It takes place in Montreal in the 1920s, during American prohibition. For a black man, working as a porter for a railroad company is one of the otherwise limited opportunities to earn a living. And that’s the theme of the show The Porter, by Arnold Pinnock and Bruce Ramsay, on CBC. Inspired by real events, although very dramatized, the series is particularly interested in the deficient working conditions of these employees, one of them moreover finds death there, and in the union fight led by its members for the to improve.
Yet it was in Winnipeg that the series was filmed as a whole, thanks in particular to the collaboration of scenographer Réjean Labrie. “The main reason we shot in Winnipeg was because we needed a train,” says Labrie, also citing Manitoba’s attractive tax credits for this kind of production. Winnipeg therefore had both a 1910 train and a vintage railway station. For its part, the Saint-Antoine district of Montreal, which has since become Little Burgundy, was recreated in a small neighborhood of Winnipeg where some brick facades were found. The rest was achieved “with the help of special effects,” continues Mr. Labrie.
It is therefore in this setting that viewers will be able to follow the adventures of the life of Junior, a train employee who tries to make ends meet by peddling alcohol in the wagons, which earns him the wrath of Miss Queenie, a fierce gang leader from Chicago.
Meanwhile, Marlene, Junior’s wife, who is a nurse for the Black Cross (Black Cross Nurses), works to improve the living conditions of the black community of Montreal, and tries to establish a clinic in the neighborhood.
stories of ambition
Arnold Pinnock, designer, writer and executive producer of the series, currently lives in Toronto. Born to parents from Jamaica, he grew up in England before immigrating to Canada. He sees in the production of this series a way to present the roots of the black community in Canada, by featuring ambitious characters, each in their respective fields.
“The series is a kind of love letter to those who no longer have a voice today, and for their descendants not only in the Saint-Antoine district, today Little Burgundy, but across the country. These people paved the way for a middle class in the black community. I want to entertain, make people smile or make them cry, but I would also like those who watch it to want to know more about this period in history,” he said in an interview.
Several years ago, in a very cold February, he discovered in Little Burgundy, in Montreal, the building in ruins of the service center of the black community of Montreal. He was so moved by it that he dreamed for a while of producing a series in which all the funds would have been used to save the building. “But we started too late, the building was demolished two years later,” he says.
The idea of the series nevertheless continued to make its way. And along the way, the project allowed Arnold Pinnock to discover first-hand the history of Canada’s black community. “I discovered that black baggage handlers were not only a reality in the southern United States, but that there were also some in Canada,” he says.
“Obviously the men who worked on the railroads had no opportunity for promotion. They worked in extreme conditions, for long hours and for meager pay,” he says. However, the characters of the series The Porter are ready to do anything to get out of their condition, from the porter who smuggles alcohol to the music-hall dancer who dreams of a big role, passing by the nurse who is looking for financing to open her clinic, or the trade unionist who wants to improve the working conditions of his members.
The story told in The Porter is inspired by events that could have occurred in Winnipeg, where a strike by railway employees took place in 1919. at that time, the union of the Canadian Brotherhood of Railway Employees (CRBE) excluded blacks, who were grouped together to form their own union, the Order of Sleeping Car Porters (OSCP).
But the directors also chose to set the action of the series in Montreal, in particular because of its reputation as a city of pleasures and vices, where Americans flocked to escape prohibition. “It was a bit like their Las Vegas, says Arnold Pinnock, and we liked that aspect. »
At the time, Montreal was sometimes called the Harlem of the North, while Winnipeg was the Chicago. The integration of a little of the history of the two cities in The Porter gives rise as much to colorful dance scenes as to others of gangsterism.
So far the series The Porter has not yet been translated into French, but discussions are underway with Radio-Canada for it to be.