Synopsis:
1933: The Great Depression is in full black bloom. Failed Broadway impresario Chester Kent and his amnesiac sweetie Narcissa visit a fortune-teller on the outskirts of Chester's hometown of...
1933: The Great Depression is in full black bloom. Failed Broadway impresario Chester Kent and his amnesiac sweetie Narcissa visit a fortune-teller on the outskirts of Chester's hometown of Winnipeg. The fortune-teller has little optimism for the future of this brash, happy-go-lucky entertainer. Chester demonstrates his vigorous disdain for these prognostications by demanding, and receiving, manual pleasure from Narcissa just as the old crone augurs his doom. The prophecy has cost the couple their very last nickel.
Arriving in town, they meet a disillusioned streetcar driver who proves to be none other than Chester' s alcoholic ex-surgeon father Fyodor. Fyodor confirms that Chester is in fact an expatriate Canadian just as the streetcar pulls up at Lady Port-Huntly's famed Muskeg Brewery. The grand and imperious Lady, known far and wide as Beer Queen of the Prairie, is just announcing her latest contest: to find the saddest music in the world. The winning musician will collect $25,000 and the tearful adulation of millions.
Chester knows an opportunity when he hears one broadcast on the radio. He bluffs his way into her office and it is there we realize that they are old friends – very close old friends – and also that Lady Port-Huntly, while still a regal beauty, is a double amputee who must rely on her manservant Teddy for locomotion. Chester and Lady reminisce about the accident which claimed her lower limbs: first a car crash with Chester at the wheel, and then a botched amputation undertaken by the drunken Fyodor, with whom she had also been romantically entangled. Lady Port-Huntly is understandably bitter towards these Kent men.
Amongst the hordes of musicians descending on Winnipeg to participate in the contest, another Kent man arrives: Roderick, Chester' s elder brother, who is in elaborate mourning for his dead son and disappeared wife. Roderick travels as a Serbian under the nom de guerre Gavrilo the Great, Europe's Greatest Cellist.
The Muskeg Brewery contest begins, with musicians from Scotland, Siam, Mexico and West Africa, and all points in between vying for the prize. Chester and Narcissa, caught up in the excitement, make love in a snow bank. Fyodor reveals to Roderick that he has made a pair of glass legs for Lady Port-Huntly in an effort to assuage his guilt and proclaim his still-violent love for her.
Chester and Lady Port-Huntly, meanwhile, rekindle their own romance, though it is now as much an affair of hate as love. Passion is ever present. It is in full evidence in Fyodor's contest performance, as he plays "The Red Maple Leaves" on an upturned piano. Still, he is beaten by a troupe of African tribesmen. But there is greater shock in store for him: he realizes that Narcissa, the wandering nymphomaniacal amnesiac, is none other than Roderick's departed wife, who has shielded herself from the grief of losing a son by simply forgetting all about it!
Roderick makes the same realization the moment he lays eyes upon her, and the sensitive cellist swoons. When he recovers, he sets about trying to bring Narcissa's memory back to her, but this is a cruel proposition, and perhaps a selfish one too – it seems that more than anything Roderick is looking for a companion in his grief. He takes his rage out on Chester, breaking a cornet across his brother's head.
Lady Port-Huntly is presented with her new legs. Delighted, she announces a ball to celebrate. But first, a dalliance with the recovered Chester! This is interrupted by Fyodor, whose grief takes him to the bottle and then to a spectacularly fatal accident which sees him floating face-down in a liquid barley grave.
Mourning their father doesn't bring the two Kent brothers any closer together. They square off in an instrumental arena. Lady Port-Huntly becomes part of Chester's number, posing on stage atop her vitreous, beer-filled legs. But the sound of Roderick's squealing cello is too much for the glass, and the legs shatter out from under her!
Upset does not begin to describe the Lady's manner. She thrusts a spear of glass into Chester Kent's gut. But he is determined to finish his performance. His dropped cigar ignites a blaze in the brewery. The musicians and the audience panic and flee. Roderick continues his grieving keen, which helps to finally bring back Narcissa's memory. They collapse together, ready to mourn as man and wife. Teddy carries legless Lady Port-Huntly to safety. Chester finishes his number on his father' s piano as the flames close in. He dies as the last note is struck, and the brewery burns to the ground. -- © IFC Films
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