Canadian Film Weekly (Jun 15, 1949)

Page scan 0004 from Canadian Film Weekly

Record Details:

Title:
Canadian Film Weekly
Date:
Jun 15, 1949
Volume:
Canadian Film Weekly (Jun 15, 1949)
Leaf #:
0004
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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June 15, 1949 Co-World Premieres Set For EL Film Co-world premieres of Eagle Lion (Hollywood) Films’ Walter Wanger production, Reign of Terror, have been set for the Outremont and Snowdon Theatres in Montreal and the Victoria in Quebec City on June 17th, following the world premiere in New Orleans on June 16th. Picture is distributed in Canada by International Film Distributors Limited. Combining for the Canadian openings are Joe Mansfield, exploitation representative for Eagle Lion in Boston and now in Montreal for this special assignment, and Irving Herman, publicity director for International, and they expect to give the film a royal sendoff in both cities with Hollywood-type premieres. Horizon To Produce Two For Columbia Horizon Productions, headed by S. P. Eagle and John Huston, has signed with Columbia Pictures for two additional productions. Huston will direct one and Eagle will produce both films. Horizon’s first Columbia production was the Jennifer JonesJohn Garfield-Pedro Armendariz film, We Were Strangers. Canadian FILM WEEKLY CONSTRUCTION MAINTAINS PACE G. Soloway and B. Goldhar have reopened their Mountain Theatre in Hamilton after a complete rebuilding program. Former theatre at the location was also named the Mountain and had 678 seats. Three drive-ins under construction for the Ochs Management Company, Ontarlo, are expected to open this month. The Belleville 500-car unit was slated to open on June 11th, the one in Kingston, with the same capacity, on June 18th, and the Hamilton 750-car job on June 25th. Work is well under way on G. A. Gough’s 449-seat, $45,000 Quonset theatre in Keremeos, BC, where the 200-seat Community is the only situation. Work is also progressing on the first theatre for Golden, BO, a 300-seat, $22,000 project being built by Owen Bird. Emile Berthiaume has obtained a permit to construct a theatre in Malartic, Quebec, where the only situation now in operation is Famous Players’ ,440-seat Malartic. A permit has been obtained for a $60,000 theatre in Weyburn, Saskatchewan, the only theatre there being also a Famous Players’ house, the 460-seat Hi-Art, UA Foreign Program Doing Top Business Opening business of the United Artists double bill, Passionelle and Torment, in its first two dates at His Majesty’s, Montreal, and the Odeon, Victoria, has threatened house records in both situations and is building up to holdovers and very svuxcessful engagements. Passionelle is a French-made film and Torment is of Swedish origin. Third Canadian engagement of the double bill in Canada is at the Hollywood, Toronto. Two MGM Pictures Setting Records MGM’s Little Women set two new all-time house records at the Roxy in Barrie, Ontario, and the Empire in Madoc, Ontario. The Madoc figure, however, only stood for a short time. MGM’s Take Me Out to the Ball Game came along the following week and topped the record set by Little Women. ‘Feudin’ Rhythm’ Edward Bernds will direct Columbia’s Feudin’ Rhythm, Page 5 UK Odeon Directors Elect New Member G. I. Woodham-Smith, who has acted as legal adviser to J. Arthur Rank on his trips to Canada and the USA, has been elected a director of Odeon Theatres Limited and subsidiary companies in England, succeeding Leslie W. Farrow, who resigned due to ill-health. Farrow remains as a director of Manorfield Investments Limited, the holding company for Rank’s film interests. Gets Coveted Role Montgomery Clift has been given the coveted role of the young murderer in Paramount’s film adaptation of Theodore Dreiser’s An American Tragedy. UA Will Distribute Shirley Temple Pic United Artists will distribute Shirley Temple’s new starring comedy, A Kiss for Corliss, to be produced by Colin Miller and Marcus Loew, 2nd. A Kiss for Corliss, a continuation of the romantic and comic adventures of Corliss Archer, Played by Miss Temple in Kiss and Tell, will go before cameras this summer in Hollywood. Richard Wallace has _ been signed to direct. ALL FOR FUN... FUN FOR ALL NOW BOOKING 4. LAUREL AND HARDY FULL LENGTH FEATURES * BOHEMIAN GIRL * WAY OUT WEST * SWISS MISS * BLOCKHEADS ASTRAL FILMS