Cast
Don McKellar
Valerie Buhagiar
Earl Pastko
Peter Breck
Jello Biafra
Art Bergmann
Tracy Wright
Credits
A Shadow Shows Production
Directed By Bruce McDonald
Written By Don McKellar
Story By Bruce McDonald, Don McKellar, Allan Magee
Produced By Colin Brunton, Bruce McDonald
Executive Producer Danny Salerno
Editor Michael Pacek
Director of Photography Miroslaw Baszak
Production Designer Ian Brock
Original Music by Nash The Slash
1991 | 35mm | Color | 102 Minutes
Canadian Home Video: Video Service Corp.
International Sales Agent: Shadow Shows Rights Management
Synopsis
Set along the legendary road that leads from Thunder Bay in northern Ontario to New Orleans (passing through St. Louis, Memphis and many points in between), Highway 61 is a finely tuned, high-octane road movie. Don McKellar stars as a barber and frustrated trumpet player who has been planning to flee his small town for years and journey to New Orleans, the birthplace of jazz. When a kid happens to die in his backyard, he gets mixed up with a hard-ass roadie played by Valerie Buhagiar, and before he knows it, he’s speeding down the blacktop with a pine coffin strapped to the roof of his Galaxie 500. To make matters more interesting, they meet somebody named Mr. Skin, an ominous and unnaturally pale figure with a thing for fresh souls.
Accolades
2 NOMINATIONS – Genie Awards, Best Actor, Best Editing
WINNER – Best Director, San Sebastian International Film Festival
WINNER – Most Popular Canadian Film, Vancouver International Film Festival
“What the team has concocted with Highway 61 is a phantasmagoric comedy that unfurls with the lunatic unpredictability of one of Bob Dylan’s lengthier mid-1960’s ballads.”
Stephen Holden, New York Times
