Canadian Film Weekly (Jun 18, 1947)

Page scan 0000 from Canadian Film Weekly

Record Details:

Title:
Canadian Film Weekly
Date:
Jun 18, 1947
Volume:
Canadian Film Weekly (Jun 18, 1947)
Leaf #:
0000
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
Something wrong or inaccurate about this page? Let us Know!

Thanks for helping us continually improve the quality of the Lantern search engine for all of our users! We have millions of scanned pages, so user reports are incredibly helpful for us to identify places where we can improve and update the metadata.

Please describe the issue below, and click "Submit" to send your comments to our team! If you'd prefer, you can also send us an email to mhdl@commarts.wisc.edu with your comments.




We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.

Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.

A 2 en Ne, ee ee, ea Se, “See, Vol. 12, No. 25 Explains End Of Tax Resolution Reasons for dropping the recent budget resolution which would have applied a 20 per cent -amusement tax on motion picture performances improperly presented as non-profit enterprises, were advanced by the Honorable D. C. Abbott, Minister of Finance, in (Continued on Page 3) Theatre Projected And One Opened Planning of a new theatre for Kapuskasing, Ontario, and the opening of the first theatre in Cloverdale, BC, featured the recent industry building news. Start of excavation on others and Plans for alterations and additions to two during the week (Continued on Page 4) VOICE of the CANADIAN MOTION PICTURE TORONTO, JUNE 18, 1947 Canada Made 20th-Fox Div'n Gehring, Samson Promoted As Smith Sueceeds Connors Canada, formerly a district of the Western division of Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation, has been made a separate sales division, following conferences between Andrew W. Smith, Jr., newly-appointed general sales man TICKETS for the VARIETY CLUB'S NIGHT BASEBALL BENEFIT GAME obtainable at Film Weekly Office 25 Dundas Square ager as successor to Tom Connors, and William C. Gehring, assistant general sales manager. Sydney Samson, in charge for some years of what was the Canadian district, now enjoys the status of a division manager, one of six in the company. As a district Canada was part of the Western division headed by Gehring prior to his promotion. Naming of Canada as a full division and Samson’s subsequent (Continued on Page 3) New Lone Wolf Pic Gerald Mohr and Nancy Saunders will star in Columbia’s latest mystery thriller, ‘‘The Lone Wolf in London.” INDUSTRY $2.00 Per Annum All-Out For Pic Pioneers Picnic Everyone in the Motion Picture Industry, their friends, wives and children, have a cordial invitation from the Canadian Picture Pioneers to join them at their gala Family Picnic and Carnival to be held on Friday, June 20th, at Charlie Mave (Continued on Page 4) NFBoard Panned In Parliament It is expected that the National Film Board, operation of which has received greater criticism from Opposition members during this session of the House of Commons than during any time since its inception, will receive a vigorous defence from (Continued on Page 7) Documentaries Grow In Theatre Favor Interest of theatre patrons in films classified as documentaries or of a documentary nature is growing in Canada, 2 condition in contrast with the overwhelming preference for escapist pictures in the past. Something of a broadening of public film taste has been BADGERING THE NFB noted during the past year, pe 4 renewed intertreatrnene alistic subjects and These are tough days for the National Film Board, _During the war the patrons, what with Opposition politicos whacking away at it as living under war conditions and a white elephant and so on. We don't go along with them neo to a constant flow of on that. Despite all the fuss about the amount of money Pe es Propaganda, looked at being spent by the NFB, its expenditures, when measured ob ate ary reels with a sense against film costs anywhere, are quite in line. The cost y and at escapist films with of making this or that film, which seems to horrify legislators and editorial writers, is often a normal expenditure determined by the charges of private companies assigned to its production, such as Shelly Films and Associated (Continued on Page 8) Borrowed For Film Screen News. It must be presumed they are giving the (Continued on Page 10) Says Canadians Not Critical Enough “Canadians as a whole have accepted Hollywood fare much too uncritically, because we have produced little of our own, and have not been exposed sufficiently to the output of other countries to establish a basis of comparison,” states a pamphlet published recently by the Canadian Association for Adult Education to accompany a CBC broadcast on the same topic. The pamphlet, entitled “What Are the Movies Doing To Us?,” pointed out that American radio programs, periodicals and motion pictures have entered Canada on such a large scale that it has not (Continued on Page 4) In ‘Nightmare Alley' Tyrone Power and Joan Blondell will star in Fox’ “Nightmare Alley.” RKO has borrowed Claude Jar man Jr. from MGM for a lead in Roughshod,” Steve Broidy, Monogram head, announces a two-year renewal of the Canadian franchise, unofficially said to be held by J. Arthur Rank. Better terms were secured for Mono and Allied Artists product, says Broidy, which shows a marked improvement in quality. TWO-YEAR RENEWAL OF MONO FRANCHISE