A Pacemaker and a Sidecar

A Pacemaker and a Sidecar (French: L'Eau chaude, l'eau frette, lit. "Hot Water, Cold Water") is a Canadian black comedy film, directed by André Forcier and released in 1976.[1]

A Pacemaker and a Sidecar
FrenchL'Eau chaude, l'eau frette
Directed byAndré Forcier
Produced byBernard Lalonde
Written byAndré Forcier
François Gill
Jacques Marcotte
StarringJean Lapointe
Music byAndré Duchesne
CinematographyFrançois Gill
Edited byAndré Corriveau
Production
company
Les Productions André Forcier
Release date
Running time
94 minutes
CountryCanada
LanguageFrench

The film centres on a group of residents of a rooming house in a working class neighbourhood in Montreal, who have gathered for the birthday party of their landlord Polo (Jean Lapointe), a local crime boss and loan shark.[2] The guests at the party include Amédée (Albert Payette) and Panama (Guy L'Écuyer), a gay couple who cater the party, and Carmen (Sophie Clément), a woman who owes Polo money for her daughter Francine's (Louise Gagnon) pacemaker and decides to pay the debt off with sex.[3] Meanwhile, Francine and her boyfriend Ti-Guy (Réjean Audet), who both dislike Polo, hatch a plot to kill him which backfires when another guest at the party dies instead.

Distribution

The film premiered in the Directors' Fortnight program at the 1976 Cannes Film Festival,[4] and was later screened at the 1976 Festival of Festivals.[5] Its screening at Toronto sparked a dispute between the festival and the national Film Festivals Bureau, with festival organizers claiming that they had been denied a screening on the grounds that the festival was too new and unimportant,[6] while the Festivals Bureau claimed that it was simply a scheduling conflict, as the film's sole English print had already been booked by the Chicago International Film Festival, which was running at the same time as Toronto's festival.[5] A compromise was reached whereby the print was shipped to Toronto for a screening in the early part of the festival, so that it could then be sent back to Chicago in time for that festival's scheduled screening.[5]

Due to a technical issue with the film's original print, which was not noticed by theatrical audiences but became visible only when the film was transferred to higher-definition digital formats, it remained unavailable for many years on DVD or streaming platforms.[4] A full digital restoration of the film was released to streaming platforms in April 2020.[7]

References
  1. Gerald Pratley, A Century of Canadian Cinema. Lynx Images, 2003. ISBN 1-894073-21-5. p. 164.
  2. Charles-Henri Ramond, "Eau chaude, l’eau frette, L’ – Film d’André Forcier". Films du Québec, January 31, 2009.
  3. Robert Martin, "Forcier's vivid images lack thought". The Globe and Mail, October 21, 1976.
  4. Maxime Demers, "La deuxième vie de L’eau chaude l’eau frette". Le Journal de Montréal, April 25, 2020.
  5. Robert Martin, "Toronto festival gets Forcier film". The Globe and Mail, September 24, 1976.
  6. Robert Martin, "Toronto's film festival: will the smorgasbord prove indigestible?". The Globe and Mail, September 18, 1976.
  7. "«L'eau chaude l'eau frette» restauré disponible sur diverses plateformes". Le Journal de Montréal, April 9, 2020.
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