Canadian Moving Picture Digest (May 18, 1920)

Record Details:

Title:
Canadian Moving Picture Digest
Date:
May 18, 1920
Volume:
Canadian Moving Picture Digest (May 18, 1920)
Leaf #:
00012
Language:
English
Subjects:
Motion Pictures, Film Industry Trade Magazine",Canad
Collection:
Global Cinema, Hollywood Studio System, Early Cinema, and Canada
Format:
periodicals
Contributor:
Media History Digital Library, Canadian Picture Pioneers, Paul Moore and Jessica Whitehead
Coordinator:
Media History Digital Library
Description:

Canadian Moving Picture Digest

Editors: Merrick R. Nutting (1917-18), Raymond S. Peck (1918), Ray Lewis (1918-19 and 1920-54), Walter Greene (1919-20), Jay Smith (1954-57)

Canadian Moving Picture Digest (1917-57) was initially a Montréal-based rival of the first film paper in Canada, Toronto-based Canadian Universal Bulletin (1915-18, edited by W.A. Bach 1915-17, J.W. Cambridge 1917-18, Raymond S. Peck 1918). The two periodicals were combined in 1918, keeping the Digest name, but moving production to Toronto with Peck as editor. Canadian Moving Picture Digest assumed The Bulletin’s volume numbering and always claimed 1915 as its year of origin. Ray Lewis (née Rae Levinsky) was a writer and playwright, who spent time in early Hollywood’s publicity departments. She briefly took the Digest helm in 1918, then long-term editor, later owner and publisher, from 1920 until her death in 1954. Under Lewis’s leadership, the trade paper claimed to serve as a voice for independent exhibitors and advocated for a Canadian cultural presence in cinema, particularly emphasizing British films as a way to keep a distance from Hollywood. Lewis's editorials were notable for their advocacy, wit, and critique of American dominance in the Canadian film market. While initially positioning herself as an outsider, she became integrated within the industry and a true insider. She even had an ongoing correspondence with Canadian Prime Minister R. B. Bennett, advocating for the industry as a whole and supporting British film imports. She was well-known at Toronto’s Dundas Square film row as well as in New York and Hollywood. Variety’s Sime Silverman called her “the Girl Friend in Canada,” and she delighted when U.S. writers not “in the know” presumed “Ray” was a man’s name. Lewis was later an inaugural member of the Canadian Picture Pioneers, eventually the group’s first female president and Pioneer of the Year. After she died in 1954, her son Jay Smith took over editorial duties until Canadian Moving Picture Digest was bought by Nat Taylor’s Film Publications of Canada in 1957. Taylor incorporated the legacy journal into a joint masthead for Canadian Film Weekly (1942-70), which subsequently dated its roots back to the 1915 origins of the film press in Canada.

– Jessica Whitehead and Paul Moore, March 2024

Further Reading

  • Whitehead, Jessica, Louis Pelletier and Paul Moore, “‘The Girl Friend in Canada’: Ray Lewis and Canadian Moving Picture Digest (1915–1957).” In Daniel Biltereyst and Lies Van de Vijver, eds., Mapping Movie Magazines: Digitization, Periodicals and Cinema History, 127-52. London: Pagrave-Macmillan, 2021.

Date Added:
June 06, 2024
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~ he ought to know. The Grand S.P.C.A. tagday was a great success in this city, upwards of $12,000 being collected. For this, as in all similar matters, the picture theatres did more than their share, Speakers were invited to attend the theatres and dogs, goats, parrots, monkeys and’ even donkeys were stationed in the lobbies ‘doing bit.” It is a curious fact in this connection that institutions that are always ready to knock the movies, never figure in the limeli&ht in collections-of this kind. The only collections they figure in are those with a plate after a dull sermon. s * % * * = ~ Frank ©. Sutton, the genial publicity man of the Specialty Film Import, Limited@is due to be married. We have it from his own mouth, and we will-admit that We had always regarded Frank as a hard-shell bach, but it seems not. Well, he has been to the war, so he knows the worst that can befall humanity. Al of which is preparatory to, wishing him the best of luck. * * * *% i Vancouver News Harry Keele tional Theatre, takes over the management of the NaHastings Street, May 10th. Musical comedy is being vat on along with pictures at the Lonsdale Theatre, North Vaneouver, * * * * “Other Men's Shoes,” the Pathe special, has been booked by a lone al theatre for showing carly-in June, cod * * * Miss T. Sveneiski, who has been ill for some time past, Ifas returned to her desk in Exhibitors’ Distributing Corporation office. 3 Thos, Bailey; Manager of Select Exchange, is in thy a Monee callin onthe exhibitors-in the interests.of the: _ Selattick productions. ‘The Cana@an United Financial Company, of Calgary, Alta., have purchased the lease and good will of the Lonsdale Theatre, North Vaneouver, from Wiley C. Pettis. i TreeColumbia Amusement ompanye-linrited; “have changed the -policy of the Variety Theatre, Victoriag their” and will in future ARE a two programme ‘a w oie 5 house. . Pathe serials are much appreciated by Pantages Theatre fans judging by the reception given the new Ruth Roland picture now showing at the big vaudeville house. J. B. MeKay, of, Anglo-Canadian. Photo-plays, is expected in Vancouver shortly. % * * % George W. Beattie, manager of the Dominion Theatre, Nanaimo, was in the city this week. * * cd * W. PAI tion held Cireuit. Jewees was in Chicago attending the eonven1 that city by The First National Exhibitors’ * * * * Bernie Howard, violfffist, who recently returned fronrthe Antipodes, has accepted the position of orchestra leader at the National Theatre. * * * * “@ On Monday the National Theatre will open under the managemént of Harry Keele, the well-known film and.theatrical man. The new manager theatre redecorated and renovated and Syooked a service of very high-class productions which will be put over in true showmanship style ELABORATE SETTINGS. FOR NEWETHEL” CLAYTON PICTURE " Bthel Clayton's new picture for Paramount Arteraft, ** All Ina Night,” by Samuel Merwin, adapted to the sereen by Edith Korey and directed by Paul Poweil, required some of the most elaborate sets that have been construeted at the Lasky studio in a eonsiderable length of time. Amone those is the entire lobby of an English hotel in the E uropean section“of Shanghai, China. “This -set oceupies fully. one half of the large stages and is ornately furnished and peopted-by a large number of extra folk garbed in becoming fashions and costumes and uniforms to be found in this importdnt oriental city. -Theresis a largé numberkof C hin hese, Hindoos and-other tolortut figures ofthe cast. — ~Another séene shows a Chinese tea house,and diwel lings in the native quarter of the city. This set has been partly. constructed on the big Gasky tank, while other streets are built owthe Argyle lot and are exceed ingly picturesque. ‘There is considerable amount. of real melodramatic action imthis-stonyand at least one exciting fight when Miss Clayton decoyed by a-jin rikeisha driverinto the-Codlie quarter, istaken from the hands of a wily mandarin by a body of drunken French sailors from whom she is finally rescued by Jack Holt, “who plays the leading masculine role, ae In “The Third Woman”’ Carlyle. Blackwell with an allstar cast offers a tremendous study of racial problems as they enter into the affairs of the heart, the action ranging from the American East to a Pueblo villageReleased by Exhibitors’ Distributing Corporation. has had the