Canadian Moving Picture Digest (Jun 12, 1954)

Record Details:

Title:
Canadian Moving Picture Digest
Date:
Jun 12, 1954
Volume:
Canadian Moving Picture Digest (Jun 12, 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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JUNE 12, 1954 . CANADIAN MOVING PICTURE DIGEST CAPITAL STORY By BILL McLAUGHLIN The Odeon Theatre is now showing CinemaScope productions with stereophonic sound, making manager Jimmie Chalmers mighty proud of his ultramodern show shop on Bank street. Among the equipment recently installed is the famous British-made Harkness screen, the adjustable border of which permits the theatre to present pictures in practically all ratios. The High Fidelity system distributes sound from four separate tracks throughout the big auditorium, with three main groups of speakers behind the screen and 16 additional Use This Information As Your Guide on Release Dates WINNIPEG TORONTO IMPERIAL Third week. River Of No Return (20th-Fox) CinemaScope and Technicolor with Marilyn Monroe, SHEA’S Second week. Carnival Story (RKO) Technicolor with Anne Baxter. UNIVERSITY & EGLINTON Laughing Anne (E-U) Technicolor with Wendell Corey. NORTOWN Second week, The Naked Jungle (Para.) Technicolor with Charlton Heston, ODEON-CARLTON Siege At Red River (20th-Fox) Technicolor with Van Johnson. UPTOWN Johnny Guitar (E-U) Color with Joan Crawford. LOEW’S Fourth week. Executive Suite (MGM) with William Holden. TOWNE CINEMA Marlog O (IFD) with Anthony Steel. INTERNATIONAL CINEMA Fourteenth week. Hobson’s Choice (IFD) with Charles Laughton. HYLAND & CHRISTIE Eighth week. The Kidnappers (JARO) with Vincent Winter. DOWNTOWN Ride Clear of Diablo (E-U) Technicolor and The Saint's Girl Friday (RKO). MONTREAL PALACE Lucky Me (WB) CinemoaScope and WoarnerColor with Doris Day. LOEW’S Executive Suite (MGM) with William Holden. PRINCESS Second week. Shane (Para.) Technicolor with Alan Ladd. CAPITOL Rob Roy (RKO) Technicolor with Richard Todd. IMPERIAL Ride Clear of Diablo ((E-U) Technicolor with Audie Murphy. ORPHEUM The Saint’s Girl Friday (RKO) and Killers From Space (RKO). KENT Ninth week. The Kidnappers (JARO) with Vincent Winter. AVENUE Fifth week. The Maggie (JARO) with Paul Douglas. SNOWDON-OUTREMONT-STRAND Kiss Me Kate (MGM) Color with Kathryn Gray son. NORMANDIE-AVON-SEVILLE-EMPRESS The Best Years Of Our Lives (RKO) with Fred ric March. ALOUETTE La Danseuse De Mexico and Ville D’Enfer. CAPITOL Second week. Night People (20th-Fox) CinemaScope and Technicolor with Gregory Peck. LYCEUM Thunder Over The Plains (WB) WarnerColor with Randolph Scott. MET The Best Years Of Our Lives (RKO) with Frederic March, ODEON Sixth week. The Kidnappers (JARO) with Vincent Winter. GARRICK The Glass Web (E-U) and Taza, Son of Cochise (E-U) Technicolor, DOMINION Second week. Beachhead (UA) Technicolor with Tony Curtis. OSBOURNE CINEMA Twice Upon A Time (IFD) with Hugh Williams. CALGARY CAPITOL Second week. Rose Marie (MGM) CinemoScoze and Color with Ann Blyth. PALACE Quo Vadis (MGM) Technicolor Taylor, GRAND Bait (Col.) and Drive A Crooked Road (Col.). UPTOWN The Maggie (JARO) with Paul Douglas, STRAND The Sun Shines Bright (E-U) and Make Haste To Live (E-U). TIVOLI CINEMA Sins of Pompeii Presle. with Robert (Cardinal) with Micheline VANCOUVER CAPITOL Second week, Exccutive Suite William Holden. ORPHEUM Red Garters (Para.) Technicolor with Rosemary Clooney. STRAND Third week. The Living Desert (RKO) Technicolor, STUDIO Seventh week. Hobson’s Choice (IFD) with Charles Laughton, VOGUE The Maggie (JARO) with Paul Douglas. PLAZA Riot In Cell Block 11 (AA) and Texas Bod Men (AA). (MGM) with SAINT JOHN PARAMOUNT Executive Suite (MGM) with William Holden, CAPITOL Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (20th-Fox) Technicolor with Marilyn Monroe, STRAND Drums Across The River (E-U) Technicolor with Audie Murphy. PAGE NINE speakers fitted at various points in the theatre walls. Main consideration in the installations, Jimmie announced in_ his letters to the press, was quality to ensure the best picture presentation possible ta Odeon patrons. The opening CinemaScope production was 20th CenturyFox’s King of the Khyber Rifles. Two Ottawa theatres are now equipped for CinemaScope presentation with stereophonic sound. Famous Players’ Capitol, also on Bank Street a few blocks North of the Odeon, has been playing pictures produced in the new medium for several months. Current presentation is Night People starring Gr-gory Peck. The Kidnappers is making a great bid to equal if not break the long-run record for motion pictures in the Capital city, now held by Tight Little Island. Currently at the Glebe Cinema, Kidnappers has been doing terrific business for seven weeks. Manager Clare Chamberlain reports he is getting many hundreds of customers every day from towns and villages throughout the Otiawa Valley, and from Quebec province. Other hold-overs at the moment are Walt Disney’s Technicolor feature, The Living Desert, at the Little Elgin, and Carnival Story in the main auditorium of the Dual Elgin Theatre. Two blocks of prozerty on the South side of Queen street and immediately behind on Albert street have been sold by Famous Players Canadian Corporation for $115,000 to the Lumor Interests. Famous Players purchased this parcel of land some years ago as a site for a theatre, but plans to build were set aside when the company gained possession of the Capitol Theatre from RKO-KeithAlbee back in the days when J.M. (Joe) Franklin was manager and _ persona) representative of the late E. F. Albee. A large office building costing $500,000 is to be erected on the site. ALLIED ARTISTS DECLARE DIVIDEND S. Broidy, President of Allied Artists Pictures Corporation, announced following a meeting of the company’s’ board of directors held Friday, May 21, that th> directors had authorized payment of 1344 cents per share for the first quarterly dividend on the 52 per cent cumulative convertable preferred $10.00 par stock of the company payable on June 15, 1954, to stockholders of record on June 5, 1954, REPUBLIC DIVIDEND A dividend of twenty-five cents ($ .25) per share on preferred stock, payable July Ist, 1954, to stockholders of record as of the close of business on June 10th was declared by the Board of Directors of Republic Pictures Corporation at & meeting held at the comPac on at 1740 Broadway, New