack) has carved out a reputation as Montreal’s premiere drug connection, trafficking narcotics with a crew of friends (and lovers) living as a makeshift ‘family’ on the fringes of society. But tensions rise when the police catch wind of their latest shipment, and Steve strikes up a friendship with a university student eager to observe the group’s illicit lifestyle for his graduate thesis. As the walls start to close in, old jealousies and new paranoias surface, and the family scrambles to adapt or perish. Featuring seven songs by acclaimed Leonard Cohen collaborator Lewis Furey, the directorial debut of Allan Moyle (Times Square, Pump up the Volume, Empire Records) is an inventive drug drama that set the stage for Drugstore Cowboy, Trainspotting, and a number of other unflinching films that made waves in subsequent decades. In spite of a shoestring budget, the urgency and vivid reality of the film’s docu-fiction approach earned widespread praise, with the Toronto International Film Festival citing it as ‘of the best films of the seventies.’ Out of official circulation for decades, The Rubber Gun is long overdue for rediscovery.”
Watch the preview below: