Richard Jarvis (1917-1979)

Richard Jarvis trained as a technician and film director at the National Film Board and worked in the private-sector feature film industry after the war. He worked for Québec Productions as an editor on Whispering City/La forteresse (Fedor Ozep, 1947) and Un homme et son péché (Paul Gury, 1949). He then produced Le curé du village (Gury, 1949) Le rossignol et les cloches (René Delacroix, 1951). He also tried his hand at directing with the independent English-language film Sins of the Father (1948). Next, he founded his own company, where he produced and directed a crime film, Forbidden Journey (1949). Unfortunately, this film had little commercial success, although it contained very attractive images of Montreal. Jarvis then returned to editing. When the feature film industry collapsed with the arrival of television, he signed on as a director for a company that worked for television and in advertising. He left Quebec for Western Canada in the early 1960s. Jarvis was one of the first individuals in Quebec cinema to move from one profession to another, starting out as a technician and ending up as a director.