The likes of Shadows and Breathless had yet to even play Vancouver in 1963 when Larry Kent, a then-26year-old college student, decided to make a feature with $5,000 and a handful of friends. That feature, The Bitter Ash, tells the story of a cynical working stiff and a struggling, self-deluded playwright whose lives collide. The film combines the best elements of 1950s Canadian B-movies and presents them in a way that is still fresh and believable four decades later. A raucous jazz soundtrack adds to the film’s edgy feel. Seldom shown since its debut, The Bitter Ash makes a pointed rebuttal to anyone who thinks of Canada in the early ’60s as comfy-sweatered and tragically unhip. Print courtesy of Library and Archives Canada.