Canadian Film Weekly (Jun 8, 1949)

Page scan 0009 from Canadian Film Weekly

Record Details:

Title:
Canadian Film Weekly
Date:
Jun 8, 1949
Volume:
Canadian Film Weekly (Jun 8, 1949)
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 21, 2025
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Page 10 CANADIAN FILMS (Continued from Page 8) tina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Panama, Paraguay, Puerto Rico, Uruguay, and Venezuela. Since the spring of 1946 it is estimated that the audience amounted to approximately 9m. European Audiences There are 1,076 films on deposit with the various diplomatic missions and trade commissioner offices in Europe. While overall audience and screening reports are not available, the Information Attache in France reported that over a three-year period the audience totalled some 900,000. In Norway and Belgium a monthly circulation of 9,270 and 3,078 respectively is reported. Distribution of Canadian films through the National Film Board office in Australia for the 12month period ended February 29, 1948, totalled 21,500 screenings, with an audience of 594,342. During the same period audiences totalling some 500,000 were reached in South Africa. 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Andy Ostrander of the Tivoli replaces Gunn at the Uptown; Lou Termeer, assistant manager of the Metropolitan, takes over at the Tivoli; and Ralph Crawford, chief of staff at the Metropolitan, is promoted to assistant manager there. Arlene Dahl Cast feminine lead opposite Robert ries at Taylor in MGM’s Ambush. Canadian FILM WEEKLY — EDITORIAL OPINION — Something for You to Worry About One of the most interesting things to ponder is about what sort of arrangement the CBC and the NFB will work out with regard to TV, considering that it is the common ground between movies and radio. Both government agencies are preparing for TV. While those worried about television are looking at the CBC, the National Film Board is quietly moving towards it. One of its key men is in New York studying it and in Ottawa TV shorts are being made. If the CBC produces television presentations, what will it be doing that the NFB isn’t? Parliamentary critics would soon claim that they were performing duplicate functions and demand that they be united in the name of economy. The CBC today is in the movie business to the extent that it controls theatre TV too. The NFB makes theatrical shorts. How will the Canadian motion picture industry be affected if they get together? Time will have to provide the answer to that one. Meanwhile it's just one more thing to worry about. An Unbelievable Offence (From the Huntsville, Ontario, Forester) It is difficult to imagine that even a juvenile mind could become so depraved that human instinct would fail to check a mania for wanton destructiveness such as is reported by the management of the Capitol Theatre. Young lads have used pocket knives to slash the upholstering on several of the new and expensive theatre seats. A reward is offered. It becomes the moral duty of anyone having information as to the identity of the persons responsible, to notify Mr. Giaschi. The offence is all but unbelievable. It cannot be attributed to anyone whose mind even approached normal sanity. IV and Canadian Film Censorship Judgment has been reserved in the Federal District Court on the petition of five Pennsylvania TV stations to lall a ruling of the Pennsylvania State Board of Censors calling for censorship of all films telecast by video stations. This is worth watching in Canada, for we have eight censorship boards and their work will seem strange if motion pictures exhibited in theatres are censored and those on TV are not. Each province has its own standards. How, then, will it be possible to broadcast a film across all of them? The Pennsylvania stations claim protection from the censors because they are in the class of interstate commerce. Perhaps TV will lead to the end of movie censorship as we. know it now and some fairer, less costly and more practical method worked out. Bowery Boys Film Arlene Dahl will have the ~ Masterminds. DRIVE-IN THEATRE, TWO OTHERS OPEN Jerry Campbell of Sunset Drive-in Theatres Limited opened his 500-car Sunset Drive-in Theatre near Chatham, Ontario, recently. Two openings last month previously unreported were the 425-seat, $50,000 Quonset theatre in Salmon Arms, BOC, built by the Community Co-operative Association, and the Paramount in Sydney, NS, built by Dan P. MacDonald in affiliation with Famous Players. Nearing completion are Bishop D. Miller’s house in Taber, Alberta, and a drive-in near Belleville, Ontario, being built by Management Com é a ae fissiee to rendace the old Royal in North Bay, Ontario, is being planned by 20th Century Theatres. Next in the Bowery Boys seMonogram will be June 8, 1949 ‘THIS IS CANADA’ (Continued from Page 1) movie audiences throughout the world. The film’s direction from a standpoint of script will be worked out between Audio and CNR departments but its literary treatment will be placed in the hands of a Canadian writer of national standing. 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Motion Picture Sales Corporation is the USA distributor of Maynard Films’ Sins of the Fathers, produced in Canada by Canadian Motion Picture Productions. ‘Eagles of The Navy’ Alan Ladd and William Bendix have been cast in Paramount’s Eagles of the Navy. Nazzaro To Direct Ray Nazzaro will direct Columbia’s Hoedown. MGM Lends Hutton For ‘Annie’ Lead Betty Hutton has been borrowed by MGM from Paramount for the title role in Annie Get Your Gun, replacing Judy Garland, who recently walked out after the picture had been in production for four weeks. Miss Garland was suspended from salary at the time. Paramount announced that Let’s Dance, in which Miss Hutton was to star opposite Fred Astaire, will be postponed until the completion of Annie Get Your Gun,