Reviewing Movies

Richmond Percival Hobson Jr. was a New York City Stockbroker before he took to the wilds of Northern BC with his partner Panhandle Phillips to create the largest ranch on earth in some of the most forbidding territory on earth. The real Hobson wrote 3 books about the experience and seems an affable, level-headed dreamer. Pan on the other-hand is taciturn, moody and mischievous. They seem an unlikely pair but somehow they made the partnership work. Finding cowboys to wrangle cattle in the middle of WW#2 was quite another matter.

I’ve read the books so seeing them re-invented for television was a bit of a wrench. This happened twice around about 1998-2000. Unfortunately by this time the hero of the piece had been dead for over 30 years dying of heart failure at the relatively young age of 59. He was played by two young Canadian Actors in a CBC TV Series and a TV Movie, Ted Atherton played his partner in both. Yannick Bisson hails from the unlikely locale of Montreal City. Where he gained his riding chops I’m not sure. The TV Movie has been released on DVD and I recently rewatched it. In it Chad Willet from New Westminster BC plays Hobson and to my mind better embodies the character. Tall and rangy he has an impish smirk that makes his partnership with Pan believable. Both actors have been around Canadian TV from their teen years.

By the way, I liked Hobson’s books and recently Phillips’ daughter has been writing about growing up on the ‘Home Ranch’. Never occurred to me to think that such a crusty individual actually found a woman who could stand him.