Canadian Film Weekly (Aug 31, 1949)

Page scan 0007 from Canadian Film Weekly

Record Details:

Title:
Canadian Film Weekly
Date:
Aug 31, 1949
Volume:
Canadian Film Weekly (Aug 31, 1949)
Leaf #:
0007
Language:
English
Subjects:
Motion Pictures, Film Industry Trade Magazine",Canad
Collection:
Canada, Hollywood Studio System, and Global Cinema
Format:
periodicals
Contributor:
Media History Digital Library, Canadian Media Magazines Project; 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:
May 23, 2024
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TS 4 i L : “ : Eb ; 4 | Variviews Jewelers Have Hearts of Gold It’s wonderful the way friends of the Variety Club and the crippled children of Ontario are joining to help Variety Village, our vocational guidance school and residence for handicapped youngsters. All Barker Jimmy Cameron had to do was to drop a hint in several directions and the response was heartwarming. For instance, the Toronto Jewelers Association will provide a watchmaking course and the equipment to go with it. It hopes to raise $500 for this purpose with a big golf tournament open to all on September 7th. Since there won’t be a Film Weekly golf tournament this year, I suggest you take in the jewelers’ competition, Bill Johnston, who used to spend the day with the film lads at our tournament, will be glad to see you, as will his fellowcraftsmen. The jewelers will also provide a scholarship at the Ryerson Institute of Technology, Toronto, where the best pupils of the Variety Village course will go on to become journeymen. Upon graduation they will be placed in jobs by the Association. The Underwood typewriter people (and I am happy to say that these words are being typed on one of their newest—and excellent—models) will donate typewriters for office purposes and for the use of those crippled kids who cannot handle a pen or pencil but can use a machine. Those who show an aptitude for repairs or stenography will be instructed in those phases of the typewriter field. If you know some folks who might like to help equip Variety Village, please introduce us. There’s a long way to go yet. a * Bs Do You Know This Poem? Has anyone a copy of a poem by John Ferguson, which contains the following stanza? When tenting days are done and nevermore He smells the sawdust, sees the laughing eyes, I, somehow, think that on a daisied floor He’ll turn a somersault in Paradise To give some angel child a glad surprise Who never saw a circus clown before. I read that in a New York Times interview with one Butler, press agent for the Ringling Brothers-Barnum & Bailey circus, and wrote to him at Madison Square Gardens, where the circus was playing, but got no reply. I’d like to read the rest of it, wouldn’t you? ok * * A Prairie Gentleman I had the pleasure of chatting with a pleasant gentleman with a personality as friendly and ample as his Western home—D. J. Vaughan, the Saskatchewan censor, who visited me in company with your old friend, Locke Elliott. He has been the censor, working alone, since June, 1941, and has served under two governments of different political views without any interference. In Saskatchewan censorship is in the portfolio of the Minister of Labor. There are three theatre inspectors and the province just got its first drive-in, the Skylark outside Regina. Itinerants in the 16 mm. field are limited to a prescribed number of communities by their licenses, so each may have his field of operations free of competition. The wide open spaces makes it necessary for the province to provide cars for its theatre inspectors. Vaughan feels that parental neglect is a greater factor in juvenile delinquency than allegedly unsuitable pictures. He has no set of rules for censoring films but judges the possible effect of certain screen content on morals, behavior and the public interest as he understands them. You feel, after talking to him a while, that he is just the sort of person in whose hands you can safely leave such matters. Canadian FILM WEEKLY August 31, 1949 Observanda ... and Selected Shorts Miss Pierrette Scanlon, who represented Sudbury in the Miss Canada contest, is an usherette at the Regent. 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