Canadian Film Weekly (Dec 9, 1942)

December 9, 1942 Lucien Roy Killed in Crash Crash of an Air Force plane on the west coast brought an untimely end to one of the best-known motion picture cameramen of Canada. Lucien Roy, 38 years of age, met his death on a news assignment, covering activities of Western Air Command. Roy has filmed the news in all parts of Canada for Associated Screen News Limited, Montreal, with whom he was rounding out 20 years of service. His zest for life and jovial manner made him friends in every province of the Dominion, from prime ministers to porters. His lenses have covered events of national importance, and leading personalities of Canada for fifteen years. Among national news events he covered were Wiley Post’s roundthe-world flight arrival at Edmonton, the Royal Tour, and the Moose River mine disaster. Originally his beat extended from Montreal headquarters to the Atlantic coast, and westward to the Pacific coast. During recent years he made Vancouver his headquarters’ to cover news in Western Canada. In 1941 he was in his home province, Quebec, aS cameraman on a production unit shooting a picture for the National Film Board “Un du Vingt Deuxieme” produced in the French language. Roy joined Associated Screen News in its early days when the motion picture industry was in its infancy in Canada. In 1923 he was office boy for the company. He gained a thorough knowledge of his business by progressing through film printing, processing and laboratory work to his first job with a camera—photographing titles and theatre trailers. His energetic approach to his tasks soon found him with a movie camera out on his first news assignment. Canada has been his beat ever since. Lucien Roy was born in Quebec City, the son of the late Dr. Arthur Roy. He leaves his wife, one daughter and three sons at 2046 West ist. Ave., Vancouver, his mother, Mrs. Arthur Roy, 2038 Peel Street, Montreal, one sister, Mrs. J. H. Gendron, and two brothers, Arthur and Horace, all of Montreal. Bird House Theatre England’s smallest cinema is a converted back garden aviary which once held 100 love birds. It belongs to Nicholas Frazer and is the pride of his 11-year-old daughter Muriel, —————S— SS ee Canadian FILM WEEKLY ~—— | SATURDAY NIGHT (Mary Lowrey Ross writes | about the influence of the. movies on our Allies’ conception of us) There was at least one section in Mr. Wendell Willkie’s “Tank of Goodwill” speech that left me feeling a little doubtful. That was | the one dealing with the American screen and its part in interpreting life on this continent to our Eastern allies. As often as not our Hollywood movies give a pretty confusing picture of American life even to American eyes. It’s almost impossible to conjecture what they must look like to an intelligent movie-goer in, say, Assam. How does it affect our plain-livpBe Russian allies, for instance, toj | learn that practically every Ameri| can living-room features a grana piano, that the average American working-girl is styled by Guilaroti and. wears Flato jewellery to the office, and that the minimum standards of American high school youth, as represented by Mickey Rooney, call for a private roadster and a full set of evening wear? Are they agreeably impressed by the notion that American life, if not actually run, is at least immensely influenced by crooked politicians, nerve-ridden city editors, nitwit matrons, tempestuous heiresses and gangsters carrying machine guns in violin cases? What do they make of such American phenomena as Mae West, the Andrews Sisters and Judy Canova? Do they base their notion of American hospitalization on the Kildare series, and their ideas of our behavior on the house manners of The Man Who Came to Dinner? Does the popular conception of the American ace flyer as a bragging heel who turns hero in the final reel represent an increment or, in the Willkie phrase, a leak in tank of goodwill?. It is true of course that Hollywood films have-undergone a considerable sobering-up over the past twelve months, as witness ‘Mrs. Miniver,” “This Above All” and “Wake Island.” | With world-communications in their present state, | however, it isn’t likely that many of our foreign allies have had much chance to see these products of a more responsible way of thinking. In many places of the earth they are probably still looking at tattered copies of “Big Brown Eyes,” “Love Crazy,” “He Stayed for Breakfast’ and “The Gold who entertains her; Diggers,” and raising bewildered school chums there with moving| eyebrows at our immense and pictures, at one penny admission— | grandiose and curiously addle for war funds. ‘headed civilization. ¢JOHN GRIERSON —————— ————————————— cS Sa La Z (Speaking before a session of the Institute of Inter-American Affairs) “We think we satisfy friendship with other and different countries if we find in them the things that we ourselves enjoy. We take and adapt their dance music. We borrow some of their recipes. We set their singers and actors into the normal terms of our North American showmanship. But all that is simply adding to ourselves. It is not a fundamental contribution to understanding. It does not take us really very far from the attitude which all the world most resents in us, and that is the assumption that the North American idea is the only idea and that wisdom will perish with us.” PM (Excerpts from an address by Harry Emerson Fosdick, pastor of New York’s Riverside Church, at the annual Memorial Service of the Police Square Club) Today my faith in God grows both the stronger and the more necessary. The present ill estate of the world is not the finale. No victory of unrighteousness ever is a closed case. In Paul Muni’s Life of Emile Zola, one scene in particular haunts the memory. In the courtroom you recall, the judge has kept insisting that the Dreyfus case is closed. This witness may not appear; this testimony may not be given; the affair of Dreyfus is a closed case. And as the court rises from its sitting, with this repeated affirmation sounding the knell of doom for both Dreyfuand Zola, the mural of the crucified Christ appears over the judge’s rostrum, and Zola’s lawyer remarks, “That too was once regarded as a closed case.” eS SS Page 5 (Movie Men Help \ e ° fs Aid to Russia (Continued from Page 1) ‘ War Services will handle the film end of the campaign and a meet ing this week will appoint those who will serve. The national committee of the Fund is registered under the War Charities Act and is launching a two months’ appeal for funds via the newspapers, radio, community enterprises and organization activities. No house-to-house canvassing is to be done. The Canadian Aid to Russia Fund is now being formed. Mr. J. S. McLean, head of Canada Packers, Limited, is the president of the fund. Associated with Mr. McLean are: J. E. Atkinson, Messrs. Clifford and Victor Sifton, Sir Ernest McMillan, Sir Robert Falconer, Lady Eaton, R. S. McLaughlin, Lt.-Col. R. Y. Eaton, Professor N. A. M. McKenzie, The Most Rev. Derwyn T. Owen, D.D., The Rt. Rev. J. R. P. Sclater, Messrs. Tom Moore, A. R. Mosher, Alfred Charpentier, J. McGregor Stewart, K.C. The LieutenantGovernors and their wives, of Ontario, Manitoba, Alberta and New Brunswick have graciously ' extended their patronage and this ‘is a preliminary list of the board of directors and patrons. “In addition to sending the medical and other supplies that are so desperately needed by the Russian people,” writes Mr. McLean, “a valuable contribution can be made by our effort in the creation of a sympathetic understanding between the Russian and Canadian people. We are fighting this war with the magnificent help of the Russians and they deserve all the aid we can give. We shall have to live together in the same world with them after the war and whatever can be done to increase understanding and cooperation between the two nations is all to the good.” OUR MAINTENANCE DEPARTMENT IS AT YOUR SERVICE Let us re-upholster your theatre furniture | | | : | CANADIAN THE chairs, lobby and powder room ATRE CHAIR CO. | | 277 Victoria Street, Toronto