Canadian Film Weekly (Jul 28, 1948)

Page scan 0006 from Canadian Film Weekly

Record Details:

Title:
Canadian Film Weekly
Date:
Jul 28, 1948
Volume:
Canadian Film Weekly (Jul 28, 1948)
Leaf #:
0006
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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THE PICK OF THE PICTURES REVIEWS INFORMATION RATINGS Vol. 13, No. 30 REVIEWS FROM FILM DAILY, NEW YORK $2.00 Per Annum Feudin’, Fussin’ And A-Fightin’ with Donald O’Connor, Marjorie Main, Percy Kilbride, Penny Edwards SOUNDLY CONTRIVED COMEDY YARN HAS MUSIC ANGLE TO FOCUS REMUNERATIVE EXPLOITATION PROGRAM; GOOD HANDLING IN VARIOUS DIVISIONS. The formula is sound. Take a popular song and drape it around a Collier’s Magazine story that is somehow moulded to fit into the narrative and with the talents of Donald O’Connor, Marjorie Main and Percy Kilbride, plus the sweetness and charm of Penny Edwards, the resultant concoction becomes an entertainment that the general audience on the lookout for something in the line of serio-comic song and dance fare will find to their liking. To the above ingredients might be added a couple of boygirl routines wherein such pleasantly familiar numbers as ‘Me and My Shadow,” “S’Posin’,” and the title tune, considerably complement: the screenplay by D. D. Beauchamp, author of the magazine piece. It’s a yokel sort of yarn yith a 90’s_ background. Once in a While Miss Main and Kilbride get off a couple of wry, flavored cracks and the slapstickery of the concluding busimess adds to the hinterland heynonnyo. The towns of Rimrock and Big Bend in Bench County vie with each other to see who can put forth the fastest footrunner each year. The populace bets its collective shirts and Miss Main, Mayoress of the former hamlet, seizes and incarcerates Donald O'Connor, a hair oil drummer, who inadvertently gives evidence of his fleetfootedness. After a passable assortment of events in which boy meets girl and loses her, O’Connor finally races Fred Kohler, Jr., and overcomes any number of trials to be finally stimulated over the finish line by a bottle of his hair stuff. Kilbride later makes him Mayor of Rimrock, ousting Miss Main and it stands he will hold the post and marry Miss Edwards. Miss Edwards is a pleasant newcomer. The cast, majors and minors, run through the yarn with ease. CAST: Donald O'Connor, Marjorie Main, Percy Kilbride, Penny Edwards, Joe Besser, Harry Shannon, Fred Kohler, Jr. CREDITS: Producer, Leonard Goldstein; Director, George Sherman; Screenplay and original Collier’s story, D. D. Beauchamp; Photography, Irving Glassberg. DIRECTION, Okay. PHOTOGRAPHY, Good Coroner Creek with Rardolph Scott, Marguerite Chapman (Cinecolor) Columbia 93 Mins. AAA TOP GRADE WESTERN FARE STANDS TO CROWD FIRST PLACE IN SEASON’S HONORS. It will probably be a matter of discriminatory hairsplitting that may keep this de luxe grade western from crowding first place honors among this season’s crop. It has First Grade AAA treatment in every foot of its running time—plus. Based on a novel by Luke Short, this is another fine example of the genre when a good plot, capable players, the right directorial hand—Ray Enright— exceptional photography in what is no doubt the finest Cinecolor to date, and the like, all combine to be flashed on the screen as a fast, furious, exciting and thoroughly satisfying entertainment. Blood and gore are not spared from the viewer’s sight. This is a tale of revenge and theré’s nobody better qualified to play at this element than Randolph Scott. He is a cool, calculating killer; hardbitten and with one purpose—to avenge the death of his fiancee—he sets out to get his man. As a screenplay by Kenneth Gamet, the Luke Short novel has credence and fidelity to scene and situation. The lines are right. Scott is no namby pamby cowpoke, He’s a whisky drinking waddy who soon locates his man and then sets about planning his death. Maybe the proceedings are brutal. Production hands concerned with “Coroner Creek” know how to play on public emotional response and they deliver up a yarn here that will appeal to fundamental roots of feeling, action and reaction. Rounding out Scott's activitics are Marguerite Chapman, George MacReady, Sally Eilers, Edgar Buchanan, Barbara Reed. Plenty audience satisfaction is in this one. CAST: Randolph Scott, Marguerite Chapman, George MacReady, Sally Eil ers, Edgar Buchanan, Barbara Reed, Wallace Ford. CREDITS: A Producers Actors Production; Producer, Harry Joe Brown; Director, Ray Enright; Screenplay, Kenneth Gamet; Based on the novel by Luk: Short; Photography, Fred H. Jackman, Jr. DIRECTION, Very Good. PHOTOGRAPHY, Fine. "South Of St. Louis’ Viveca Lindfors and Joel McCrea will star in Warners’ “South of St. Louis.” Return OF The Bad Men with Randolph Scott, Robert Ryan, Anne Jeffreys, “Gabby” Hayes RKO 90 Mins. HANDSOMELY DONE, SMARTLY FASHIONED, WELL ACTED WESTERN; GOOD QUALITY BUY. Time of the Oklahoma Land Rush and the settling of Guthrie in that state backgrounds this first-rate western which will easily satisfy the customers who are out for a rousing western adventure replete with what it takes. Randolph Scott is as reliable in his portrayal of a frontier marshal as he ever was and Anne Jeffreys registers with good impact as a reformed outlaw—female of the species—as rough and tough as they come who later warms to Scott although his heart belongs to the widowed Jacqueline White. With George “Gabby” Hayes rendering the right comic touch as a banker with a hankering for adventure rather than making loans the story gets cracking with a bank robbery. The caper is pulled by “The Youngers,” “The Daltons’ and such characters as “The Sundance Kid.” “Billy The Kid,” “Wild Bill Doolin,” ‘Wild Bill Yeager” and “The Arkansas Kid.” After the initial meeting of Miss Jeffreys and Scott, during which he tries to dissuade her from the cirminal life to no avail, the town of Braxton is deserted for Guthrie and with the departure of the cavalry Scott becomes marshal. Miss White wants to marry him but the nupitals are postponed. Behind this buildup is the brooding hatred of Scott for Robert Ryan who coldbloodedly shot down an Indian retainer. Soon after Guthrie becomes an established location of great promise, the outlaws begin their depredation and Scott figures their operations evolve a certain pattern. His conjecture is right and in a gunfight in deserted Braxton the shows comes to a focus. Not before Scott and Ryan tangle in a wild rough and tumble brawl which ultimately results in the demise of Ryan. CAST: Randolph Scott, Robert Ryan, Anne Jeffreys, George Hays, Jacqueline White, Steve Brodie, Richard Powers, Jason R CREDITS: Producer, Nat Holt; Executive producer, Jack J. Gross; Director, Ray Enright; Screenplay, Charles O'Neal, Jack Natteford, Luci Ward; Story, Jack Natteford, Luci Ward; Photography, J. Roy Hunt. DIRECTION, Able. PHOTOGRAPHY, Good. So This Is New York with Henry Morgan, Rudy Vallee, Hugh Herbert United Artists 79 Mins. SLICK FARCE BY ENTERPRISE; THIS ONE IS GOING TO GET A HEFTY SHARE OF THE LAFF BIZ. Enterprise’s first entry into the comic field is a frisky and funny collection of nonsense that is going to get a large share of the laff biz. With Henry Morgan making his debut—and very effectively, too—here we have a version of Ring Lardner’s novel. “The Big Town” that is replete with smartly inventive bits of tomfoolery shrewdly strewn in the proceedings. They are calculated gags. The calculation is exact. They do the trick, cause all varieties of merriment. And that ain’t bad. The yarn has neatly cast players who have previously proven their mirthful mettle; like Hugh Herbert, Rudy Vallee, Frank Orth, Leo Gorcey, Jerome Cowan. Morgan and family, his wife Virginia Grey, and her sister, Dona Drake, following the impulse of the distaff side, go from South Bend to the Big Town, well heeled with inheritance. Miss Grey wants to marry Miss Drake into the big time, rather than let her espouse the local butcher. The period is faithfully and hilariously reproduced—it is the early 1920's. Soon after their arrival the trio become the butt of the town’s well known frenzy. Money flows freely. The girls have a fine buying spree. Morgan stands about and suffers while making expense entries. In short order they are cleaned out, the last taker being an unscrupulous actor who sinks the remainder of the wad in a flop show. ; Quite flattened they are last seen back by the home fires in South Bend once more and that, bud, is all. It’s all a lot of fun, too. Richard O. Fleischer directed. CAST: Henry Morgan, Rudy Vallee, Bill Goodwin, Hugh Herbert, Leo Gor cey, Virginia Grey, Dona Drake, Jerome Cowan, CREDITS: Producer, Stanley Kramer; Director, Richard O, Fleischer; Screenplay, Carl Foreman, Herbert Baker; Based on the Ring Lardner novel, ‘‘The Big Town.” Music, Dmitri Tiomkin; Photography, Jack Russell, DIRECTION, Smart. PHOTOGRAPHY, Good. Sirk To Direct Douglas Sirk will direct Columbia’s “The Lovers.”