Canadian Film Weekly (Mar 22, 1944)

Record Details:

Title:
Canadian Film Weekly
Date:
Mar 22, 1944
Volume:
Canadian Film Weekly (Mar 22, 1944)
Leaf #:
00012
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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ave March 22, 1944 For Show Shops Prefabrication {Continued from Page 1) endeavor to beat Hollywood to film-hungry areas, The readyfor-use showplaces will substitute for those in urban centres destroyed by the war and serve in bringing movies to where they have never been seen. There are many hamlets in the rural parts of Canada and the United States which do not justify the erection of the usual types of theatres. In Canada the National Film Board and Itinerant exhibitors have developed a taste in these places for motion pictures. Prefabricated theatres will mean much to them. The Chinese and other ambassadors refused to comment on the London story. It is thought that Rank, who controls British production and is the dominant figure in distribution and exhibition, will try to establish Old Country stars in reconquered countries before Hollywood can reach those peoples. In Europe, as on this continent, the prefabricated theatres will probably act as claim-stakers in new fields. It is known that American manufacturers have interested themselves in the possibility of manufacturing prefabricated fireproof theatres along the lines of the mobile ones used by the army. Many types of fireproof fabrics have been developed for military use and it is expected that their manufacture will continue after the war for theatre use. It is claimed that they will not shrink, are not subject to atmospheric changes, are mildew proof, shed dust easily, are not affected by moths and other fibre-eating insects, and will not support combustion at any time. Myrna Loy Back Myrna Loy, who hasn’t be on the screen for some t back at the MGM stud sume her picture caree Hoffman, Producer Is Dead at 63 M. H. Hoffman, 63, who became general manager of Universal in 1912 and who in 1917 organized his own independent distributing company under the name of Four Square, died in Hollywood Jast week of a heart attack. Hoffman operated Pioneer for ios to re Yr. perated Several years and in 1921 for Tiffany to star Mae Murray eries of pictures for ce @ wt o 9 =) Ss places aR , v os pene poriren wees Canadian FILM WEEKLY Bieewecn Prarecse a{icture i*toticers Phatachram Archivec nolo FTOM sireiives ol Peete oath LS CEA (fy! pea RAED OD 5h peaeees pe ee Maurice Mentel, Sam Lester and Harry Alexander [Or — and above — that pre-cinema cathedral ~ marquee is a human interest story of three motion picture pioneers who were drawn to shadows as a moth to a flame. The picture was taken only thirteen years after Edison started peep showings with his Kinetoscope and eleven years after screen projection was developed. The modest elegance of the People’s Theatre front, brightening up the neighborhood, was a harbinger or great days to come. It was the father of de luxe operation and plush auditoriums. It sold the people the curiosity on which one of the greatest educational and entertainment mediums in history was to thrive. Mentel saw a little ad in the paper about a theatre for sale. He enlisted the interest of the boys and the three acquired the People’s Theatre from one Mr. Summerfield. Knowing nothing of theatre business, they builf a house while living in it. And the living didn’t come easy. At a nickel per fifteen-minute show nobody was getting rich. Though the theatre had taken all their savings and the money coming back couldn’t keep up with the grocer, the boys liked the business and decid around—which they have for 33 years. It wasn’t easy at first and it was accomplished by opening a room above the theatre as a three-man factory. Lester was a tailor, Mentel a cutter and Alexander a machine operator and they garbed many a patron. And all the time worried about filling the 100 kitchen clamped to the ground in the theatre below. ded to stick chairs Sam Lester manages the Doric, Toronto, Maurice Mentel has retired temporarily, and Harry Alexander can be found at the Lansdowne, Toronto, Between those times and these, three personal histories have evolved, movies became a great industry and store shows became cathedrals of the drama, But those are other stories, ae PAL Page 13 NSS Checkup On Male Help a Sita} iV ¥ a aes rtp 1eans al person working SLeatts, 42410C1S Gil VOL OUIL WULALITE ? & Mono Story Bu Mann ; + 2 L¥2, Penased B.C. Revision Court Denies Theatre Plea na mo to afte? = a Ane Ura OOK ia VOUMm bia, co f ras uphe 3% ~~ 1 its el { OL : ist ¥ s antrarel t e 4 wiley? 4 AN Ve \ i ie MAb ureac =o > = : t e vm > © > . m act +} ‘ © . . i ca t i Wh esr ° > + ; + . \ = Aula Cr 3) : > 25 ~ C sessmM it " 1caving { u ~} casi VASeR shee C .