Canadian Film Weekly (Jun 4, 1947)

Page scan 0009 from Canadian Film Weekly

Record Details:

Title:
Canadian Film Weekly
Date:
Jun 4, 1947
Volume:
Canadian Film Weekly (Jun 4, 1947)
Leaf #:
0009
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 14, 2025
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Faas tS iff NEOOSOW (Continucd from Page 4) memory for old-timers, insisted that one of them was Monte Blue. Gordon Lightstone and I dissented so I asked the spieler and it was Blue. ; oy “T guess for you the great days have gone forever,” I said to yesterday’s flicker hero. “Yes,” he answered, “but it’s still a great business.” 4 ; Among the barkers were Creighton Hale and Leo: White, who played the little French count in the Chaplin silents. Since most of the guests were old flicker hands recollection did not defy them for long. I must report that, regardless of the proximity of Pat O’Brien, Sydney Greenstreet, Bob Alda, Dane Clark and other present-day stars, it was Monte Blue who was busiest giving autographs. A separate sound stage was devoted to the pre-dinner entertainment. In the centre of it was a circular bar, the largest in the world, and around the walls such sets as Skouras Sidewalk Cafe and O’Donnell’s Theatrical Boarding House. On these the boys sat and swigged, or strolled and swigged, stopping to gab> with old and new friends, or to be photographed with favorite Warner stars. : ; Then to the Humanitarian Award Dinner, which was catered by famed Chasen’s who served Kansas City beef flown in for the occasion. Following the dinner Jack Carson emceed and starred in a show featuring Bob Alda, Dennis Morgan, Wayne Morris, Dane Clark and others. The boys did skits in which Jack Warner and Ben Kalmenson were ribbed. When Jack Carson, Manitoba-born and who will star in a > film to be produced in Canada by Warners, appeared before the people who actually know how much his talent is worth in dollars and cents, he confessed: “I never -felt so gosh-darned untalented in my life.” And he meant it. But the reception that his work and that of Alda and the others got reassured him. It was a show which climaxed.a great event—an event that was the distinguishing feature of the finest convention in Variety history. 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Ed Auger was here, as was Sol Burns, who used to run a booking office-in Toronto, and they passed regards to old friends. , , Syd Karlen and Al Kahn, now LA residents, came around to say hello . . . Cem Merrett superchiefed in . Another ex Torontonian was Bill Sturgess of the Grand Rapids tent, now of the Republic sales staff, who also operates a theatre in Granville, Illinois. Bill at one time operated the People’s, the first Imperial (before the one bearing the name now was built), and another house in Toronto. * * k Will-o'-the Whispers Plenty of huzz-buzz around the area about the future of the Monogram franchise. Prediction: the company will do its own distributing come fall... Liberty is polling Canadian film critics to determine the ten best films of all time . .. Leo Clavir screened his Royal Alex attraction, “The Stone Flower,” for Toronto technicians, who haveheard that the color in the Russian film, created through a secret process, is incomparable ...Joe Leiberman had a stroke in Saint John recently .. . Fred Trebilcock is off to England for his vacation .. . Geraldine, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Michael Isman, will be married: to Allen Sharp at the King Edward Hotel, Toronto, on June 18. Many film men.attended the stag in Allen’s honor last week... General Films held a convention in Toronto last week and at it Sammy Sales did his ruinous waiter routine on one of the guests. Col. Cooper, ever alert where injustice raises its head, demanded removal of the dumb and dangerous waiter . . . Happy to hear that Zeena Cheevers, hurt two seasons ago doing a benefit, is again headlining night club shows with her dancing. * * * Typodermic Injections Everything is shaping up for a boom in Canadian production, as you will realize if you’ve followed the news in this publication. In Hollywood I learned that principals of the Brooks pulp and paper interests were studying the possibility of production in their province, British Columbia . . . London theatre men are said protesting against inclusion of drive-in ads on the regular theatre page in violation of an agreement with the newspaper. It’s heard hereabouts that film men aren’t keen about supplying drive-ins with pix at usual prices, regarding them as a thorn im the side of regular accounts who have trouble staying open in the summer. But orders from New York have pushed local deals through . . . Tom Daley of the Imperial completed 40 years in the industry last week . . . 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This was the first casting anTom Kilpatrick, a film writer nounced for this screen version before he became a war corresof the James Ramsey Ullman pondent, was signed to develop best seller. the screen treatment. 3 i $ <<, 3 ay eve = a Sree Exploiteer Jim Cameron and James Nairn, advertisingpublicity director, both of Famous Players, and Larry Graburn, advertising director of Odeon Theatres, display campaigns submitted by the first five prize winners in Warner Brothers Canadian exhibitor contest on “The Verdict.”