Canadian Film Weekly (Mar 10, 1948)

Page scan 0007 from Canadian Film Weekly

Record Details:

Title:
Canadian Film Weekly
Date:
Mar 10, 1948
Volume:
Canadian Film Weekly (Mar 10, 1948)
Leaf #:
0007
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 21, 2025
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Page 8 Liberty Pix Poll To Be Broadcast For the first time, Canada is to have a set of annual movie awards, on the lines of America’s Oscars and Britain’s Silver Star awards. The awards will be made as a result of a nationwide poll of Canada’s more than 1,300 movie exhibitors. New Liberty magazine sent out to the exhibitors a questionnaire in which they were asked to list what they felt were the outstanding achievements in fourteen categories, including Best Film of 1947, Biggest Money-Maker, Best Male Performance, Best Female Performance, Best Short Subject. Announcement of the winners of the awards will be made around the middle of this month. Initial returns show that among the favored films and stars are: The Jolson Story, The Yearling, The Egg and I, Great Expectations, Best Years of Our Lives, Welcome Stranger; Bing Crosby, Ingrid Bergman, Deborah Kerr, Larry Parks, Gregory Peck, Burt Lancaster. Awards may be made over a well-known radio program, with a Hollywood star on hand to receive them. Singer In Musical Gordon MacRae, singer, has been added to Warners’ ‘The Fighting Terror.” Canadian FILM WEEKLY RS ‘Film Board ‘In The Red?’ (From the Ottawa Evening Citizen) Certain newspapers which view all activities sponsored by the present government with a jaundiced eye are assiduously spreading the tale that Canada’s National Film Board on its year’s operations is “in the red” by more than $2,000,000. This allegation should be recognized for what it is—a gross misrepresentation. The board’s real financial position, as disclosed in the annual report, shows that its parliamentary appropriation last year was $2,290,148. Of this amount it has spent to date $2,285,486, leaving an unexpended balance of $4,662. For contract work for federal and provincial departments and other agencies the board received, and spent, an additional $829,352; expenditures for the year thus totalling $3,119,500. Finally, from theatre royalties and the sale of prints it received $67,133—a “profit” if one chose to regard the financial statement as that of a commercial enterprise, which the film board is not and was never intended to be. So much for the factual distortion of political axegrinders. Among intangible values on the “profit” side the Board can justly claim to be giving Canadian communities a better understanding of their own problems and how to solve them; to be contributing to the education of Canadiams by widening the field of visual instruction; to be enriching Canadians’ self-respect by telling the story of Canadian achievements; to be interpreting Canada and the Canadian scene to the people of other countries, and interpreting other nations to Canada, thus promoting international understanding; to be contributing to Canadian health by disseminating information on better health methods; and to be providing an outlet for the work of Canadian composers, musicians, artists and writers. Could any finer balance sheet be asked? , March 10, 194g SMPE Pow-Wow Dated For May The Society of Motion Picture Engineers will hold its 63rd ge. mi-annual convention in Los Angeles from May 17th to May 2ist inclusive, with the Pacific Coast section playing host to the more than 2,500 technical experts from the motion picture industry, the film and sound equipment many. facturers, scientific foundations and experimental laboratories who will assemble there from the United States and a dozen other nations, it was announced recently by Loren L. Ryder, president of the SMPE. Actual scene of the convention will be the Santa Monica Ambassador Hotel, Santa Monica, California, where all business and technical sessions will be held, with the Ambassador and Del Mar Beach Club slated to house all members and guests in the immediate vicinity for meetings and social activities. The convention will get under way on the morning of May 17th, with a get-together luncheon Scheduled for noon of that day, Remainder of the five days will be devoted to business and technical sessions in the mornings, afternoons and evenings, except on May 19th when a cocktail party and dinner dance will be given for members and guests at the Ambassador Hotel. It's a problem! 4 Cotes anes orem PS SOs M } SSS . SS Seed SSS =seee'* Having Wonderful Time TELS “s S ‘s > A Canad, Limited HOA CP a, © EAGLE-LION FILMS