ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, April 29, 1996 TAG: 9604300010
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 3 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: TORONTO
SOURCE: ANNE SWARDSON THE WASHINGTON POST
In the dark, smoky air of a dive called the Neon Cowboy, a ramrod-straight, red-coated Mountie and his partner, a Chicago policeman, stroll by the stage. As they pass the gyrating dancers, a stripper bends down provocatively and sweeps her long hair over the Mountie's face. He pretends not to notice.
``I hope this isn't too embarrassing for you, Benny,'' wisecracks the Italian-American policeman.
``Not in the least,'' the Mountie replies.
``Then how come you aren't looking?'' asks his partner.
``Good,'' says the director. ``Cut.''
It's just another good vs. sleaze scene in the television program ``Due South,'' the buddy show on CBS in which square-jawed Canadian actor Paul Gross plays Mountie Benton Fraser, American actor David Marciano plays American detective Ray Vecchio and Toronto plays Chicago.
``Due South'' does a fair approximation of a U.S.-made TV show, but it's not one. It is the only foreign-made series running on U.S. prime-time network television. The company that makes it, Alliance Communications Corp., has high hopes of being the first foreign company to establish a major and regular presence in the U.S. entertainment market.
``Five years ago, we embarked on a strategy that heavily targeted U.S. networks,'' said Robert Lantos, Alliance's chairman and founder. ``A market which is 50 percent to 70 percent of global revenue should be reflected in our balance sheet.''
Other Canadian production companies have succeeded in getting the occasional TV movie or animated cartoon on the air south of the border. But penetrating the major networks is tough.
Alliance, Canada's largest film and television producer, is only 10 years old. It sold stock to the public three years ago in Canada and began trading on the Nasdaq stock market this year. Its U.S. strategy has suffered some setbacks: ABC recently booted Alliance's computer-animated children's series, ``ReBoot,'' from its Saturday morning slot because the purchase of Capital Cities/ABC Inc. by Walt Disney Co. left little room for competing children's programming.
Last year, ``Due South'' was canceled by CBS, then picked up again.
``Obviously, dealing with the networks is difficult,'' said Roger Dent, vice president of Yorkton Securities Inc. in Toronto. ``You can spend a lot of time and money trying to get shows on the networks. Alliance has been fairly successful.''
The next few weeks will be a crucial test of whether Alliance can increase its presence on U.S. television. CBS will decide whether to renew ``Due South,'' while ABC and Fox Television are considering whether to accept Alliance-made pilots. The one for Fox, a two-hour action-detective movie directed by John Woo, is called ``Once a Thief''; the one for ABC, ``Toe Tags,'' is a comedy set in a morgue.
Alliance also is attempting to reach into the United States in the movie business, but in a low-key way. Rather than producing big-budget feature films, the company leans toward smaller, more-eclectic movies, such as Adam Egoyan's ``Exotica,'' a winner at the Cannes Film Festival. Its largest-scale films have been ``Johnny Mnemonic'' with Keanu Reeves and ``Never Talk to Strangers'' with Rebecca De Mornay and Antonio Banderas, neither a smashing financial success.
The Canadian television and film production industry is relatively young, though sophisticated. It developed during the years when U.S. producers came to Toronto, which has lower labor rates and a generic appearance that allows it to double for many other cities, to shoot their films.
``Moonstruck,'' ``Three Men and a Baby,'' ``The Santa Clause'' and the recent ``Mrs. Winterbourne'' were among the many films made here.
That U.S. business created what Gross calls a ``crew base,'' a corps of Canadian craftspeople skilled in the shooting trade, some of whom now work for Canadian companies. Of the 140 television shows, TV movies and films shot in Toronto last year, more than half were Canadian-made.
The cross-pollination rarely works the other way, however. Almost none of those Canadian programs will be seen on U.S. television. The disinterest that afflicts all aspects of Canadian-American relations creates a bias against Canadian productions, some in the business believe.
``My L.A. friends don't have a clue what I'm doing, or where Canada is,'' laughed Marciano, who had never been to Toronto until ``Due South'' began shooting here two years ago.
Gross - who writes plays and directs in addition to acting - asks why a Canadian-made TV show has to be set in Chicago to sell to U.S. viewers. He dreams of locating a series in ``an unnamed border city on one side or the other'' but recognizes that the U.S. networks might not go for it.
Still, the John Woo series is set in Vancouver; if Fox accepts it, U.S. viewers actually will be able to watch a series set in another country.
LENGTH: Medium: 88 linesby CNB