The Cinematheque

“A prize-worthy performance from British actor Donald Pleasence … He has made The Rainbow Boys a must-see film for anyone interested in acting at its finest.”

Michael Walsh, The Province

British Columbia plays itself (for a change) in this rollicking treasure-hunt comedy recently rescued from the wastebin of forgotten Canadiana. It stars Halloween psychiatrist Donald Pleasence (also the James Bond heavy in You Only Live Twice) as Logan, a crotchety British prospector eking out a meager existence panning specks of gold from the Fraser River. Enter New York hippie Mazella (Don Calfa), who turns up in Logan’s dusty town and recruits the cantankerous grump to help him sniff out the region’s legendarily long-lost mines—like the one Logan’s late father supposedly left a 300-pound cache of gold in! Veteran stage and screen actress Kate Reid plays Logan’s chum, along for the ride and her cut of the booty. Chief Leonard George, of the Tsleil-Waututh Nation, appears. The featherweight farce, shot in the Fraser Canyon and directed by British-Canadian animator and Heavy Metal-helmer Gerald Potterton, bombed at the box office and fell into obscurity. Newly digitized and re-released, it’s ripe for reappraisal.

This rental includes a recently recorded interview with Gerald Potterton, director of The Rainbow Boys.