Crawley College

by James A. Forrester

F. R. “Budge” Crawley (1911-1987) was a notable Canadian pioneer film producer who co-founded Crawley Films in Ottawa with his wife Judith (Sparks) Crawley (1914 -1986), following the encouragement of NFB founder and Scottish documentarian John Grierson, when he arrived in Ottawa in 1938.

Crawley Films developed quickly following WWII, and it proved to be a unique training ground for young Canadians eager to launch film careers. At that time, the NFB was the only other major production studio in the country, until CBC television began broadcasting in September 1952. The private company flourished for over 40 years and provided early opportunities for talent both in front of and behind the motion picture camera. In the film industry it became known as “Crawley College.”

The first Canadian Film Award (predecessor of the Canadian Screen Awards) in 1949 went to Crawley Films for The Loon’s Necklace. During the years it operated, the company received hundreds of film awards and made thousands of films, primarily “industrial documentaries,” as Judith Crawley described the output.

Budge was the cameraman/director on several early films made by the company. In time, he was forced to take on the role of “producer,” as he became more interested in the development of a Canadian feature and television industry. Eventually, he spun off Faircrest Films, the feature film branch, which culminated in the 1976 Best Documentary Feature Academy Award for The Man Who Skied Down Everest. Crawley’s acceptance speech (written for him by Janis director Howard Alk) is memorable: “This is an American award for a Canadian film about a Japanese adventurer who skied down a mountain in Nepal. Thank you …”

By 1982, the company was deeply in debt, and its assets (mostly the rights to the film productions) were transferred to Atkinson Film Arts, an Ottawa company founded by Vic Atkinson and owned by Bill Stevens, both former employees, for the token sum of one dollar. In return, Stevens assumed $1.2 million in debts, but he was able to negotiate the sale of the Crawley documentary films (but not the Faircrest feature films) to the Public Archives for $400,000.

In my interview with Bill Stevens, he described how he felt about being hired by Crawley Films, for $55 per week:

“The fact that I went to Crawley’s straight from high school was often looked down upon by my peers who were in university. I used to say, ‘I’m going to Crawley College,’ and I meant it. There isn’t a film institution of any size in this country that doesn’t have ex-Crawley employees working there. It became a national institution.”

This selection of photographs is from the Public Archives of Canada ceremony marking the acquisition of the Crawley Collection, held in the PAC auditorium on Tuesday, May 29th, 1984. Budge & Judith Crawley spoke to the audience that evening, which consisted largely of Crawley “alumni”, and they later participated in a reception/photo session in the lobby.

In celebration of The Hundredth Anniversary of Film in Canada (1996), IRS Press published an informal history of the man and the company, Budge: F. R. Crawley and Crawley Films, 1939-1982.

Two years later, journalist Barbara Wade Rose completed her full biography of Crawley titled: “Budge: What Happened to Canada’s Kings of Film” for ECW Press.

In 2002, the Canadian Film Institute premiered Budge: The One True Happiness of F. R. ‘Budge’ Crawley, a one-hour documentary examining his career. The Cine Metu video, produced and directed by Michael Ostroff and written by Seaton Findlay, was developed in association with Bravo! Canada. Both Ostroff & Findlay are graduates of this institution.

All images courtesy James Forrester – PAC invitation for the Public Archives of Canada ceremony to mark the acquisition of the Crawley Collection.