Film Weekly year book of the Canadian motion picture industry (1951)

EXHIBITION FACTS ABOUT EXHIBITION SUNDAY SHOWS: These are per¬ mitted in only one province, Quebec. Boxoffice must not open before 12 noon. >HDNIGHT SHOWS: Permitted be¬ fore holidays in most places where they are banned. ONE-MAN BOOTH: The law in some provinces calls for two men under the same conditions that specify one in others, while in some this is a matter of negotiation between union and man¬ agement. FRENCH-LANGUAGE houses: Thea¬ tres in Quebec playing French-language films only jumped from 33 in 1949 to 71 in 1950, indicating a growing preference for his own language by the FrenchCanadian. Those showing films in both languages lose from 118 to 134, while those offering English-language films only dropped from 199 to 183, in spite of Quebec having added 38 new 35 mm. houses. Films made in France are offer¬ ed the exhibitor by several importers, while the other exchanges provide dub¬ bed versions of Hollywood films. The latter type were introduced during the war and proved popular. THEATRE TOWNS: There were 1,077 communities with theatres in 1949, says Ottawa, yet 30 cities provide about 60 per cent of national receipts. ATTENDANCE: An Unesco survey says that the average Canadian attends movies 17 times per year, placing him fifth among the countries. The USA is first with a per capita figure of 32, second Great Britain with 29, third New Zealand with 20 and fourth Aus¬ tralia. A Gallup Poll by the Canadian Institute of Public Opinion, made this March, shows that half of the adult population attends movies at least once a month. Half of these attend twice a month or more and four out of every hundred go twice a week or more. A typical moviegoer is a woman living in a community under 10,000 in popula¬ tion. not more than 29 years old and either a white collar or factory worker. FIRE DAMAGE: The number of theatre fires in 1949 was 48, one of which caused over $50,000 damage, and the total cost was $167,438. These figures included those of Newfoundland, but the 1948 one. $459,071 — a record by far — did not. Three 1948 fires caused over $50,000 in damages, some of the 41 blazes having originated because of the extreme cold of that winter. No lives have been lost in theatre fires for many years. See table. LEGITIMATE THEATRES: In 1949 six theatres whose main source of rev¬ enue was stage performances rather than motion pictures had receipts of $1,405,272 for an attendance of 999,404. The theatres were His Majesty’s and the Gayety, Montreal; Massey Hall and the Royal Alexandra, Toronto; the Grand, London; and the Canadian Rep¬ ertory Theatre, Ottawa. The term “Legi¬ timate” is misused in this instance, since several of the six places that the Dominion Bureau of Statistics listed to make up the above figures are con¬ cert halls and are not ordinarily de¬ scribed that way. The list does include Eaton’s Auditorium, Toronto, which is a concert hall where films are played occasionally, and the Casino, Toronto, a house with a film-vaudeville policy. Montreal now has the Seville, which has a film-vaudeville policy, as has the Odeon Hastings, Vancouver. Live enter¬ tainment of one kind or another crops up from time to time in theatres which show movies mainly. The DBS intends dropping Legitimate theatres from its annual motion picture report and they will form a part of its census of Service Establishments in the future. COMMUNITY SHOWS: In 1949 142 35 mm. theatres and 327 16 mm. ones were operated as non-profit enterprises in churches and halls by religious, ser¬ vice and fraternal organizations, as well as Boards of Trade. In the latter cases desire to keep the citizens in their own communities for week-end shopping, in¬ stead of visiting larger nearby places with theatres, has caused shopkeepers to sponsor these shows. 5o