All it took was one person to believe in his innocence.
In 1959, Huron County was shaken when then 14-year-old Steven Truscott was sentenced to death by hanging after a jury convicted him for the rape and murder of 12-year-old Lynne Harper.
Public outcry and decades of investigations from his wife Marlene Truscott, including sifting through over 10,000 pages of documents, led to his sentence being commuted and paroled in 1969.
On Friday, Marlene, a film on the Steven Truscott story and the decades of work Marlene did to clear his name will premier in select theatres, including at The Bookshelf in Guelph.
The film’s focus is on Marlene Truscott and the monumental task she undertook to overturn Steve’s death penalty conviction.
The film's creation was a long process, with the initial stages occurring nearly 10 years ago.
“My parents are older now, my brother and sister both have children, and I think we’ve kind of had our time in the spotlight. This movie is something that was planned 10 years ago and I think via funding issues and just the way Canadian films work took them an awfully long time,” said their son Ryan Truscott.
Steven and Marlene declined to be interviewed.
“So, really, the intent of this movie was to come out many years ago, and I think it got funding and got made and is coming out now - which is a little later on from when the story was.”
Directed by Wendy Hill-Tout, the film was shot in the Calgary area, with Kitchener-born actress Kristin Booth playing Marlene.
“I also filmed at Goderich jail, which was the first jail he was put into when he was 14 and arrested,” said Hill-Tout. “That was, I guess startling in a way, the small, small little jail cells and just imagining this 14-year-old boy in there. It was riveting.”
Filmed in 2020, Marlene narrowly escaped the rapture of COVID-19, which shuttered productions across Canada in March of 2020 and allowed for Tout-Hill to form a bond with the Truscott family.
“They never told me what to do Marlene just told me she wanted it to be truthful, and I said to her ‘Marlene I don’t have to make anything up,” said Hill-Tout. “I did correspond all the time with Marlene while I was writing, this was a very long writing process probably seven years or maybe it was longer but I try to forge that, and I would always ask her the facts because it’s such a big story.”
Corresponding over email, Tout-Hill and Marlene Truscott went over minute details such as how Marlene dressed in the 1960s.
“To me, she is this courageous woman who became basically this Erin Brockovich and was ruthless about finding the facts,” said Tout-Hill.
While the Truscott's have lived a quiet life in Guelph, Ryan said his mother's hometown of Guelph was the perfect place to release this film to the public.
“My family is really proud of the movie, we’ve all sort of seen how wonderful a job Kristen does playing my mom and as well the younger woman who plays my mom as a child, it's a really important story that they want people to remember,” said Ryan. “That’s sort of why it’s coming out now versus years ago when it was an important thing.
“I think that it’s really important for people to realize that first of all, it’s a true story, they’ve taken some liberties in certain areas, but generally the basis of it is that it's a true story. It happened to someone in Canada. We have to remember that something as serious as capital punishment was abolished in Canada partly because of my dad's case and we want to keep it that way,” said Ryan.
“We also want people to understand that one person can make a difference. My mom had no legal training, really it was through perseverance and trying to pull the right people together, and really a lot of amazing women came together to really help get this across the finish line.”
The film has received a handful of accolades including winning the Alberta Film & Television Awards (AMPIA Awards) for best make-up and/or hair artist, best feature film at the Forest City Film Festival and best cinematography at the Hamilton Film Festival.
