Goin' Down the Road

Pals from the Maritimes, Pete (Doug McGrath) and Joey (Paul Bradley) pack their meagre belongings into an old Chevy and head for the bright lights of the 6ix. But their naive dreams soon crash into cold reality, and they’re forced to take mundane jobs in a bottle depot. They chase women, drink beer. Joey gets a waitress pregnant and they get married, but life doesn’t get any easier…

If this had been made south of the border it would be talked about as a classic of “New American Cinema” alongside movies like Five Easy Pieces and Scarecrow. As it is, Donald Shebib’s debut feature, shot on 16mm, is a landmark in English-Canadian filmmaking, a naturalistic working class drama that captures its time and place, but which still holds relevance for audiences some 50 years later. Sadly, Don Shebib passed away in November.

With music by Bruce Cockburn.

Goin’ Down the Road is about hard times here and now, and it’s the best movie to hit town in a long time.

Roger Ebert

Shebib makes folk music from the everyday scrappy rhythms of 1960s Toronto life… a humble film about humble people that transcended its limitations and announced the arrival of English Canada’s cinema.

Radheyan Simonpillai CBC

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