Canadian Moving Picture Digest (Oct 25, 1947)

Page scan 0000 from Canadian Moving Picture Digest

Record Details:

Title:
Canadian Moving Picture Digest
Date:
Oct 25, 1947
Volume:
Canadian Moving Picture Digest (Oct 25, 1947)
Leaf #:
0000
Language:
English
Collection:
Canada, Hollywood Studio System, Early Cinema, and Global Cinema
Format:
periodicals
Contributor:
Media History Digital Library, Canadian Media Magazines Project, 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:
April 11, 2024
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"997 Victoria St. TORONTO Vol. 39, No. 26 TORONTO, CANADA October 25th, 1947 Showmanship. A Positive Force! N glancing over the Digest Showmanship Campaigns, submitted in the Seventh Annual Digest Showmanship Contest, we must admit that these campaigns have “warmed the cockels of our heart’. All of them are good, some of them are extraordinary, and some reveal a creative ability which is outstanding. Thanks to the exhibitors who submitted these campaigns. Judging of the campaigns will take place at the King Edward Hotel, on Thursday, Nov. 6th. This year, we have invited the executive officers of our Circuit theatres, our Affiliated Circuits, presidents and secretaries of Exhibitor Associations to be present, at the selection of the prize-winners, by the judges, and to be our guests at the Digest Luncheon. Following the selection of the prize-winners, the Campaigns will be exhibited in the window of the Perkins Electric Supply Co., in the Film Bldg., Victoria St., so that other exhibitors may be able to examine these Campaigns and note what some exhibitors do to make box-office. This year, more than ever, Showmanship. will keep away the Big Bad Wolf, known as Red Figures; this year more than ever, it is important that exhibitors sell the public on pictures which have box-office value, and that no picture leaves a theatre without the theatre having secured, during its exhibition, the maximum of attendance for the entertainment offered. Our Film Trade is familiar with the Showmanship Complex which The Canadian Moving Picture Digest has, of The Digest's continued efforts to keep the old-time enthusiasm alive in our Industry, an enthusiasm which was born into our business, which made it retain its public popularity and which developed it into Big Business. There are many business ventures that are far less exacting than our business, and through which operation, those interested in exhibition, could make a comfortable living PUBLISHED BY CANADIAN MOVING PICTURE DIGEST COMPANY LIMITED 277 VICTORIA STREET and build up a “nest egg”, but there are few businesses which have the exciting experiences which our business has; there are few businesses in which individual ability has an opportunity to become conspicuously profitable, and few businesses in which the exhibitor has such an opportunity, if he is wideawake, to make financial progress. Show Business has about it a spirit of Bohemia, a public contact and service which has its compensations, it is removed from the category of the “same old thing, day after day”, it has about it an air of expectancy and surprise, which is stimulating and keeps the wide-awake showman young and active. It has its worries and heart-aches, but what business is free from these contingencies? It is important, that those, who are in Motion Pictures, be good Movie Fans, be really interested and fond of the business in which they operate, for enthusiasm and salesman ' ship is infectious, a theatre manager who has it, permeates his theatre with this spirit, his employees get the swing of its motion, and the very atmosphere of the theatre draws patronage. Getting behind a picture, to boost its marketable qualities, is real Showmanship, it dovetails in with good service at the theatre, it makes the theatre a place where men cnd women, young and old, wish to go, it has a beneficial reaction on the street on which the theatre is located, on the community, it builds up a business section, it makes a residential section near a theatre, more desirable as a location for a home, it represents living, feeling, motion, it represents increased business, and makes every merchant, in the vicinity of a theatre, a booster for the theatre, since every merchant knows that a successful theatre helps to make his business, also, successful. Showmanship is a positive force and is positively good. —EDITOR TORONTO