Marlene, a feature film based on a true story of a woman’s fight to find justice for her husband, will be screened at 2 p.m. Saturday, April 23 at the Empress Theatre.
The Steven Truscott story is one of Canada’s most famous stories, and became an international story when it created an uproar when a 14-year-old schoolboy was sentenced to hang for killing and raping a 12-year-old schoolmate.
Marlene is based on the life of Marlene Truscott and the book Until You Are Dead by Julian Sher.
“A journalist who had done a play on the Truscotts that played in Guelph suggested the untold story of Marlene Truscott to me some years ago,” writer, director and producer Wendy Hill-Tout said.
“I fell in love with the story of this ordinary housewife, Canada’s Erin Brockovich, who was determined that her husband would not go to his grave as a convicted murderer and rapist.”
Steven Truscott was arrested in 1959 at the age of 14, and his sentence to be hanged, shocked the country and the world.
Several years later, because of the impact of his story, and his young age, the Canadian government essentially stopped capital punishment.
“For me, this story has a relevance today,” Hill-Tout said. “Marlene is about truth and justice, and that a country cannot have justice without the truth. I believe truth in democratic countries is under siege, not just truth in third world countries. Our journalists are threatened, our democracy is at stake.”
Marlene became involved in his case after reading a book by Isabel LaBourdais, a journalist who started studying his case because she was against capital punishment, and then realized he was innocent.
Truscott lost his appeal, but when he was paroled 10 years after his arrest, Steven and Marlene met and became friends and eventually fell in love.
On her wedding day Marlene made a vow she would someday help him and she kept her promise. Digging into 20,000 pieces of paper, she helped to find the evidence to exonerate him.
“Marlene is a female story, about women who had the courage to challenge the male establishment, the justice system, the police, the military, the medical system,” Hill-Tout said. “Everything we held sacred.”
Marlene stars Kristin Booth, Greg Bryk, Julie Sarah Stone, Dempsey Bryk, Maxim Roy and Ryan Northcott.
Hill-Tout aid Marlene is about the importance of fighting for justice, and noted the Truscott story is still taught in school.
“It’s one known by every lawyer and judge and law student in the country as it became an example of how justice could go terribly wrong,” Hill-Tout said. “We all need to be Marlenes, to be vigilant. All of us ordinary people. Because truth and light can be snuffed out in the blink of an eye.”
