Beauty Day

Ralph Zavadil made a programme on local cable television in a small city in Ontario under the name Cap’n Video. He threw himself off roofs into snowbanks, came down ladders into half empty swimming pools and tried things nobody would think of. He entertained some viewers and outraged others. After a special Easter show he was taken off the air for good. The documentary tells his life looking back from the present and finds the man much as he was. The film does not hold those stunts up as an example; it also tells what became of someone who put his body at risk. What it meant to live in a time when local television was open to anyone stands inside the account. Jay Cheel’s ninety two minute Canadian documentary was completed in 2011.