The Reel Review
The life and death of Canadian comic actor John Candy is explored in this documentary featuring archival interviews with Candy, excerpts from his TV and movie performances, and insight from friends, family and colleagues who worked with Candy for two decades until his death from a heart attack in 1994 at the age of 43.
As friendly hagiographies go, this family-sanctioned documentary from director Colin Hanks, son of frequent Candy co-star Tom Hanks, is as heartfelt and nostalgic as expected, although it does scratch the surface of Candy’s struggles with frequent panic attacks, his lingering self-doubt, and his prescient fear that he would die prematurely like his father, who died from a heart attack when Candy was only five years old. (Heart disease runs in Candy’s family.) We also learn that Candy was sensitive about his obesity. Weighing more than 375 pounds when he died, he sometimes felt exploited filming certain scenes and there were interviewers who were unkind about his weight.
There is a cornucopia of home videos and rare outtakes from movies and stage performances to give a full portrait of Candy, even though the documentary misses an opportunity to examine how truly serious Candy was about his acting. Regardless, from Candy’s many childhood friends, his sketch comedy SCTV friends/colleagues Catherine O’Hara, Eugene Levy, Dave Thomas, Martin Short, Robin Duke and Andrea Martin, movie friends/co-stars Tom Hanks, Dan Ackroyd, Macauley Culkin, Steve Martin and Bill Murray, directors Mel Brooks (Spaceballs) and Chris Columbus (Home Alone), and Candy’s own wife and children – the message is the same. Everyone loved John Candy. And the details of his death will break your heart.
REEL FACTS
• The Margaret Herrick Library in Beverly Hills, California now houses John Candy’s archive of scripts, schedules, notes and letters from fans.
• Since Candy’s death, two fellow SCTV alums have died – original SCTV head writer Harold Ramis, who would later star in Ghostbusters and whose director credits include National Lampoon’s Vacation and Groundhog Day, who died from an autoimmune disease in 2014 at the age of 69, and Joe Flaherty, who died on April Fool’s Day in 2024 at the age of 82 after a brief illness.
• John Candy and the rest of the SCTV writing/acting team won Emmys in 1982 and 1983 for Outstanding Writing in a Variety of Music Program.
Video & Photo
