Nobody Waved Goodbye
| Nobody Waved Good-bye | |
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| Directed by | Don Owen |
| Produced by | Don Owen Roman Kroitor |
| Written by | Don Owen |
| Starring |
Peter Kastner Julie Biggs |
| Music by | Eldon Rathburn |
| Cinematography | John Spotton |
| Edited by | John Spotton |
| Distributed by | Columbia Pictures (Canada) Cinema V (U.S.) |
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Release date
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Running time
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80 minutes |
| Country | Canada |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $75,000 |
Nobody Waved Good-bye is a 1964 black-and-white National Film Board of Canada production directed by Don Owen, starring Peter Kastner, Julie Biggs and Claude Rae. It was followed twenty years later by a sequel, Unfinished Business, with the same director and two lead actors.
In Toronto, Peter is an 18-year-old boy who dislikes the middle-class comfort of his family life, headed by his father, who sells cars for $300 per commission, and what he perceives as society's general fixation on profit. He has a girlfriend, Julie, whose parents dislike him, and his own parents feel he spends too much time with her, at the expense of his school work. Peter steals his father's company's car and rides with Julie, only to be arrested for dangerous driving without a licence. He starts meeting with a probation officer weekly, and also leaves home to rent his own place, and finds work.
Unable to make much money, he pressures Julie to find a job. She comes to his residence after a fight with her parents and demands they leave Toronto, telling Peter to borrow money from his father. Peter meets his father at the car dealership, only to find him incensed with Peter's appearance. His father tells him he is a bad investment and he does not want to see him any more. Peter subsequently steals money and a car to leave with Julie. When Julie realizes the truth about Peter's theft, see tells him she is pregnant and that she can't raise her baby with him.
Owen had originally planned to shoot a half-hour television docudrama provisionally called First Offence about probation officers, with a budget of $35,000, and using occasional dramatizations to tell the story. After the start of principal photography, the director believed the story could be expanded into a feature film, and NFB executive producer Tom Daly allocated additional funds for a total of $75,000.
Owen also decided to shift the focus of the film away from probation officers, onto a coming-of-age story of a young man from the suburbs growing into adulthood. He used a small crew of five people for Nobody Waved Good-bye —and no screenplay. Instead, he wrote a short outline that he would discuss with the actors and cameraman John Spotton before each scene, with dialogue then improvised based on these discussions.
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