Canadian Moving Picture Digest (Jun 1921-Apr 1922)

Record Details:

Title:
Canadian Moving Picture Digest
Date:
Jun 1921-Apr 1922
Volume:
Canadian Moving Picture Digest (Jun 1921-Apr 1922)
Leaf #:
00025
Language:
English
Collection:
Global Cinema, Hollywood Studio System, Early Cinema, and Canada
Format:
periodicals
Contributor:
New York Public Library
Sponsor:
Google Books
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 13, 2024
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Vancouver News ESSRS. R. A. Scott and BarM ney Groves have purchased the B.C. rights to the Dempsey-Brennan fight pictures. They will receive their first showing at the Columbia Theatre, Victoria. eee Bill Marshall, manager of Select Pictures Corporation, sailed over to the Island and called on his customer, who found business wonderful the one night a week he opened the big show to the populace. ee°@ Grant Scoullar of Regal Films, Ltd., returned last week from a tour of B. C. theatre centres both east and west. Unlike Bill Marshall he was out of luck on the Island, his customer had locked up the show shop and gone out of town fishing. * ° e Manager James Hayworth of the Ladysmith Theatre was a guest of the D.D. Club at the Vancouver, Wednesday. Guests always pay for their own but to be in the company of the film moguls is worth the extra expense. ee @ A local cameraman has arranged with the management of the famous Monte Carlo Cabaret to make movies of Vancouver’s night life and took pictures Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, last week. eee Evidence in a Victoria divorce case as published in a Vancouver paper puts the leading movie stars of the south far in the shade. They have absolutely nothing for sensationalism on the case now being tried in B.C.’s capital city. Wiley Pettis, who recently sold out his interests in the two North Vancouver theatres, the Lonsdale and Empire, is touring Vancouver Island probably looking for theatre bargains. s * ° George Beattie, manager of the Dominion Theatre, Nanaimo, was in the city last Thursday. Cameron Geddes, basso of the Capitol Theatre, sang at the Gyro luncheon last Thursday. * * e The attractive front put up at the Globe this week by Manager Adams for ‘‘Two Worlds’’ did the trick. The house played to capacity nearly every night and fans were not disappointed. Page Ten Clarence Boden has accepted the position in ‘‘the front of the house”’ at the Globe Theatre, recently vacated by W. McDougal, who is now assistant manager of the Allen. * W. H. Klatte, auditor for the Famous Players-Lasky Co., New York, passed through the city last Friday on his way from the Antipodes back to the home office. He came into this port on the Niagara after several months inspection tour of his company’s theatres and exchanges in Australia and New Zealand. e * s The monthly meeting of the Amusement Association was held last Thursday afternoon at 2:15 in the offices of the secretary, Rowe Holland, in the Standard Bank Building. * e e Arrangements are being made to build a stage at the Allen Theatre large enough for the introduction of presentations and prologues. * * » W. P. Nichols of the Columbia Theatre Company, was in Winnipeg on business in connection with his theatres in that city. : 2 A. W. Sheffield, well known local organist, has accepted the position created by the installation of a big pipe organ at the Kitsilano Theatre. He took charge last night. Manager Dawson evidently believes in keeping his house strictly up to date. This splendid big organ with all its orchestral effects adds ever so much to the fans’ enjoyment of the programme and helps put a picture over with twice the atmosphere obtainable with a small orchestra of individual pieces. 2 * Manager Quagilotti of the Colonial, has booked the famous Indian star, Chief White Elk, to appear in person at each performance of the feature photoplay, ‘‘Out of the Snows,’’ which comes to the popular Granville Street Theatre this week. * * Cameraman W. C. Brennan journeyed to New Westminster yesterday and ‘‘shot’’ the big May Day doings for Canada’s premier weekly, the Canadian News Pictorial. * * * By arrangement with the Air Board and Dominion Forestry Service, Cowboy Keene, British Columbia’s veteran cameraman and official photographer for B.C. Educa Google tional films, flew Wednesday with Pilot McLeod and a forestry official in a big Dominion Air Board seaplane and secured some wonderful shots of the surrounding country from the air. It was an ideal day for making movies, the air being clear and the sun shining brightly. Taking off at Jericho Beach they flew directly north and circled in the sky over the famous Lions while cameraman Keene shot for dear life. Then up Capilano water shed, Burrard Inlet and Howe Sound. The shots secured will go into an educational series of films now being produced and at a later date movie fans will see them on local theatre screens. They also go to the Old Country. * @® “Cappy Ricks’’ in Production ‘Thomas Meighan the Star HOMAS MEIGHAN, the much traveled Paramount star, is again up to his old game, but this time he is to take a sea trip up the coast of Maine, around Boston Light and Boston Harbor, where many of the stirring scenes for ‘‘Cappy Ricks,’’ a picturization of Peter B. Kyne’s stories, will be made. A company of twelve principals and a number of extra people have been taken to Boston for the picture. All of the marine scenes will be taken near Boston Harbor except those taken by Tom Forman, the director, in San Francisco before he came East. The shipwreck will be filmed off the rocky coast of Maine. Mr. Meighan will play the part of ‘“Mathew Peasley,’’ one of the generation of the ‘‘Peasley’s of Thomaston, Maine, who followed the sea.’’ The name part, ‘‘Cappy Ricks,’’ will be done by Charles Abbe, who also had an important part in ‘‘The Conquest of Canaan,’’ the picture Mr. Meighan has just completed. Agnes Ayres, who came from the coast especially for this picture, will be Mr. Meighan’s leading woman, playing the part of ‘‘Florrie Ricks.”’’ The other members of the cast who will make the trip to Boston are: Hugh Cameron, John Sainpolis, Paul Everton, Eugenie Woodward, Tom O’Malley, Stanley Stasiak, William Nally, Jack Dillon and H. D. Blakemore, The ‘‘Cappy Ricks’’ stories which appeared in the Saturday Evening Post, were put into scenario form by Albert LeVino and Tom Forman in collaboration with the author, Mr. Kyne. Practically the same technical staff that made ‘‘The City of Silent Men,’’ a recent Paramount release with Mr. Meighan as the star, will have charge of the making of ‘‘Cappy Ricks.’’