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Canadian Moving Picture Digest (Mar 13, 1948)

Page scan 0000 from Canadian Moving Picture Digest

Record Details:

Title:
Canadian Moving Picture Digest
Date:
Mar 13, 1948
Volume:
Canadian Moving Picture Digest (Mar 13, 1948)
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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_Fievase cneck yor~ tu and Return tof RAY Lewis EDITOR AND PUBLISHER FILM BLDG. 277 Victoria St. TORONTO THIRTY-THIRD YEAR OF TORONTO, CANADA THE Ndtional FilmBeard is a Canadian Govern ‘Born and supported baby. Why should this baby continually be subjected to public spankings? Looking over its record of production and service, prior to the War, and during the War years, we have every reason to believe that it has produced excellent short subjects and that it has served Canada well. It is our opinion that its “Canada Carries On” series is first class. It has had excellent distribution in Canada, through Columbia Pictures; and exhibitors in Canada have paid as much, even more, for this series, than they have paid for short subjects, equally as good, but which have been produced in Hollywood. It might be a good idea for the Members of Parliament, who, on various occasions, make the National Film Board the subject of Parliamentary debate, to investigate other efforts, of a similar kind, which we have had in Canada, and which were sponsored and supported by Provincial Governments. Years ago, we had, under the jurisdiction of a Farmer Government, in Canada, a series of Short Subjects produced in Ontario, headquarters in Toronto and at Trenton, for such production. A research of facts and figures would make the present National Film Board baby an angelic and economical child by comparison. We are all interested, as Canadians, in having Canada on the screen, not only for the good of the people of Canada, but in the public interest. Thousands of Canadians do not know what they should know about Canada, how we live, what we do, what we produce, what we have in natural resources, what we import, what we export. Many of us know very’ little about any province, but the one in which we live. Thousands of new arrivals, and future citizens, can learn more a ____—______ NATIONAL FILM BOARD LIBRARY CANADIAN MOVING PICTURE PUBLICATION 1915-48 oam quickly about Canada, through the than through any other form of info We must admit, that j | x, publicize the greatréss, the growth’ i\entialities of our country. Anyone, who has travelled across the United States, or in Europe, prior to the War years, will tell you that what the world knew about Canada was “null and void”, and this goes for England, also. In England, it was not unusual to have what we would consider a quite enlightened person, tell a visiting Canadian, that we nearly froze to death, in snow-drifts, most of the time, that our next-door neighbors were Indians, that the RCMP rode through our streets like an army of Cossacks, that we have still not paid the bond-holders of the Grand Trunk Railway. We do not know the facts about NFB expenditures, in relationship to production costs and revenue therefrom, we do not know if the National Film Board’s operation is topheavy with expenditures, but looking over the record of our Government, in connection with its Finance, we feel that the National Film Board is not spending this country’s money extravagantly, wastefully, carelessly, unnecessarily. We feel that the operation of the National Film Board requires vouchers for expenditures, that someone in our Government examines these vouchers, and that no one is getting away with anything. The National Film Board started operations from “scratch”. The production of motion pictures is a big business, it is an expensive business. NFB’s War Record is “tops”. An investigation, by competent men, to save operational costs is a reasonable business consideration, but why not investigate, get the facts, get the figures before we blast and publicly spank our Baby? —EDITOR PUBLISHED BY CANADIAN MOVING PICTURE DIGEST COMPANY LIMITED 277 VICTORIA STREET TORONTO i ) A ga . eM P Sm oe p “I ha 4) BS 533 Ke ie mt ie; x Kj cua