The producer of Kane And Abel, the American mini-series filmed in Toronto in 1985, needed a local site that most resembled Siberia.

Another American producer requested a portion of Queen St. E. closed off to traffic, so his crew could "blow out the windows" of the Peter Pan Restaurant.

A Toronto producer wanted to bring a herd of cattle into the Toronto-Dominion Centre one Sunday morning for a TV commercial.

"We're getting so much production now we're becoming blase," says Naish McHugh, the city's film liaison. "What was considered unusual is now everyday for us."

McHugh calls 1985 "a banner year for movie-making in Metro; 50 movies, compared to 40 in '84, more Canadian shows, music videos, TV commercials and documentaries. And more money was left in the city than ever.

"We are still the third largest production centre in North America (next to Los Angeles and New York)."

Jane Fonda, John Ritter, Ellen Burstyn, Peter O'Toole, Tony Curtis, Raymond Burr, Charles Bronson, Sharon Gless, Alan Arkin, Michael Learned, Billy Dee Williams, Lesley Ann Warren, John Malkovich, Mary Steenburgen, Jeff Goldblum, Bonnie Bedelia, Tom (Billy Jack) Laughlin, Anne Bancroft, Barbara Hale, Robert Urich, Lindsay Wagner and the Police Academy gang all came to Metro to film movies or TV shows in '85.

McHugh and his three-person staff (one more than previous years because of the expanding number of productions, both foreign and Canadian) met all requests, even those that initially sounded the craziest.

"Siberia? We had it right here in the city. I suggested the Leslie St. spit, as long as cameras were pointed away from the city. They loved it," McHugh says.

"Police co-operated, as they always do, closed off Queen St. for the U.S. TV movie, The Right Of The People (starring Billy Dee Williams and Michael Ontkean). The special effects crew had taken the windows out of the Peter Pan restaurant very carefully, put their own in, blew them out and replaced the original ones.

"The herd of cattle? They got them in alright, started at 3 a.m. on the Sunday and worked through the morning. Didn't lose one of them."

The movie, Eleni, which shot in Metro for 10 days of its two- month filming, required a war-time Czech border crossing station (easy to build) complete with a European-style barrier (difficult to find).

"I remembered the only place I'd ever seen one here," McHugh says, "the CNE, which sometimes uses it to cordon off traffic. The CNE loaned it to us."

What he calls "the most spectacular event of the year" was also for Kane And Abel: The "burning" of the original Hospital For Sick Children building at College St. between Bay and Elizabeth. Its exterior had been cleaned, so it could pass for an elegant 1930s Chicago hotel.

Then, the building had to be "demolished" by fire. "Our fire department happened to have a 1930s pumper, truck and old uniforms, loaned them and firefighters, too.

"Special effects people had built steel cages around the windows and propane bars on the bottom. Traffic was closed off at 11 p.m. on a Friday night, the TTC rerouted streetcars and the explosion went off without hitch. No damage."

Budgets of the 50 movies filmed here for theatres or TV totalled a record $133 million. Of that, McHugh, "conservatively estimates about $55 million was left in Toronto in wages for crews, purchase of supplies, hiring equipment and production vehicles and location fees. This does not include what was spent for hotel accommodation, meals or bar bills."

John Ritter, Sharon Gless, Tony Curtis, Raymond Burr, Barbara Hale, Colleen Dewhurst and Richard Farnsworth (Anne Of Green Gables) stayed at Sutton Place hotel; Fonda, Bronson, Bancroft and Burstyn at Yorkville's Four Seasons. Laughlin is at Sheraton Centre and Goldblum at the Four Seasons, both still filming, the former with Billy Jack Returns and the latter on Toronto director David Cronenberg's remake of The Fly.

Budgets of 12 Canadian independently produced TV productions such as Night Heat, Anne Of Green Gables, The Edison Twins, The Kids Of Degrassi Street, The Campbells and Phillip Marlowe totalled an extra $45 million. "All that was spent here."

Gladstone St. residents whose homes are near Dufferin woke up one morning to find their street lined by sleek black limousines and a crowd of darkly dressed mobsters leaving nearby St. Anne's Church. No fear, that was a wedding scene in the U.S. TV movie, Mafia Princess. The limousines then ferried passengers to a party scene at Casa Loma, which McHugh describes "as one of the most popular places for visting and local movie makers.

It also was used as King Louis' court for former SCTVer Dave Thomas' U.S. pay-TV comedy special and as several plush interior scenes in Kane And Abel.

"The Selby Hotel on Sherbourne St. is also one of the most popular," McHugh says. "It's got an old-style look on the outside and a super bar on the inside. It was used almost every month for movies and music videos.

"Also among the most popular sites are Old City Hall, the harbor and the 23-acre Massey Ferguson site on the south side of King at Strachan where Kane And Abel built one third of a freighter carrying immigrants, Eleni built Czech archives and Apology (a U.S. TV movie with Lesley Ann Warren) built a working, mechanized sculpture you could walk through."

Only a few music videos were made throughout the city in 1984, but in '85 there were 26 - including those featuring Bruce Cockburn, Tears For Fears and the benefit song, "I Am Your Child."

Production sources say that the owners of buildings are paid from $200 to $1,500 a day, depending on the location's size. When homes or apartments are taken over, occupants are usually put up in hotels at the production's expense.

Over-all McHugh and his staff, Rhonda Silverstone, David Plant and newcomer Catherine Vetere, issued permits for 1,675 separate locations in '85 and Metro Roads and Parks another 300 permits. The previous year a total 1,496 were issued. McHugh's "one-stop" office co-ordinates all requests with various city and Metro departments.

The permits included an estimated $125 million worth of TV commercials - including the one where special permission was required for a helicopter to fly between the Toronto-Dominion Centre towers to advertise batteries soaring through a cityscape.

"On Oct. 22," McHugh says, "we had 20 different productions shooting at 40 separate locations throughout the day. We've never had as many in one day since our office was opened in 1979.

"And on Nov. 17, five major networks ran shows made in Toronto: Part 1 of Kane And Abel on CBS and Global, The Execution of Raymond Graham aired live on ABC and CTV and CBC showed Don Owen's movie, Unfinished Business."

McHugh had already seen Unfinished Business, so he watched the first hour of Kane And Abel, put the rest of it on his VCR and tuned to Execution of Raymond Graham. "The following weekend, NBC ran Perry Mason Returns, also made here."

U.S. movie makers come here, he says, "not just because of the (Canadian) dollar attraction but because we are just getting to be known for what we are - a movie city. We've got everything they want, from actors to experienced crews to locations and labs.