Canadian Moving Picture Digest (May 1, 1940)

Page scan 0004 from Canadian Moving Picture Digest

Record Details:

Title:
Canadian Moving Picture Digest
Date:
May 1, 1940
Volume:
Canadian Moving Picture Digest (May 1, 1940)
Leaf #:
0004
Language:
English
Subjects:
Motion Pictures, Film Industry Trade Magazine",Canad
Collection:
Canada, Hollywood Studio System, Early Cinema, and Global Cinema
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 13, 2024
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Canadian Picture Pioneers OHN A. SCHUBERG, of Vancouver, B.C., has been a showman for fifty years, he sent me on a biography of his experiences during the past half-century, and I am extremely indebted to him for the interesting data which his travels in showdom present; and for the help which this Schuberg Biography has been in filling in the tracks of what are now deaa men’s shoes. THE DIME MUSEUM In 1890 the forerunner of the Movies was the Dime Museum. This was the day of Barnums, What Is It, Zip the Missing Link, John Bass The Ossified Man, General Tom Thumb, The Steam Man, The Man Who Couldn’t Stop Walking, The Man You Could Look Through and similar freaks assembled for you to see, that is if you were the dear public of that day, all for the price of a dime. The difference between the dime show and the Movie show is that the promoters of the Dime Show charged the public a dime to get in, but you spent a few more dimes before you passed out. This is something which the Movie Magnates never developed, the circus ability to take from the public. Once in a Movie show the showman extracts no more dimes. The Circus man gave the public Adgie and Her Lions, John T, Kelly the great Irish comedian, but they gave them rough boards to sit upon, or sawdust to stand in, and the floral decorations were mostly spittoons. Whereas the Movie showmen have given so much to the public, from persian rugs to powder rooms, nurseries for diapering the baby, super-pictures from stage and literary masterpieces which combine the efforts of the masters of all arts, that the public now feels that we approach the Era when the showman must give each patron of his theatre his money back as an indication of his community spirit and showmanship good-will, in other words it is the spirit of the give-away. FIRST IN CANADA In 1888, two Frenchmen came to Canada from France with a Lumiere moving picture machine which was exhibited at one of the dime museums or side shows on St. Lawrence, Main St., Montreal. Auguste Guay and Andre Vermet, as these pioneers were called, had but a few films to show and their efforts were not successful. Several years later a deal was made with the manager of Sohmer Park, Monsieur La Rose, whose popular amusement centre at Sohmer Park, was most successful. He showed one reel of film as a feature of his show. Monsieur La Roche was the leader of the orchestra at that time and we find that Doug. Cooper had a film exchange in Montreal, next door to the Casino, the latter which was run by Lawrence Sharp, on St. Catherine St. near St. Lawrence. Next door to Doug. Cooper’s exchange was a shoe repair shop run by Louis Laemmle of the famous Universal Laemmle family, VITAGRAPH BEGINS About this time the George Kleine Co. went to Pathe, the Biograph, Selig, Edison shaped the beginning of the Vitagraph (V.L.S.E.). About 1903-04 B. J. (Bert) Applegath had a film Exchange handling Imps”-“Powers”, at the corner of Yonge and Richmond streets, Toronto, with Bill Barrett as general manager. Mr. Apple gathialse owned the Crystal Palace, Montreal, Princess Theatre, Chatham, Ont., Opened Feb 1, 1909. Reading from left to right: In front of box-office, Harry McLean, operator: Harry Jones singer; Peter Karry and Mike Harris, owner.) } “THE WHEEL OF LIFE” But let us go back ta that period beyond the memory of our! Canadian Picture Pioneers, to 1870 and Alfred Cooper, who came to Canada from England with Clarke’s Wheel of Life, a “heavy tin cylinder painted black and cut through vertically with about a dozen long apertures through which one could see.” It rested on a pivot and was connected with a wheel by a belt, which in turn was made to revolve by turning a hand crank. There were a number of “reels”, long narrow strips of thick paper on which was painted, or printed pictures, each picture just a little more advanced in action than the preceding one. This no doubt resembles in some respects thejseries of drawings from which are made!up our present day cartoons. We are told that the “Wheel of Life” is in the possession of a family in Toronto, the son of the Alfred Cooper who brought the device from England. THE EDISON PICTURE Peter Mark Roget, one of the first of the scientists to study motion as it appeared to the onlooker, is said to be responsible for the introduction of the Zoetrope. Further jexperiments were made in California, following which Edison invented a cylinder machine, about 1888, on which he made a motion picture with one of his mechanics, Fred Ott, as the subject against a: scenic background. George Eastman of the Eastman Kodak Company furnished the film which could be utilized for motion pictures; and Edison in partnership wth Eagtman used the film to not only present abjects and persons in motion, but to tell! a story. “THE PEEP SHOW” In 1894 in New York City the first “Flickie” was shown on Broadway, you “peeped” to see the show for there was no device upon which the picture could be projected nor any machine for such projection. In England it is said that W. F. Greene, a London Photographer was the father of the Movies, for in 1890 Greene showed the Royal Photographic Society a moving picture of traffic at Hyde Park which he and Mortimer Evans had made. Greene took out a patent for his invention in 1889, PATHE IN CANADA About 1890-91 the Countess D’Hauter-. ville and her son visited Canada. The son was an operator and lectured on some Pathe films as he turned the crank of his machine. The films were fairy tales and were hand-colored. They were exhibited at convents, schools, colleges. The film was run into a box underneath the machine, later on a metal box was made into’ which the film was run. THE KINETESCOPE The Countess and her son _ toured through the United States and presented their films in variety theatres, playing a number of theatres on the Proctor Circuit among which was His Majesty’s at Montreal. When the Kinetescope was brought to Canada by the Holland Brothers, Montreal was among the first cities to have its “peep show”. You who re-: member the Edison invention called the Kinetescope, in 1894, will recall that there was a sterescopic enlarging-hood against which you pressed your eye, gazing into a dark box which was illuminated at a certain time, and which revealed a moving picture on film. SAM TYLER High River, Alberta.