TV-Ontario Pop Culture Connections

commanderteddog and I went out over lunch hour to scope out the Esselte Building on Front and Yonge, to determine if it served as "NoviCorp" in the 1983 SF film, Overdrawn at the Memory Bank. I think we have a match! I have some screen shots that I'll upload and compare when I get home tonight. Next, to determine the filming site for the Doppler Transfer Station!

Some random coincidences:

1. My father worked in the Esselte Building in the early 80s, though I think he started there a year or two after the movie was filmed. The lobby was one of the grandest places I'd ever seen, at least when I was 8.

2. Programmer Apollonia was played by Linda Griffiths, who went to success in the small but vital world of Canadian theatre. The portal page for her website features a photo taken from a hidden online directory of "typewriter pornography" images I stumbled across while researching keyboards at the Canadian Office Product Association.

This film was one of my favorites when I was in grade school, though it was only aired on rare occasions on the Buffalo PBS station and TV-Ontario. I thought it was terribly sleek and futuristic, and the switches between the real world and reality inside a computer were, to me, really quite innovative and strange. I'd seen Tron (and read the novelization) by age 8, but assumed that, somehow, the "programs" in that movie were really tiny people moving amongst the circuity. Watching Overdrawn at the Memory Bank, I realized that, no, they were actually projecting their consciousness into the computer, while physically remaining outside.

Curiously, this movie also introduced me to a lot of film noir tropes, via the Casablanca-themed fantasies Fingal creates for himself inside the computer network.

The fact I can say things like "I think that's the pillar Apollonia ducked behind before transforming into Fingal's mother," to commanderteddog and have her understand what I'm talking about is a source of constant wonderment to me. That, and the fact that she was actually excited to read my old copies of Omnia, the student paper we both wrote for at different times.

Behold, the Nerdening

So, I've uploaded the photos I took today on my outing with commanderteddog, and I think we clearly have a match for the NexisCorp building in Overdrawn at the Memory Bank and the Esselte Building on Front and Yonge Street in Toronto. Observe:


Image from the movie. Note the support pillar, circled in red.


Taken today. Though taken from a dramatically different angle, you can see the same pillars.


Fingal meets his mother... sorta.


Notice the brackets on the railing, used to hold the fake plants in place, as well as the metal railing itself. I think I can be pretty sure this was the place.

Now, on to my next theory. Terry Gilliam watched Overdrawn at the Memory Bank before he filmed Brazil. Admittedly, there is far less evidence for that, but compare some screen shots:
( Read more... )