The Raffle (movie post)
Frank Palmer (Bobby Dawson), professional dreamer, convinces best friend publicist David Lake (Nicholas Lea) that they can become millionaires by selling raffle tickets - the prize being a date with the world's most beautiful woman. The plan goes unexpectedly well, but they have yet to find the woman. They are helped by Margo Miller, David’s ex-colleague, who’s secretly in love with him while he doesn’t realize she’s the woman of his life.
Callum is listed at the 17th place in the credits (as Callum Rennie). He appears for 8 seconds mid-way through the film, as the set director for an interview of the two main characters. He’s seen from behind, and his part consists in counting "5..4..3..2" for the start of the interview. The light focuses on the interviewer so that even his back’s hardly recognizable. In fact, his shadow is more recognizable than the back of his head...
The IMDB page: The Raffle aka Jackpot (1994)
Gavin Wilding directed and produced this low-budget Canadian film; other movies he directed are thrillers and not well rated. The scenario was by John Fairley who wrote the script for Convergence, also directed by Gavin Wilding - and nothing else.
Jennifer Clement plays Margo Miller, the romantic heroine. She’s sweet and quirky, but there’s nothing much she can do against a very poor scenario. She was Aunt Zoë alongside Callum as Uncle Johnny in the delicious kid TV series My Life as a Dog (1995-1996) and is mentioned in Suspicious River credits ("many thanks").
Babz Chula (credited as Babs) is Jacki Brooks or just ‘Brooks’, the no-nonsense boss of the advertising agency where Margo and David work. Babz is a long time friend of Callum, both living together for nearly two years in his dark period. In addition to The Raffle, they played alongside in Mike Hoolboom’s Valentine's Day (also in 1994) and in The X Files: I Want to Believe (2008) where Babz had a small role.
Nicholas Lea (starring as David Lake) later took the part of Alex Krycek in The X Files series after Callum turned it down. He was also in Shattered aka Butterfly on a Wheel (2007) as Jerry Crane. And in Men in Trees where he shared a scene with Callum. Kind of.
All of them had been involved in the same Vancouver theater scene where Callum took acting classes at the Bruhanski Theatre Studio. Alex Bruhanski is featured here as Erney Pratt, the sadistic tax collector.
Estelle Coppens (Rhonda Simmons, TV anchor) is listed in two films only: The Raffle and Double Happiness (Lead Woman in Scene with Jade).
Not C6D but worth mentioning, Mark Hamill (Bernard Wallace, the shy dog breader and lucky prize-winner) used to be Star Wars' Luke Skywalker ten years before.
C6D being the only interesting quality of this movie apart from Callum’s flash appearance, here are snapshots of the actors mentioned above:
Cast / Characters:
Nicholas Lea
Bobby Dawson
Jennifer Clement
Mark Hamill
Jay Underwood
Teri Lynn Rutherford
Alex Bruhanski
Babs Chula
...
Callum Rennie
David Lake
Frank Palmer
Margo Miller
Bernard Wallace
Wilson Lowe
Anya Monroe
Erney Pratt
Jacki Brooks
...
Floor Director
Year: 1994
Runtime: 100’
Country: Canada
IMDB rating: 4.2/10 (95 votes)
Genre: Comedy / Drama / Romance
Keywords: Raffle / Beautiful Woman / Female Nudity / Female Frontal Nudity / Close Up Scene / Vagina / Independent Film
Filmed in Vancouver
Five user comments: three users found this movie definitively bad, two are ecstatic (as are Amazon customers reviews) - the latter written by fans of Nick Lea, thrilled by the fact he had the leading role: It's my favorite gift to either Nick Lea fans or people to whom I'm hoping to introduce some of the actor's other roles.
One example:
Beyond Bad,
The Raffle is one god-awful film. It's fascinating to watch, though. Simply because you can't believe anyone would make a movie like this.
It's about two dishwater-dull guys who want to make some money putting on a contest to find the most beautiful woman in the world. The plot has potential for comedy laced with some smut - it fails miserably on both counts.
One thing that is highly irritating throughout the film is that the actors are always laughing or have big smiles on their faces when there is nothing funny going on. I'm not sure if that's because they realize how stupid the film is or because the director is trying to use them as a moving laugh track. If a laugh track is the case, then it doesn't work.
If you're in the mood for viewing some T & A, steer clear of this gem. There is precious little of it. Considering the quality of the picture, you'd think they'd pepper it with female flesh.
The screenplay seems like it was dubbed to fit the mouth movements of the actors instead of suiting the film.
The cheese in this film is constant. There is scarcely a moment that I wasn't close to yakking.
Mark Hammill has a small part in this debacle. Fortunately, I heard he cashed in on the recent Star Wars films, so he probably won't have to be part of a project like this again.
If you are feeling masochistic or want to show film students how not to make a movie, check this one out.
You can find all the comments here.
Callum Quotient: Infinitesimal (8 seconds). That would be like 0.14%...
Pictures:
(teaser picture from the now defunct CallumKeithRrennie.net site)
Quotes:
- Floor director, doing the countdown to commercial : 5..4..3..2
- Frank: I don’t have the same relationship with women as you do.
David: I know, you’ve always been good at talking to women.
Frank: I never did them anything else. - Margo to David, after he convinced her at the last minute not to take her flight to Toronto: You could invite me somewhere, but not too classy. My clothes just took off.
Trivia:
- The R-rated version is interspersed with a series of musical montages of naked models shots having little to do with the plot (see keyword: vagina).
Interesting scenes:
- Brooks treating Margo to chop suey while she fires her
- Margo vamping the night janitor to distract him while David and Frank sidle in the advertising agency
- Floor director, doing the countdown to commercial
Do I want to show this to my parents / friends / co-workers?
Poll The Raffle
Floor Director
Poll Callum as Floor Director
Does he die?
You really want to know? Are you sure? Really sure? Well, then. (highlight to read)
::Not that we know of::
Articles/interviews
Not that many to say the least. The Raffle Is listed but not rated or reviewed at Rotten Tomatoes. Here’s one review- although it’s more like a summary:
How much would a man pay to go out with the prettiest woman on Earth? Two guys think they have a pretty good idea in this comedy. David Lake (Nicholas Lea) and Frank Palmer (Bobby Dawson) are two less-than-scrupulous entrepreneurs who are looking for a way to make a fortune the fast and easy way. One day, Frank comes up with a promising idea -- sponsoring a nationwide raffle in which the winner gets to go on a date with the world's most beautiful woman. David agrees that the idea has potential, and soon David and Frank print up 500,000 tickets selling for ten dollars each. The five million income will pay for an upscale dream date and leave enough left over to make David and Frank multimillionaires. Tickets sell like hotcakes, but now Frank and David have to find the world's most beautiful woman, and persuade her to go out with a perfect stranger who's paid ten bucks for the privilege. Finding the right woman proves to be an uphill battle, and it doesn't help when David finds himself falling in love with Margot (Jennifer Clement), a woman working in David and Frank's office who is just a bit offended that she hasn't been considered for the competition. The Raffle also stars Mark Hamill and Jay Underwood. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
From here.
Links
The trailer is available here (features Jennifer Clement, Nicholas Lea, Babz Chula and Mark Hamill): watch it, you’ll get the movie in a nutshell.
An excerpt featuring Callum is here.
There is a, um, Raffle page on a site dedicated to Nick Lea, here.
A useful guide to floor director’s hand signals.
Availability
Used VHS copies are available through Amazon.
French-dubbed DVD can be found here.
Final thoughts
The Raffle is clearly not a good movie. I watched it knowing what I’d get (again, just watch the trailer). Still. It’s even worse than expected. The plot is cheesy in the extreme, it’s badly directed and the main actors have to deal with an inconsistent characterization while the supporting actors are plain caricatures.
The addition of incongruous nude or next to naked chicks is mind boggling. They’re supposed to be shots of the girls competing for the title of the most beautiful woman in the world but they’re just slapped on the other scenes with no pretense at continuity. Probably meant so that Mr Brown can enjoy his porn without arousing Mrs Brown’s suspicion. And the PG version is still available for an innocent audience. Maybe a way for the producers to cash in on their $2 million budget?
Another surrealistic moment is the last scene between David and Frank: is Frank disclosing his homosexuality to David? Again, it comes out of nowhere, no consistance with the plot - makes you wonder if you’ve changed channel or something.
Value? None apart from C6D. Also, we learn that Callum can count from five to two (although I wouldn’t mind if anyone’d got his part with the original soundtrack). Watching this, you understand Callum’s career could have been much, much worse. It’s the kind of movie an actor is lucky not to star in and to just play instead a floor director for 8 seconds, turning their back on the camera.
Gratuitous sociologic observation: fifteen years ago, people still smoked a lot in movies.
ETA: Nicholas Lea's part in Men in Trees