Canadian Film Weekly (Dec 25, 1946)

Page scan 00018 from Canadian Film Weekly

Record Details:

Title:
Canadian Film Weekly
Date:
Dec 25, 1946
Volume:
Canadian Film Weekly (Dec 25, 1946)
Leaf #:
00018
Language:
English
Subjects:
Motion Pictures, Film Industry Trade Magazine",Canad
Collection:
Global Cinema, Canada, and Hollywood Studio System
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 07, 2025
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December 25, 1946 CANADIAN FILM WEEKLY Page 19 He's a Very Reasonable Man By RAY SILVER HOLLYWOOD woman, A from Will MHay’s office, walked into Room 472, West Block, Parliament Building, at Queen’s Park, Toronto, one afternoon recently. She wanted to see the chairman of Ontario’s film censor board. She was duly ushered into a large adjoining office where O. J. Silverthorne greeted her. A fortnight later, the man who says “yes” or “no” about Ontario motion pictures received a breadand-butter letter from this Hollywood visitor. Said the woman from Will Hay’s office: “I still am amazed at the lack of long gray beard, but perhaps that explains your progressive viewpoint.” O. J. Silverthorne has a “progressive viewpoint.” His 1945 report anticipated the juvenile delinquency wave by more than six months. He has this year introduced a new system of grading films for child or adult consumption. He is now coping with the latest movie house wrinkle —drive-in theatres: And in 12 years on the film censor board he has proved his ability to keep up with the times. But the man who has more authority over Ontario’s motion picture industry than any individual can boast in any other province or state in America, has no “long gray beard.’ When he was appointed to the board in 1934, O. J. Silverthorne at 25 years of age was the youngest film censor ever named. Today he is still one of the youngest in the business. The film censor board chairman does not look 38 years old. Nor does he appear the father of a seventh-grade Public School girl. But he is conscientiously both. He keeps Ontario theatres safe and wholesome. And when he thinks a picture is not right for his 11-year-old daughter, Gail, he phones the neighborhood theatre and asks if they will switch the Saturday matinee. Virtual boss of Ontario’s 413 movie houses, 2,100 public halls, 1,550 projectionists, and its carnivals and circuses, O. J. Silverthorne is a clean-cut, almost debonair fellow who squares his shoulders and smiles when he says “no.” And he doesn’t like to be called a censor. “J’m not a censor,” he insists, “and it burns me up to be referred to as a censor. When you use that word: people expect to see an old gray man with a beard.” The film boss is smooth-shaven. The Clinch On the Cutting Room Floor and the Story of the Man Who Put It There E has two official titles. “Chairman of the Ontario Board of Motion Picture Censors and Director of Theatres” is one. “Administrator of the Circus and Travelling Shows Act,’ is the other. And “censor” or not, O. J. Silverthorne has a lot of authority. The titles are long ones but they cover considerable territory. “No other department in any province or state has as much jurisdiction over the motion picture industry as this one,” he says with almost a weary smile. To begin with there is the supervision of theatres themselves. The “Director of Theatres” authorizes licenses, approves construction, supervises operation, examines and licenses projectionists, probes for fire hazards, decides on Sunday use. And that is just in regard to 413 motion picture theatres. Then there are the 2,100 public halls where 16 mm. film may be shown—the community halls and school auditoriums. There are the panoram machines. that operate with the insertion of a ten cent piece. During the war there were motion picture shows at service camps to be inspected. And now there are the drive-in theatres. So much for the theatre side of it. Two or three days a week that side keeps O. J. Silverthorne away from his Queens Park office and his home. To follow up his staff and inspectors takes a lot of travelling. Back at Queens Park, the board chairman has the censoring side to look after. In 1938 the board calculated that they oO. J. SILVERTHORNE reviewed more than 17,000,000 feet of film. In his last report, Mr. Silverthorne summarized the board’s work in regard to 1,715 pictures including features, shorts, and “soundies.” And, (Continued on Page 21) 1@) Q Qaouuuguugdud Sa RBAVEEXEE {e A DICKENS CHRISTMAS TREAT FROM THE LAND OF DICKENS TONS cocececc ugvugacgag ve Lee mort Oh “ne “Sure, it's swell But can I ask Santa Claus to pay to see the picture? And caa you imagine what the supervisor will say if I report Santa Claus on my pass list? It’s a problem.