Canadian Moving Picture Digest (Feb 13, 1954)

Record Details:

Title:
Canadian Moving Picture Digest
Date:
Feb 13, 1954
Volume:
Canadian Moving Picture Digest (Feb 13, 1954)
Leaf #:
0008
Language:
English
Subjects:
Motion Pictures, Film Industry Trade Magazine",Canad
Collection:
Hollywood Studio System, Canada, 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:
May 18, 2024
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FEBRUARY 13, 1954 CANADIAN MOVING PICTURE DIGEST PAGE NINE The National Film Board definitely has been lost to Ottawa and the most frustrated folk around here must be Opposition Leader Drew and Mayor Charlotte Whitton. Mr. Drew fought most nobly in the House of Commons for more general discussion of the move to Montreal, while the two Iscal Liberal members remained as silent as the sphinx CAPITAL STORY By BILL McLAUGHLIN of Greek mythology. Miss Whi‘ton renewed her offer of a free site and a new housing project for the 500 personnel of the studio. But Prime Minister St. Laurent closed any further re-opening of the subject by announcing that the Treasury Department had accepted the lowest bid of a Toronto contracting firm to build the new studio in Montreal. Use This Information As Your Guide on Release Dates TORONTO IMPERIAL Second week. Beneath the 12-Mile Reef (20thFox) CinemaScope and Technicolor with Terry Moore. SHEA’S 3 Sailors and ao Girl (WB) Technicolor with Jane Powell. UNIVERSITY & EGLINTON Second week. The Man Between (IFD) with James Mason. NORTOWN Third week. Hondo (WB) Warnercolor and 3-D with John Wayne. ODEON-CARLTON Miss Sadie Thompson (Col.) Technicolor with Rita Hayworth. HYLAND Fourth week, The Sinner (Astral) with Hildegarde Neff. UPTOWN Second week. Walking My Girl Back Home (E-U) Technicolor with Donald O’Connor. LOEW’S Fourth week. Knights of the Round Table (MGM) CinemaScope and Technicolor with Ava Gardner. TOWNE CINEMA Seventh week, Julius Caesar (MGM) with an all star cast. DOWNTOWN Wicked Woman (UA) and the Stcel Lady (UA). MONTREAL PALACE Beneath the 12-Mile Reef (20th-Fox) CinemaScope and Technicolor with Terry Moore. LOEW’S Easy To Love (MGM) Technicolor with James Cagney. PRINCESS A Lion Is In the Street (WB) Technicolor with James Cagney. CAPITOL Calamity Jane (WB) Teehnicolor with Doris Day. AVENUE Second week, Malta Story (JARO) with Alec Guinness. KENT Second week. Innocents in Paris (Cardinal) with Alastair Sim. ALOUETTE Peche Mortel (Technicolor), WINNIPEG CAPITOL Blowing Wild (WB) with Gary Cooper. MET Moaambo (MGM) Technicolor with Clark Goble, GAIETY Martin Luther (IFD). OSBOURNE Third week. The Conquest of Mount Everest (JARO) Technicolor, GARRICK Vice Squad (UA) with Edward G. Robinson. VANCOUVER CAPITOL Second week. Kiss Me Kate (MGM) Technicolor with Kathryn Grayson. ORPHEUM Second week. The Big Heat (Col.) with Glenn Ford. STRAND Hondo (WB) Warnercolor and 3-D with Jchn Wayne. VOGUE Third week, Moulin Rouge (UA) Technicolor with Jose Ferrer. PLAZA Second week, The Conquest of Mount Everest (JARO) Technicolor STUDIO Second week, Martin Luther (IFD). SAINT JOHN PARAMOUNT All The Brothers Were Valliant (MGM) Technicolor with Robert Taylor. CAPITOL Terror on a Train (MGM) and Wall of Death (Alliance). KENT Sabre Jet (UA) color and The Fake (UA). FOR SALE CURTAIN MACHINES 2—Automatic No. 93 with 2—No. 11F13B Y4HP GE 25 cycle motors Good condition, $100.00 cach. I1—Celco 110 volt 25 cycle $65.00. SCREEN DRAW CURTAINS 2 pairs—5 widths (48 Inches) $130.00 per pair 1 pair—7 widths (48 inches) $200.00 per pair Belge with self design, with required velour legs and valances, all in excellent condition, with or without wooden or silent steel track. 3-D GLASSES 11 poirs permanent type, unused $1.50 pair OPAL GLASS 7 panes — 42 inches by 44 inches 80¢ per square foot BILTMORE THEATRES 221 VICTORIA STREET TORONTO, ONT. But the activities of the National Film Board continue to attract attention on Parliament Hill. Senator Thomas Reid (L-British Columbia) gave notice the other day that he will ask why the NFB didn’t make No Barrier, a 30-minute movie recently comnleted for the Government-owned Trans-Canada Air Lines. It wus produced by Louis Parry’s Films in Vancouver and the third for the air line. Crawley Films of Ottawa and the NFB made the other two. A 17-year-old Eastview stenographer employed in an Ottawa life insurance office won the $2,900 jackpot offered by seven theatres running Foto-Nites. The lucky young lady’s number was selected from some 40,000 others at the Glebe Theatre, much te the disappointment of some 8,000 other hopefuls who sat in seven theatres when the announcement was made. Foto-Nites are conducted in co-operation with Jack Snow Jewellers and the Ottawa Citizen and haye become so popular that the offers have been extended to two nighis each week, Hold-overs of recent date included Laurence Olivier in The Beggar's Opera at the Little Elgin, and The Man Between in the Elgin's larger auditorium. Up for early showing at the latter theatre is Miss Sadie Thompson. Manager Ray Tubman has several big ones up for early showings at the Capito] Theatre. Underlined are two CinemaScope productions; How to Marry a Millionaire and Beneath the 12-Mile Reef. The city hasn’t seen a CinemaScope film since The Robe premiered the new medium at the Capitol early last Fall. Next theatre to get CinemaScope equipment in this area will be the Cartier, a Famous Players house in Hull, Que. Manager Frank Gallop went all out with his advertising when he booked Intimate Relations into the Centre Theatre for a run. A Bombshell Hits Ottawa! Bluer Than the Moon Is Blue. A Picture About an Outspoken Subject Previously Discussed in Whispers were some of the catch-lines that got the crowds, even though children under 18 were not admitted, with or without parents. ARTHUR FREED HONORED Arthur Freed, veteran MGM producer, was honored for his “distinguished achievement in the production of musical motion pictures” at the annual dinner of the Masquers Club in Hollywood, recently, Harry Joe Brown, club president, told the assembled guests that Freed is now celebrating his 25th year with MGM, turning from song writing to producing with the picture “Babes In Arms” in 1939, and that his 35th film, the CinemaScope production of “Brigadoon,” is now before the cameras at the studio,