Canadian Moving Picture Digest (May 29, 1954)

Page scan 0002 from Canadian Moving Picture Digest

Record Details:

Title:
Canadian Moving Picture Digest
Date:
May 29, 1954
Volume:
Canadian Moving Picture Digest (May 29, 1954)
Leaf #:
0002
Language:
English
Subjects:
Motion Pictures, Film Industry Trade Magazine",Canad
Collection:
Hollywood Studio System, Global Cinema, Early Cinema, and Canada
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
Something wrong or inaccurate about this page? Let us Know!

Thanks for helping us continually improve the quality of the Lantern search engine for all of our users! We have millions of scanned pages, so user reports are incredibly helpful for us to identify places where we can improve and update the metadata.

Please describe the issue below, and click "Submit" to send your comments to our team! If you'd prefer, you can also send us an email to mhdl@commarts.wisc.edu with your comments.




We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.

Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.

MAY 29, 1954 THE CANADIAN MOVING PICTURE DIGEST PAGE THREE Keay Presents I WAS anticipating the visit of Mr. Barney Balaban last Thursday, during his visit to Toronto. There is no doubt but that the whole hospital staff was interested in Mr. Balaban’s business, because the news flew through the Hospital that he was coming. When I received the following telegram, Wednseday night “Circumstances have prevented my going to Toronto tomorrow for the VistaVision demonstration and to meet with Gordon Lightstone, John Fitzgibbons, and my many other friends and associates in Canada, It has been too long since I have been in Toronto. I particularly planned to visit you upon my arrival. Tillie and I send you our very best wishes and our sincere hope for your speedy and complete recovery. With warmest regards, Barney Balaban.” I was disappointed, however, who walked into my room on Thursday, after the VistaVision demonstration, but Mr. Adolph Zukor. Was I ever excited to see Mr. Show Business, and looking not a year over sixty, although he told me, that he was eighty-two. You should hear Mr. Zukor talk about VistaVision, and about pictures, about the public response, about everything in our business which is Show Business. R. Zukor told me that last year he visited Israel. “That is an experience which I will never forget. To see the development there, to see the people. They have something in their eyes, and the manner in which they carry themselves, that no one can conquer. It is the fire, the spirit which the pioneers who built nations had, it is the invincible cement which keeps together the materials for building, whether you build with stone, with brick, with dedication, or with prayer. “I, also, visited the children’s villages. To see children, who but a few years ago, in our history, like frightened, hopeless little animals in concentration camps, look like these same children now, is an experience I am happy not to have missed. “IT have travelled greatly in my life, but this visit to Israel, is a trip, which to me, crowns all of my travelling experiences.” pe IS marvellous to see Adolph Zukor, so active, so keen, at his age, and I was happy to see him, because I have known him for many, many years. I had hoped, that I, too, would be full of “vim and vigor”, and would be “going strong”, when I arrived at his age, however, I could not make it, but I will do the best I can, with what I have to work with. I received a telegram from Mr. Morgan. He and I have had many happy visits together, and are old friends. “Dear Ray I am so sorry you are temporarily withdrawn from release but am sure when you do shorily get back on release schedule everyone of your thousands of friends in the industry will be so happy. Personally send you my best love and sorry must leave immediately for New York. We are all pulling for you at Paramount. Oscar A. Morgan.” They tell me, that VistaVision created considerable interest, that the picture-scenes shown, were very sharp and clear. I will let you read what Mr. Zukor had to say about VistaVision, in an address which was to have been delivered by Mr. Balaban, but which Mr. Show Business read. “TS XHIBITORS and Friends: E “On behalf of Paramount Pictures Corporation, it is my very great pleasure to welcome you to this, the first demonstration of VistaVision in Canada. “This is a happy occasion for me for many reasons. 1 derive great personal satisfaction in coming to Toronto to meet my great and good friend, John Fitzgibbons, his associates and other exhibitors on their own territory. We are proud of John Fitzgibbons. His statesmanlike leadership has brought many friends to the Canadian industry. He came as an American. I am sure that in mind and spirit he is now considered by all of you as a progressive and vigorous Canadian, “I also see here in the audience, business and personal friends of many years’ standing, and my mind goes back to an earlier day when the shape of activities in Canada was at the crossroads. In many cases decisions were made at that time, which, apart from their financial considerations, relied to a great extent upon the good will, trust and mutual confidence between our associates to the north and ourselves. The passage of the years has proved beyond our fondest hopes that this good will, trust, and confidence was well merited. “There are many of you present here today who in those years stood up to be counted and were not found wanting when unity was essential in the solving of our problems. I recall telling you then of some of the dreams we had for our company which would result from that unity. As we view our respective enterprises today, I know you will agree that these dreams have been fulfilled. . ND SO, with this background of our relationship, it gives me added satisfaction to present to the Canadian industry one more dream which is fulfilled today, with this demonstration—one more contribution of Paramount along the road to progress. “This dream is called VistaVision. It resulted from the arduous thinking, planning and executing of men of vision in our company, and particularly through the efforts of Y. Frank Freeman, the head of our Studio and Loren Ryder, who is in charge of our engineering and research, and his associates, among whom is Dr. Charles Daily, who is with me here today. “Their goal at the beginning, their goal throughout its development has always been, and the objective today still is the ultimate presentation on the screens of every theatre in the world of whatever size or shape, the sharpest, clearest, most exciting projection, and the most brilliant definition this industry of ours has ever known. We believe we have achieved this result through a process of incorporating all of the new qualities and values in the film negative itself, thus making possible its being shown on standard equipment in all theatres, and what is equally important, with nominal capital expenditure by exhibitors. “FTHIS process eliminates grain and fuzziness and provides the picture with complete definition of focus and projection. People and objects can now be photographed as seen by the human eye and a more normal grouping of acting and scenes is now permitted. There need be no abnormal limitations, because in VistaVision, proper height of the screen image is maintained in respect to screen width. “T like to think of VistaVision as being described by four single words: QUALITY SIMPLICITY FLEXIBILITY —and I am sure you are interested in no small way in the fourth word—ECONOMY. “The quality you will soon see for yourself here this morning. You need no words of mine to describe it. “Its simplicity lies in the fact that you need only a STANDARD screen of good quality and preferably seamless, and one that iy as high and as wide as you can install thereby insuring an aspect ratio of 1.85 to 1, or 2 to 1; you will need a good STANDARD lens of focal length proper to fill that screen; and a STAND (Continued on Page 8)