Canadian Film Weekly (Apr 19, 1944)

Page scan 0003 from Canadian Film Weekly

Record Details:

Title:
Canadian Film Weekly
Date:
Apr 19, 1944
Volume:
Canadian Film Weekly (Apr 19, 1944)
Leaf #:
0003
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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Page 6 OF CANADA LTD. 27% Victoria Street, Toronto. WE ARE PROUD To Play Our Part in the BIGGEST ALL STAR PRODUCTION WITH MORE AND MORE WAR BONDS MONOGRAM PICTURES Toronto, Montreal, St. John, Winnipeg, Calgary, Vancouver, Canadian FILM WEEKLY /0nThe$ quaye with Ave Bo vq It's Time Again Once many years ago I was suddenly exposed to magic words that led to.a magic world—a world that is a sort of stepbrother to the one movie showmen live in. Though, as a journeyman printer and a sometime scribbler, I was wise to the use of words, the simple power of but two words uttered in the right way bowled me over. Ali Baba’s “Open Sesame” was meaningless babble compared with them. His words could open only a single place. I learned those words and how to say them from a new friend then, Joe Starkman, now a corporal with a couple of years’ service in your behalf, and before that assistant manager of the Beverley Theatre, Toronto. It was about twenty years ago when I first met Joe. I had joined the Leonard Athletic Club, named after the then boxing champion, Benny Leonard, its honorary president. They heard about my itch for scribbling and made me editor of their printed monthly magazine. Many 2 local lad was wandering around the continent in those days and Joe, one of them, started corresponding with me when the magazine started catching up with him. He came around and introduced himself after he returned home. A sporty wisenheimer was my new pal, a wheeze guy and a wise gee who knew all the answers. You see, he was a carnival man who knew the ways of that queer world. Joe and I went to the Canadian National Exhibition together and those magic words took us through every show on the Midway without a cent. With me behind him Joe walked past the doorman, whispering out of the side of his mouth, “With it.” He had the sharp look that went with the words. “Okay,” the doorman answered unsmilingly. I learned the manner and the words too and they worked just as well for me. Examine Your Attitude Those two words constituted a phrase that established a kinship between persons in a private world that lived off and on the paying patron. Men who peddle a period of glamor and excitement thousands of times to millions of people are apt to develop an unhealthy attitude towards those who buy it. They regard them as commonplace because they accept as extraordinary that which the peddler considers ordinary. The show isn’t for the peddler but nonsense for the public. How about you? Al this noise about sacrifice and puiting victory first that goes with your part in the campaign—are you accepting it thoughtlessly as being for them and not you? Surely not. So much depends upon your buying bonds and using the facilities at your command to influence others to buy them. Are you “with it” in the way carnival folk were in times of peace or are you “with it” the way the boys are who are battling it out over there for you? Theirs is the greatest show in history and you are one of its barkers—or should be. You and they are part of the same show. Are you “with it” or “with them”? They, your country and your craft are asking you to prove which of those phrases describes your attitude. Personally, we’re betting that you’re on the square in the best way you know how. Many a manager has slowly fallen asleep on the job just because his kind of theatre makes it impossible to go backstage and shake hands with the actors. If you're that kind of a fellow, now is the time to wake up. For whether or not you realize it, you're an important worker on a vitally important job—the Victory Loan. So go to work. Or are you just another small-timer in your heart? x MWhzelily Address all communications—The Managing Editor, Canadian Film Weekly, 25 Dundas Square, Toronto, Canada, Vol. 9, No. 16 YE BOSSIN, Managing Editor Published by Film Publications of Canada, Ltd. 25 Dundas Square, Toronto, Ont., Canada . Phone ADelalde 4317. Price 5 cents each or $2.00 per year. Entered as Second Class Matter Printed by Eveready Printers Limlted, 78 ‘Wellington Street West, Toronto, Ontario aa April 19, 1944 April 19, 194 Here Is Our Pix : War Committee R You may be interested in { fast checkup of the executive ¢ the Canadian Motion Picture War Services Committee. J. J. Fitzgibbons, chai Ray Lewis, secretary; R. W. Be stad, treasurer. . Other members of the execu tive are Herb Allen, Harry ander, Eugene Beaulac, T. Bragg, Wolfe Cohen, Col, J. Cooper, L. M. Devaney, Freedman, Clare Hague, Hanson, H. L. Nathanson, A. Ww. Perry, L. Rosenfeld, Morris Stein — and N. A. Taylor. The Public Relations Comsat tee, of which J. J. Fitzgibbons is — chairman, comprises C. J. Appel, — Hye Bossin, Ben Geldsaler, Ray Lewis, James R. Nairn, Morris — Stein, N. A. Taylor, Glen Ireton, — Dewey, Bloom, George Degnon, | Ry Win Barron and Ben Cronk. om The War Service Committee functions all the year-round, its — members taking over administra= — tive duties in each new cause. The problems which arise when — Red Cross, scrap drives, Greek War Relief and so on are due to be placed before movie audiences — are settled by them, Thief Caught in Alhambra, Toronto Police last week found Joseph Cooper, Niagara Falls youth, in © the gallery of the Alhambra Theatre, Toronto, with a hacksaw and cold chisel in his pocket. He was booked on a charge of breaking into the theatre and having burglar’s tools in his possession. — The Alhambra is a popular target, another thief having been ~ sentenced last week for breaking in, s Fringe a ’ ‘5. Joe Polakoff, RCN, former Columbia booker, is hiding behind those bushes.