Written and produced by Weintraub for the National Film Board (NFB) in 1960, Between Two Wars documents life in Canada from 1919 to 1939 entirely through archival footage and still photographs.
"Finding all that archival film footage was the toughest part of the job," Weintraub told the audience during a brief talk following the screening. Newsreel companies were the best sources, he said, because their archives contained many clips of Canadian news events.
The two segments shown last week, Sunshine and Eclipse (1927-1934) and Twilight of an Era (1934-1939), included not only the most prominent news events of the period, such as the stock market crash, the birth of the Dionne Quintuplets and the abdication of King Edward VIII, but also looked at fashion, social conventions and consumer products as time marched through the 1930s toward Canada's declaration of war on Nazi Germany.
"Thank you, Bill, for bringing back so many memories of my childhood," said one woman after the screening, summing up the sentiments of many in attendance.
Weintraub, whose prolific career as a filmmaker at the NFB spanned five decades and approximately 150 films, is also well-known as an author whose novels include Why Rock the Boat?, The Underdogs, and Crazy About Lili. His non-fiction books include the critically acclaimed Getting Started and City Unique: Montreal Days and Nights of the 1940s and '50s.
