Canadian Moving Picture Digest (Feb 20, 1954)

Page scan 0008 from Canadian Moving Picture Digest

Record Details:

Title:
Canadian Moving Picture Digest
Date:
Feb 20, 1954
Volume:
Canadian Moving Picture Digest (Feb 20, 1954)
Leaf #:
0008
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:
May 18, 2024
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FEBRUARY 20, 1954 CANADIAN MOVING PICTURE DIGEST PAGE NINE Salary increases granted by the Goyernment up to last December have boosted the payroll of civil servants and employees of Crown companies in Ottawa to about $11,500,000 a month or $138,000,000 a year. The average Government employee in this city has an income of about $3,000 a year based on the estimated increase in the payroll. This would CAPITAL STORY By BILL McLAUGHLIN compare to $1,800 prior to 1939. There are 35,000 civil servants in Ottawa and another 10,000 men and women employed by Crown agencies like Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation and the Bank of Canada. The Capital has few large-scale industrial plants, but that big Government payroll—with cheques ayvailable every two weeks—helps no little in Use This Information As Your Guide on Release Dates TORONTO IMPERIAL Third Week. Beneath the 12-Mile Reef (20thFox) CinemaScope and Technicolor with Terry Moore. SHEA’‘S Botany Bay (Para.) Technicolor with Alan Ladd and James Mason. UNIVERSITY & EGLINTON Forever Female (Para.) with Ginger Rogers end William Holden. NORTOWN Fourth week, Hondo 3-D with John Wayne. ODEON-CARLTON (WB) Warnercolor and Second Week. Miss Sadie Thompson (Col.) Technicolor with Rita Hayworth. HYLAND Fifth Week. The Sinner (Astral) with Hildegarde Neff. UPTOWN Quo Vadis (MGM) Technicolor with Robert Taylor. LOEW'S Fifth Week, Knights of the Round Table (MGM) CinemaScope and Technicolor with Robert Taylor, TOWNE CINEMA Eighth Week. Julius Caesar (MGM) with an allstar cast. DOWNTOWN Jack Slade (AA) with Mark Stevens. MONTREAL PALACE Second Week. Beneath the 12-Mile Reef (20th-Fox) CinemaScope and Technicolor with Terry Moore. LOEW’S Second Week. Easy to Love (MGM) Technicolor with Esther Williams. PRINCESS Escape from Fort Bravo (MGM) AnscoColor with William Holden, CAPITOL Botany Bay Ladd. ORPHEUM The Steel Lady (UA) and Stranger on the Prowl (UA). AVENUE Third Week, Malta Story (JARO) with Alec Guinness. KENT Third Week. Innocents in Paris (Cardinal) with Alastair Sim. (Para.) Technicolor with Alan ALOUETTE Le Mulatre with Angelo. WINNIPEG CAPITOL Beneath the 12-Mile Reef (20th-Fox) Cinema Scope and Technicolor with Terry Moore, MET Second Weck. Mogambo (MGM) with Clark Gable. Technicolor GAIETY Second Weck. Martin Luther (IFD). OSBOURNE Fifth week. The Captain’s Paradise (IFD) with Alec Guinness. LYCEUM Second Week. Devil’s Canyon (RKO) Technicolor and 3-D with Virginia Mayo, ODEON Sailor of the King (20th-Fox) with Jeffrey Hunter, VANCOUVER CAPITOL Easy to Love (MGM) Technicolor with Esther Williams. ORPHEUM Mogambo (MGM) Technicolor with Clark Gable, A STRAND Second Week. Hondo (WB) Warnercolor and 3-D with John Wayne, VOGUE The Sinner (Astral) with Hildegarde Neff. PLAZA The Glass Web (E-U) 3-D with Edward G. Robinson. STUDIO Third Week. Martin Luther (IFD). CALGARY CAPITOL So Big (WB) with Jane Wyman. PALACE Martin Luther (IFD). GRAND Charge of the Lancers (Col.) with Paulette Goddard, UPTOWN His Majesty O'Keefe (WB) Technicolor with Burt Lancaster. VARIETY Battles of Chief Pontiac (Alliance) and It’s A Pleasure (Alliance) Technicolor. SAINT JOHN PARAMOUNT Here Come the Girls (Para.) Technicolor with Bob Hope. CAPITOL Marry Me Again (RKO) with Robert Cummings. KENT Anne of the Indies with Jean Peters, (20th-Fox) Technicolor Adult Entertainment During the month of January four features were classified by the Board as “Adult Entertainment.” These were as follows: LITTLE CAESAR, MAN JIN THE ATTIC, ONE SUMMER OF HAPPINESS, PUBLIC ENEMY, keeping movie theatre box-offices busy all the year round. Members of the Ottawa Film Society were given the opportunity over the weekend to compare the charms of Jean Harlow (1930's) with the good points of Marilyn Monroe. Blonde Bombshell, starring the late actress, was the feature presentation at the second series of the Society's programs shown in the lecture hall of the National Museum. National Theatre Services of Toronto has completed arrangements to take over operation of the Glebe Theatre as of March 1. Fred Levans, as resident manager of the Elmdale and district supervisor for NTS with theatres in nearby towns, including Carlefon Place, Cardinal and Winchester. Acquisition of the Glebe on an operating basis gives NTIS three theatres in the city, the other being the Century. The Glebe has been operated by Hye Bessin in association with Casey Swedlove during the past several years. Bob Hope is back again at the Capitol Theatre and doing well with his Here Come the Girls. Picture held over after a night interval to give impresario Tony Tremblay a chance to stage the 4th of his annual concerts. Went over to the Odeon Theatre to see The Eddie Cantor Story and give it a review in the Journal. Used my Press Courtesy pass from Odeon’s general manager David Griesdorf for the first time, which certainly facilitates the entry of a newspaperman when on his beat. Not that I ever received anything but the best of receptions from the local Odeon management. Ray Tubman, district supervisor of Famous Players and resident manager of the Capitol Theatre, prefers to take his annual vacation in the Wintertime. But Ray is not any too fond of skiing or other coldweather sports. He likes to follow the sun and is now enjoying its benefits with Mrs. Tubman on the sands of Florida's Miami Beach. ACADEMY ANNUAL AWARDS MARCH 25 The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will gross $115,000 from the radio and television broadcast of its twenty-sixth annual awards presen'ing ceremony March 25 over the National Broadcasting Company networks. The announcement by Charles Brackett, Academy president, said that the Oldsmobile Division of General Motors would sponsor the show and had agreed to pay N.B.C. $275,000 to cover all costs. The Academy will use its share to pay for the expense of the presentation and hopes to have something left over to help pay for recent renovations made in the organization’s theatre to equip it for the Showing of wide-screen production using stereophonic sound.