Original subtitles

(gentle music)

- You know, I'm 73 and

the memory...

it's a bit foggy.

Pizza to G0 was...

It's about a guy,

a slovenly guy,

who lives in this filthy apartment,

and he's hungry, so he orders a pizza.

While he's waiting for the pizza to arrive,

he starts channel surfing on TV,

and everywhere he surfs...

then we go into it.

So sometimes he's watching a film noir,

sometimes it's a comedy,

sometimes it's commercials,

sometimes it's a soap opera.

All different kinds of film genre.

Some are like a period piece.

But all of this... every time he flicks...

and we use the same actors for everything.

We went in, and some of it's in black and white...

there's a western in there

that I got to use my Vilmos Zsigmond skills on.

A campfire scene at night.

As it happened, at the Concordia Film Festival

end of year screening,

a gentleman called Bob Presner

showed up and saw that film,

and he was looking for somebody

because he had two clients,

two producers who wanted to make a film

for the drive-ins.

That's how long we've been around.

They were making a drive-in film,

and so he recommended us to the two producers,

Jack Murphy and Fred Fox.

They saw our film and said,

"Guys, do you want a job? We got a job for you."

So we got a job.

The budget was $750,000,

shot in 35 millimeter,

1979, a film made for drive-ins

called Pinball Summer.

It was our first feature film,

and it was shot in summer.

Again, shot like I said in 35, for 750...

$750,000 back then.

We're talking 1979.

They're doing films in Ottawa now

for a little bit more than that

40 years later.

(laughs) So.

But it was a glorious experience.

We had the chops to do it.

As I recall, we had like 25 days,

so it was a fairly generous schedule,

and most of the shooting,

like over 90% of the shooting,

it's all outside, it's all exterior,

so lighting-wise was no issue.

We didn't have the usual issues

because we had very, very few...

Very few interiors to light

except the pinball arcade,

and it was a bunch of kids having fun.

It was harmless, mindless.

(laugh5)

It was a one page or two page suggestion

made by Steven Miller,

who became one of the producers on the film.

He had this idea from a film

after seeing

some other

horror film that was successful in the States,

and he took it to John

and John said, "Yeah, it's great,

and we've got the guys to do it."

And so

myself and George

and Bob Presner and Steven Miller

and the guy who they brought in to write,

John, I forget his family name.

But we all worked slowly on development,

and we would go to Cinepix,

and we would screen films.

John would show us what he liked.

At the time, Cinepix was distributing

a lot of Japanese horror,

and you know, Japanese horror back then...

I don't know what it's like today,

but it was a lot of slice and dice

and bloodshed. (laughs)

John liked that because that's what sold.

So that was our mandate basically.

(laugh5)

It was certainly, yeah, one of the influences.

It certainly helped launch my career.

It gave me a good boost forward,

that's for sure.

Back Stab was a pretty good one.

Back Stab was one of the better ones.

James Brolin and Jim Kaufman.

Yeah.

I don't recall very much about it.

Well, I'll tell you the one thing I recall

about Back Stab and the Jim Kaufman.

That's where I met my wife.

(chuckles)

She was working in the costume department.

It was quite a generous budget, as I recall.

That's Christian Duguay who directed, right?

That was a fairly generous budget

and a lot of fun

‘cause there's lots of special effects.

It was a brutal shoot though

because we shot over Christmas and New Year's,

and there were periods

where it was

brutally cold,

like down to 25 below,

and we were shooting outside at night,

and often the film was so brittle

it would snap and break

and everything fogging up

and the batteries dying all the time.

I have photographs of me wearing

a full... it's like a ski mask,

and it's just covered with frost

from working outside all night.

It was a tough one, but it was beautiful,

and it looked really good.

I really liked the result.

Christian, before he directed,

he was a DOP himself.

Actually, he started off as a Steadicam operator

and then became a DOP and then became a director.

And so, yeah, that was shot in winter.

Pretty brutal too.

But again, we had quite a bit of money.

It was a generous budget,

and I think Columbia Pictures

was involved in that too.

I think Columbia Pictures

was one of the producers,

but there was no shortage of money on that film.

On both of those two films you mentioned,

we had by that time...

we had graduated to the full package.

Whatever I wanted on my camera list, we got it,

so we got all the high speed lenses.

We got all the toys.

Probably the best one Allegro ever made I think,

other than the one I directed for them,

The Neighbor,

was Deadbolt

with Justine Bateman I believe.

Justine Bateman and

Adam Baldwin,

who was a cousin of Alec or something,

one of the Baldwin gang.

But that was a good film

because we had two very good actors,

and as far as Justine... was very pleasant, easy,

because you've heard these stories

before I'm sure,

but they're not always easy to work with.

I understand

that all actors have a certain insecurity

because it's them on screen.

It's them in front of the camera,

so they're often very insecure and nervous,

and you've got to be part psychologist,

in order to... and therapist to help them as a DOP

because if there's one person on the set

that they always want to fall in love with

and always want to be close to, it's the DOP

because their image is in your hands,

so to speak.

And so often they're difficult

and nervous and insecure.

"What's the lens you're using?

What's the filter you're using?"

But Justine was just

easy, a sweetheart,

no problem whatsoever,

and the story was solid.

Adam Baldwin played the psychopath in that one.

We did a lot of films about psychopaths.

And that was also shot, I must add,

in the same house that we shot

all of the horror sequences for...

so when you see it, you will recognize the rooms

that we shot Amityville Curse in.

It's the exact same house

that we called "the monster house."

It was at that time... James Brolin I think

was just hooking up with Barbra Streisand.

I think. I'm not sure.

But the memory I have of that film now

is because at the time,

I had a brother who lived in Montreal

for a long time,

and his wife

was a big fan of James Brolin.

James Brolin was a TV star first, right?

He was in some...

some TV series

about doctors or something.

I don't know what it was.

But my sister-in-law was madly in love with him,

and so she asked if she could come to the set

and meet him,

so I remember my brother and sister-in-law

showing up at the set to meet James Brolin

and having their photograph taken with him.

He was a very nice guy,

and he's a very easy guy to work with.

Very eaSY QW-

But that was a good little film as I recall.

Again, another one of the better ones.

Yeah.

It's not one of the films

that sticks in my memory.

I know it's a fairly good one,

but I can't recall.

That was a Doug Jackson I think too,

was it not?

I'm sure that was Doug,

but I have very little recollections

of that one. Very little.

Not one that stands out,

but in that section,

you'll see this was always...

Pierre liked his stalker,

male psychopath,

looking for his next female victim type of film,

and it was always pretty much the formula.

Young woman, vulnerable,

trust the wrong person,

looks like she's going to get slayed,

but somehow she always turns the table

and the nasty guy gets his comeuppance.

Roll credits.

(hands clap) The audience applauds.

That was basically Pierre's formula

for successful filmmaking

(chuckles)

in a nutshell

because we did a whole batch

of them like that.

At the time,

I was just happy to do the photography,

but I have to say that towards the end,

it's what made me want to change and get out

because, you know,

I felt we were doing a lot of the same things.

The genre was...

I wouldn't say it was tired,

but there's not much in the way of innovation

in the stuff that we were doing,

the ones that we were doing.

That was my feeling,

and I just needed to get out and do other stuff

and find another way to express myself.

(gentle music)