Canadian Moving Picture Digest (Feb 21, 1948)

Page scan 0000 from Canadian Moving Picture Digest

Record Details:

Title:
Canadian Moving Picture Digest
Date:
Feb 21, 1948
Volume:
Canadian Moving Picture Digest (Feb 21, 1948)
Leaf #:
0000
Language:
English
Collection:
Global Cinema, Hollywood Studio System, Canada, and Early 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:
July 11, 2024
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RAY LEWIS EDITOR AND PUBLISHER FILM BLDG. 277 Victoria St. TORONTO Vol. 39, No. 43 TORONTO, CANADA February 21st, 1948 Motion Picture Film Facts Mckim Advertising Limited, in December, 1846, published its first edition of McKim Motion Picture Film Facts, under the direction of Stewart G. Gillespie. The published compilation of Film Facts was made at the reauest of clients and account executives, and the interest which followed, has stimulated a revised edition, as of January 1948. Through quoting, from the introduction of the 1948 edition, we can besi give you the idea which has motivated the publication of Motion Picture Film Facts. “Film Facts is in no means a text book for the skilled technicians working within the motion picture indusiry itself. If this second edition encourages the business man to think about films, if it sparks his interest to the point where he seeks out the men who make the movies to answer his questions, it will have more than served its purpose”. Motion Picture Film Facts is strictly directed toward Commercial Films, in its own words, “Business motion pictures have little relationship to the glamour products of Hollywood. The feature you see at the local Bijou is filmed with the one intent of transporting you to a land of make-believe where everything ends happily ever after. “Business motion pictures never take their feet off the ground. They purvey reality rather than escape. Commercial films are planned to do a specific task. The dollars spent by an organization to produce a motion picture must earn a profit of good-will, in increased sales, in greater dealer co-operation, or in any one of a dozen other ways”. In glancing through McKim Motion Picture Film Facts, we find an astonishing amount of information, not only valuable to the business man, but of value to those actively engaged in all fields of Motion Pictures. There are illuminating facts on Commercial Films, the 16mm. field, Non-Theatrical Films. In respect to the former, Motion Picture Film Facts divides these into two main categories, the Non-Theatrical Films, mainly produced as 16mm., in silent and sound, and which can be shown in a private office, or a convention hall, those utilized for sales training, selling, churches, schools, clubs, etc. Ninetynine per cent of the commercial motion pictures produced and used in Canada at the present time are 16mm. These 16mm. films are designed, states McKim Motion Picture Film Facts, “as a vehicle for public influence, information and service”. While no reliable, independent survey of the use of films by Canadian Advertisers has been made, the Film Committee of the Association of National Advertisers (USA) made a study, states McKim Motion Picture Film Facts, in the Spring-Summer of 1946 “to provide management with an unbiased analysis of this medium”. Following are a few facts they uncovered: “70% of member companies have had recent experience with either movies, slide films or both. Only one out of every eight members, with film experience, is not planning to go on with film programs during the next two years, and for every one that is dropping out, there is more than one newcomer in the use of films. Of the companies using films, 83% use movies for product promotion, 70% are looking for institutional values, 57% use them for sales training, 57% seek school showings, 35% use movies in employee education programs”. —EDITOR rl PUBLISHED BY CANADIAN MOVING PICTURE DIGEST COMPANY LIMITED 277 VICTORIA STREET TORONTO oe CSA oa : Saag & wis 8s ak » : <as =" £:" FY