Canadian Moving Picture Digest (Dec 4, 1954)

Record Details:

Title:
Canadian Moving Picture Digest
Date:
Dec 4, 1954
Volume:
Canadian Moving Picture Digest (Dec 4, 1954)
Leaf #:
0009
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:
June 13, 2024
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PAGE TEN Govt. Regulations “Deadly”-A. L. Mayer Arthur L. Mayer, former executive vice-president of COMPO, gave the back of his hand to exhibitors pressing for more government interference, to distributors who “have misplaced their hearts,” to producers who overlooked “the fourth dimension of self-restraint and good taste,” and to the industry at large for ignoring “well financed and well co-ordinated scientific research.” Mayer, guest speaker at the luncheon of the Motion Picture Theatres Association of Ontario, observed that today courage has become not the prerogative of youth but rather the privilege of their elders, served notice that henceforth “I shall be thoroughly disagreeable even about some thoroughly agreeable people.” “I shall yell to high heaven whenever our industry appears to be headed in the opposite direction,” he asserted, and in short order he proceeded to do just that. The American industry veteran said flatly that he saw “little justification for the prevalent mood of complacency and self-satisfatcion,” observing that the industry salvation during its recent “greatest emergency” was “primarily due to the courage and energy of one man, Spyros Skouras.” The proposed government reguJation of film rentals as a cure for current ills dismayed Mayer, who saw “the proposed medicine .. . even more deadly than the malady.” “The proponents of government regulation say that they favor it only in a limited form but regulation is like pregnancy,” he commented. “Once you have it, or so I am told, you just can’t stop it.” oe i _ Oscar Hanson (top) presents Pioneer Stephenson, veteran showman. Will Mayer advanced the opinion that the present difficulties are largely due to excessive government interference, recalling that “as long as the producing-distribution companies owned some theatres there was no shortage of product, no competitive bidding, no danger of the sale of valuable negatives to television.” Mayer warned that “the least effective way” to increase the flow of product “is to subject the men who have the know-how, the iniliative, the gambling instinct and the huge capital that modern picture production requires to the impositions and ignorance of bureaucrats, politicians and inquisitorial agencies,” 3 Dae 7 Merely Colossal wos the speech of Arthur Mayer ot the MPTA luncheon, Shown ore J. J, Fitzgibbons, Jack McCulloch ond Mayer, : plaque rn, McLaughlin, Movie Critics”, is presented with a plaque by N. A. Taylor, to Charles “Dean of president of the Jack Arthur, 1954 Pioneer of from John J, Fitzgibbons, honored last year. DECEMBER 4, 1954 Canadian Picture Pioneers. the Year, receives award NEWLY ELECTED CREW FOR 1955 OF VARIETY CLUB, TENT 28, TORONTO Bock Row—l, to r—J, J. Fitzgibbons, Jr., Louis Davidson, William Summerville Jr. (Immediate past Chief Barker), Monty Hall, George Altman, Herb Allan. Front row—I. to r.—Rabbi Slonim, David Griesdorf, Harry Mandell (Chief Barker), Clare Appel, Paul Johnston, Dan Krendel. eutstending display from JARO, > pel SAN * Ces The Movie Trade Show won general applause last week, Shown above is the a) i