Canadian Film Weekly (Mar 3, 1943)

Page scan 0004 from Canadian Film Weekly

Record Details:

Title:
Canadian Film Weekly
Date:
Mar 3, 1943
Volume:
Canadian Film Weekly (Mar 3, 1943)
Leaf #:
0004
Language:
English
Subjects:
Motion Pictures, Film Industry Trade Magazine",Canad
Collection:
Canada, Hollywood Studio System, 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 Film Weekly

  • Editor: Hye Bossin (1942-64)
  • Renamed Canadian Film & TV Bi-Weekly (1965-69, editor: Stan Helleur)
  • Renamed Candian Film Weekly(1970, editor: Ed Hocura)

Canadian Film Weekly (1942-70) was edited by Hye Bossin and published by Film Publications of Canada, Ltd., wholly owned by leading exhibitor, Nat Taylor. In the late 1930s, Taylor was head of the Independent Theatre Association and his Toronto-based chain, Twinex-Century (Twentieth Century), was the largest independent circuit in the country. In 1941, however, he negotiated for chain affiliation with upstart Canadian Odeon before leveraging a better deal and greater booking control with nationally-dominant Famous Players Canada, Ltd. No longer independent, he took ownership of the Independent Theatre Association’s semi-monthly magazine, The Canadian Motion Picture Exhibitor (1940-41), installed Hye Bossin as editor, and laid plans to relaunch in January 1942 under a new name, Canadian Film Weekly. This enduring key publication was no longer solely focused on independent exhibitors but instead covered the entire industry on a national scale–exhibition, distribution and production–with some attention given to studio news from New York and Hollywood.

Bossin was a vibrant writer with a canny way with words, admired in the industry in the United States as well as Canada. He was one of a large family who lived above their father’s secondhand shop in the Jewish “ward” downtown in Toronto. His older brother was a bookie with ties to the underground; his younger brother was a famous journalist, protégé of Walter Winchell, and Hollywood screenwriter. In contrast, Hye spent nearly two decades learning the publishing trade in a printers’ shop before trying a stint as a Hollywood publicist, then writing a column for the Toronto Star Weekly before taking Taylor’s offer to edit the Film Weekly. Bossin was central to the creation of the Canadian Film Archive, the Canadian Film Awards, and he wrote some of the first histories of early cinema in Canada, published in the first volumes of the annual Canadian Film Weekly Year Book (1951-70).

In 1957, the Film Weekly had incorporated the rival Canadian Moving Picture Digest (1917-57), and began dating its start to that paper’s earlier start as the Canadian Universal Bulletin (1915-18). Subsequent variants of the Canadian Film Weekly and its yearbooks always claimed their roots all the way back to 1915 and the origins of the film industry trade press in Canada. After Bossin died in 1964, the Weekly’s new editor, Stan Helleur, renamed the magazine Canadian Film & TV Bi-Weekly, scaling back the pace of publishing but adding a purview for television and broadcasting. The annual was renamed similarly, its subtitle amended to “Year Book of the Canadian Entertainment Industry.” An attempted renewal to weekly format in 1970, edited by Ed Hocura, was short-lived and Nat Taylor decided instead to relaunch under an entirely new title, Canadian Film Digest (1971-77) and Canadian Film Digest Yearbook (1971-86).

– Paul Moore, March 2024

Further Reading

  • Bossin, Hye. “Canada and the Film: The Story of the Canadian Motion Picture Industry.” In Canadian Film Weekly Year Book of the Canadian Motion Picture Industry, 21-41. Toronto: Film Publications of Canada, 1951.
  • Moore, Paul. “Chronicling a National History: Hye Bossin’s Canadian Film Weekly and Year Book.” In Eric Hoyt and Kelley Conway, eds., Global Movie Magazines. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2024.

Date Added:
August 01, 2024
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March. 8, 1948 Notes From Chatham, Ont. By HARLAND RANKIN Mr. Montague of Alexander Theatre, Wallaceburg, is back on the job after an attack of the shingles. The Ontario Motion Picture Exhibitors Association are planning theix next meeting in Chatham, Ontario, Mr. Vannie Chauvan of the Plaza Theatre, Tilbury, has recoyered from an operation on his hand for blood poison, Mr. Pat Drohan of the Capitol Theatre, Chatham, still is using his cane as a result of being hit in front of the postoffice last fall. But you can’t keep a good Drohan down, Mr. Harland Rankin had a good one on him the other night. When leaving the Centre Theatre and about to get in his car he found an orange parking ticket under his windshield wiper, so he put it in his pocket plenty peeved and rushed to the police station and presented it indignantly to the police officer in charge, The officer burst out laughing and said I'll be darned, this is good. It read: A Confidential Tip, Be sure and see MY SISTER EILEEN at the Centre | next week, an hilarious Someny It was the same size and colour the police put out, so Mr. Rankin settled for a pass. During the month of January, Chatham has the most snowfall in twenty years. Many people have fallen. The other day the Centre Thea| tre management received a call for a lady to be paged. It was refused unless it was most urgent, so we obliged and paged the lady and found no response. About ten minutes later we received another call, So we paged again. This time we got her. She came away from the phone and told us she would finish seeing the-show, she might as well, her house just burned down. In the last year the Centre Theatre has recovered nearly $1,000 for its patrons. Our biggest find was a lady who had $500 in a baking powder tin and let it fall on, the floor. It was near closing, she phoned her son-in-law who brought down Canadian FILM WEEKLY al On SUE | OSouaRe Crime and Punishment Stewart Gillespie of the Elgin, Ottawa, has a just claim against me. It has been some time since he switched posts with Bob Berezin, now of the Mark’s, Oshawa. The boys, many insist, are the image of each other and plenty of people are still unaware of the change of managers, since they see the same face on entering the theatre. Recently, in error, I put Stewart back in the Mark's, Oshawa, while recording his activities in “What Did YOU Do?” Stew, in a poem entitled ‘Look What YOU Did!,” reprimands me. I am printing the poem to make the point that the punishment is greater than the crime: Some people you meet are darn persistent In being very inconsistent— The perfect example of what I mean Can be found in Feb. 10 issue of your Magazine. The “What Did You Do” column read, “Of the Marks, Oshawa’’—when instead The Elgin, Ottawa, it should have reported; Your column certainly had facts “contorted”! Now when Bob and Stew first switched places, T’was predicted there’d be confusion of faces, But as it’s been months since the change occurred, It’s a surprise that to you the fact’s still blurred! Now it doesn’t matter if you mistake Bob for Stew— For they’re both of Twentieth Century Crew— And we know that a plug from you is a Boost; But PLEASE put a guy in his proper Roost!! * 7 Somebody Had Ought to Tell Him In answer to our request for his vote in the Canadian Film Weekly’s poll of the Dominion’s 10 best boxoffice attractions, we have received two ballots from Curly Posen, ex-conductor of the Casino Theatre orchestra and now manager of the Broadview. One ballot, a serious one, has been filed away with the many others pouring in. According to the unserious one, Curley’s choices of the 10 best pictures are: (1) The Sheik (2) The Sea Hawk (3) The Three Musketeers (4) Huckleberry Finn (5) Over the Hill (6) Perils of Pauline (7) The Kid (8) School Days (9) The Great Train Robbery (10) The Whip. The 10 best boxoffice stars, according to the corpulent kibitzer, are: (1) Eddie Polo (2) Pearl White (3) Milton Sills (4) Rudolph Valentino (5) Tony the Wonder Horse (6) Ben Turpin (7) Tom Mix (8) Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. (9) Ruth Roland (10) Wellesly Barry. Somebody ought to tell Curly about talking pictures. ® * a car load of relatives. The show| How About This One? was out by then and did they go to town. At Jast one whooped, ‘T got it, Grandma” and grandma: “God bless you dear’—I guess so. Another lady phoned from the bus terminal that she was about to buy her ticket and found her wallet missing. She told us where she sat and we located it and rushed it to the bus terminal. She said she had nearly $10 in if. One man brought his wife to the show after he had lost his week’s pay. There was plenty of harsh talk, It was one case we couldn't help. We noticed her on the street a few days after with a black eye. | “Why do they call this K.P.?” asked one spud-peeling soldier of his partner. “From the way that sergeant just looked at us,” was the reply. “I guess it means ‘Keep Peeling!” * He Was Right, Though Newest of moron gags of the kind you hear eyerywhere now is about the fellow who bought a ticket, gave it to the cashier, bought another, gave that to the cashier and so on and on. Finally the cashier said, “You only need one ticket to see the show. What do you keep buying them for?” “J know,” was the answer, “but the guy at the door keeps tearing them in half all the time!” Page 5 r. she 3Sin > S Ye eos! 4 Cd, Comes through with one of great pictures of the war! Corregidor For the epilogue of this great picture Alfred Noyes, the English poet, has written the following poem, which ap peared in the New York Times: CORREGIDOR Men of the blood-red Rock, Corregidor ;— The Rock, the living Rock, for which you died, Freedom still stands, enthroned above the war, No treacherous foe can scale that mountainside. Your dying hands rebuilt above the world A. fortress for the unconquerable mind, A mountain with a sky of stars unfurled Above it, and a hope for all mankind. Men of the Rock, far over sea and Jand, Your thunder-cloven crests once more grow bright, America, the torch in her right hand Re-crowned with fire, is moving through the night. America, by land and sea and air, Moves to her dead. Let all her foes beware! — COMING — An Alexander Korda Production ‘The Scarlet Pimperne?r With Leslie Howard, Merle Oberon and Raymond Massey Producers Releasing Corporation LIMITED Executive Offices: 277 Victoria St., Toronto, 2, Ont.