Canadian Moving Picture Digest (May 1926-Apr 1927)

Page scan 000629 from Canadian Moving Picture Digest

Record Details:

Title:
Canadian Moving Picture Digest
Date:
May 1926-Apr 1927
Volume:
Canadian Moving Picture Digest (May 1926-April 1927)
Leaf #:
000629
Language:
English
Subjects:
Motion Pictures, Film Industry Trade Magazine",Canad
Collection:
Hollywood Studio System, Global Cinema, Early Cinema, and Canada
Format:
periodicals
Contributor:
New York Public Library
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:
August 07, 2025
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Page Thirty-six yous FOX, president of Fox Film Corporation, got into the motion picture industry of his own volition, because he had been fooled in the purchase of a penny arcade and wished to recoup in some amusement enterprise. Mr. Fox now can well afford to laugh at the man who palmed off a worthless “store show” on him, for he is several times’a millionaire and head of a vast motion picture concern that girdles the world. A little more than two decades ago Mr. Fox was in business on the lower East Side of New York City. Even in this business, utterly different from that in which he had made his great success, the aggressiveness, vision and industry of the man made themselves apparent; for, starting as anordinary workman he: progressed; to foreman, manager and eventually owner of the establishment. , About that time a friend interested Mr. Fox in a penny arcade in Brooklyn. The proprietor went to Mr. Fox, who was then in his early twenties and had not been schooled in ‘the subtleties of business as practiced in New York, and informed him. that the arcade was making more money on the investment than any other. business establishment in the world that he knew of. Mr. Fox watched the arcade for the next three days and saw hordes of. patrons streaming into the place. So he bought the arcade and prepared for‘ a clean-up. : No sooner had the deal been consummated than Mr. Fox found that the business of the arcade was wholly fictitious. The former owner had hired the bogus patrons whom Mr. Fox had seen streaming into the place during the three days that he watched it. But this discovery failed to daunt the future film, magnate. He set about the task of building up the business of the arcade, and, in a few weeks saw his labors rewarded by a steady lucrative patronage. Encouraged by this experience, he branched out and took over two other similar ventures, operating them with great success. At this time the Fox “offices” consisted of desk room in an office at 24 Union Square, Manhattan. From an arcade owner, Mr. Fox became a theatre owner. He leased the Dewey Theatre in Fourteenth Street and the Gotham Theatre in 125th Street. The leasing of these two playhouses was declared to be one of the biggest theatrical coupes up to that time in New York. ca This was when the film business was beginning t attract attention. It was on a very different basis from the gigantic industry of today. However, there were no feature films: in those days — no palatial picture theatres. Anyone with the courage to predict the day when features would run for as much a week on Broadway would undoubtedly have been regarded as a fit subject for examination by an alienist. But .William’ Fox, the theatre owner, saw-a big future for the new industry and for himself. His start | Google CANADIAN MOVING ‘PICTURE DIGEST. WILLIAM FOX President Fox Film Corporation as a film man, however, was humble enough. He formed the Greater New York Film Rental Company with offices at 116 East Fourteenth Street, and thus set himself up in business as a film distributor for the New York territory. From the beginning the Greater New York Film Rental Company prospered in greater ratio than. did the ‘industry itself. The concern gradually branched out and established branch offices throughout the East. The business. consisted entirely of buying one and two-reel films from the pioneer film producers and distributing them to theatres. The business continued with constantly increasing success for. several years. Mr. Fox, however, was not satisfied with the type of films he was obliged to offer. ~ As the owner of a chain of theatres, he understood the showman’s needs better than any other film producer, or distributor of the time. Accordingly, Mr. Fox organized the Box Office Attraction Company with office. room on part of the fifth floor of the building at 130 West Forty-Sixth Street, the same building where Fox Film Corporation later occupied five full floors. Before Mr. Fox produced a foot of film, he formed a selling organization that covered twenty-two principal cities of the country. While he made preparations for producing his own photoplays, he also continued the (Continued on Page 37)