Canadian Film Weekly (Jul 25, 1945)

Page scan 0006 from Canadian Film Weekly

Record Details:

Title:
Canadian Film Weekly
Date:
Jul 25, 1945
Volume:
Canadian Film Weekly (Jul 25, 1945)
Leaf #:
0006
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 15, 2024
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gh re THE PICK OF THE PICTURES , —£ Ata! IN AA * CaN SO0IANM MOTION PICTURE INOUSTEY REVIEWS INFORMATION ff RATINGS Vol. 10, No. 30 REVIEWS FROM FILM DAILY, NEW YORK $2.00 Per Annum China Sky with Randolph Scott, Ruth Warrick, Ellen Drew RKO 78 Mins. BUCK NOVEL IS TRANSFORMED INTO A VIVID DRAMATIC FILM THAT WILL APPEAL GENERALLY. A vividly dramatic film has been devised by RKO from the Pearl S. Buck novel. In an atmosphere charged with excitement the production unfurls a romantic tale centering about an American hospital in a Chinese village that is the special target of Jap bombers because it blocks the way to a guerrilla force giving the enemy a lot of trouble. The story is told with a sense of commotion that helps to hold the audience absorbed all the way. The yarn, which takes cognizance of the courage of the Chinese people, has been skilfully scripted by Brenda Weisberg and Joseph Hoffman. Executive Producer Jack J. Gross and Producer Maurice Geraghty have made it their business to accord the Buck book a production that is engrossing and atmospherically worthy. Swift and punchy direction has been contributed by Ray Enright. The principals are Randolph Scott, Ruth Warrick and Ellen Drew. Scott, in charge of the hospital, is married to Miss Drew, a girl pining to return to the States. The marriage is a mistake, for it is Scott and Miss Warrick a woman doctor, who are truly in love. Miss Drew is conveniently removed from the scene when she is killed by the Japs. Anthony Quinn, the guerrilla chief, and Carol Thurston, a native nurse, are participants in a minor romance. The film has been acted acceptably, with Miss Warrick a standout. CAST: Randolph Scott, Ruth Warrick, Ellen Drew, Anthony Quinn, Carol Thurston, Richard Loo, “‘Ducky” Louie, Philip Abn, Benson Fong, H. T. Tsiang, Chin Kuang Chow. CREDITS: Executive Producer, Jack J. Gross; Producer, Maurice Geraghty; Director, Ray Enright; Screenplay, Brenda Weisberg, Joseph Hoffman; Based on novel by Pearl S. Buck; Cameraman, Nicholas Musuraca; Special Effects, Vernon L. Walker; Art Directors, jAlbert S. D’Agostino, Ralph Berger; Set Decorators, Darrell Silvera, Al Fields; Sound, Francis M. Sarver; Musical Score, Roy Webb; Musical Director, C. Bakaleinikoff; Film Editors, Gene Milford, Marvin Coil, DIRECTION, Good. PHOTOGRAPHY, Good Alda Gets New Role Robert Alda, star of ‘“Rhapsody in Blue,” has been given the male lead opposite Ida Lupino in “The Man I Love,’”’ a musical being prepared for early production at Warner Brothers. Murder, He Says with Fred MacMurray Paramount 91 Mins. IMMENSELY ENTERTAINING, WEIRD HILL-BILLY MELODRAMA WITH MANY NEW FRESH SURPRISING TURNS AND TWISTS. GREAT FUN. This George Marshall production is an unusual sort of picture that has found in the conventional conception of the hill-billy the inspiration for a film that is swell fun for most of the way. Coming closest to being a mystery farce, “Murder, He Says” will prove immensely entertaining for most audiences, not only because of the novelty of it but because of a number of fresh and surprising turns and twists and the imagination that has gone into the production. There are touches that will appeal especially to those who relish melodrama. j Fred MacMurray is a polltaker who gets enmeshed in a web of strange happenings when he goes to a house inhabited by au family of screwy hill-billies to solve the mysterious disappearance of a fellow opinion sampler. His efforts to learn his associate’s fate soon takes second place to a frantic search for $70,000 in a bank loot cached by cld grandma, who dies mum. MacMurray, his life constantly in jeopardy, is chased all over the place by the hill-billies. Finally he finds the treasure with the help of Helen Walker, whose father, a bank employe, was unjustly imprisoned for the theft ‘of the dough. The film has a finish that is a wow. Competently produced by E. D. Leshin, the picture was directed by Marshall at a mad pace from Lou Breslow’s screenplay. MacMurray gives a most diverting account of himself. His support is first-rate. CAST: Fred MacMurray, Helen Walker, Marjorie Main, Jean Heather, Porter Hall, Peter Whitney, Mabel Paige, Barbara Pepper, Tom Fadden, George McKay, Joel Friedkin. CREDITS: Associate Producer, E. D. 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Full of surprises, the story leads up to a rough-and-tumble fight between Cagney and Jack Halloran, portraying a Japanese secret police officer. This handto-hand struggle in which judo and punch-trading are utilized, is a highlight that should keep the patrons talking long after they have seen the picture. Cagney, in his newspaper, exposes a plot by Premier Tanaka for the conquest of China and ultimately the world. From Wallace Ford, his best reporter, Cagney gets the only copy of the Tanaka plan just before Ford dies from an assassin’s bullet. Cagney hides the plan behind a picture oi the emperor. The plan is stolen and the rest of the story involves the exciting events surrounding the efforts of both the police and Cagney to recover the copy. Cagney falls in love with Sylvia Sidney, a mysterious girl who, on the surface appears to be in the service of Japan, but who in reality is working for China. 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PHOTOGRAPHY, Perfect, The Enchanted Cottage with Dorothy McGuire, Robert Young, Herbert Marshall RKO 91 Mins, DEEPLY MOVING DRAMA HAS A TREMENDOUS APPEAL FOR FEMME AUDIENCES. “The Enchanted Cottage” comes to the screen again after 21 years in a modernized version that demands the patronage of all who cry out for finer entertainment. Offering something different, the DeWitt Bodeen-Herman J. Mankiewicz transcription of the Sir Arthur Wing Pinero play has the capacity to fill the soul with courage and brings to the handicapped a message of faith beautifully and effectively conveyed in impressive dramatic terms. Under the sensitive direction of John Cromwell the film delivers an emotional wallop that makes it a heart-smasher with the women. The picture’s inspirational quality, the loftiness of its purpose, the nobility with which its sentiments are expressed, the humanity and warmth of its theme, its earnestness, its touching tenderness and its appeal to our finer instincts unite to give “The Enchanted Cottage” a rare preciousness and a distinction beyond the ordinary. There is strength and meaning to the film’s gentle story of a disfigured Air Corps officer and an ugly girl in love. The girl has a beauty of soul that more than makes up for her lack of physical loveliness. It is this that endears her to the man when he is in need of someone to give him courage to carry on. Her love destroys his bitterness in a series of scenes filled with emotion. Their profound love enables them to see each other as attractive and desirable. The acting is something to cheer about. Dorothy McGuire does a smashing job as the girl, Robert Young being not far behind as the man. 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