Canadian Film Weekly (Jun 16, 1954)

Page scan 0002 from Canadian Film Weekly

Record Details:

Title:
Canadian Film Weekly
Date:
Jun 16, 1954
Volume:
Canadian Film Weekly (Jun 16, 1954)
Leaf #:
0002
Language:
English
Collection:
Canada, Hollywood Studio System, and Global Cinema
Format:
periodicals
Contributor:
Media History Digital Library, Greig Dymond in memory of David Dymond, 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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June 16, 1954 Vol. 19, No. 24 June 16, 1954 HYE BOSSIN, Managing Editor BEN HALTER, Production Editor Address all communications— The Managing Editor, CANADIAN FILM WEEKLY 175 Bloor St. East, Toronto 5, Canada Entered as Second Class Matter Published by Film Publications of Canada, Limited 175 Bloor St. East, Toronto 5, Ontario, Canada — Phone WAlInut 4-3707 Price $3.00 per year. FPCC SHARES (Continued from Page 1) swered in the _ statement of Barney Balaban, president of the latter corporation, at the annual meeting of stockholders. Here is what he said in his statement: “Famous Players is a Canadian business serving the people of Canada. We believed it to be wise and prudent, and in the best interests of all concerned, that a larger percentage of the stock of Famous Players be held by resident Canadians. As a result of this sale, approximately 3,000 Canadian stockholders were added.” This explanation was preceded by the following: “On April 30th we announced the consummation of an underwriting agreement with a syndicate of Canadian bankers for the sale in Canada of 285,000 common shares of Famous Players Canadian Corporation, Limited. The stock was offered at $23.50 per share. At the time we held 1,173,456 shares of that company, representing about 67.55% of its stock outstanding. After the sale, we _ still held 888,456 shares, representing about 51.14% of its stock outstanding. The value of the stock we retained, based on the closed price of $24 on the Montreal Stock Exchange on May 26, 1954, would amount to $21,322,944 in Canadian funds.” QUALITY COUNTS! We have been selected to distribute on an EXCLUSIVE basis the Advertising Trailers for many leading Canadian accounts. "OUR REPRESENTATIVES CAN SELL THESE FOR YOU LOCALLY' Contact Fred T. Stinson, General Manager Adfilms Limited TORONTO Telephone: EM. 8-8986 | Suite 502, 77 York Street Cast In AA's ‘Killer Leopard’ CANADIAN FILM WEEKLY At the International Popcorn Association Regional Conference Executives of firms which service the motion picture industry in the refreshments field came to Toronto from many parts of Canada and the USA to attend the Canadian Regional Conference of the International Popcorn Association, held at the King Edward Hotel, Toronto, recently. Shown here from left to right are J. J. Fitzgibbons, Jr., Theatre Confections Limited, Toronto, president of the IPA; James Y. Blevins, president of the Blevins Popcorn Company, Nashville, Tennessee; Sydney Spiegel, general manager, Super Pufft Popcorn Limited, Toronto, chairman of the Canadian Region of the IPA; and Thomas J. Sullivan, Chicago, executive secretary of the International Popcorn Association. Fitzgibbons and Spiegel were co-chairmen of the Conference. Pola-Lite One-Strip Beverly Garland will star op posite Johnny Sheffield in Allied 3-D Demonstration Artists’ Killer Leopard, next in the Jungle Boy series. UA Will Distribute Championship Fight Canadian theatres can get films of the world’s heavyweight Ontario and other exhibitors are welcome to the demonstration of one-strip 3-D projection through the use of the muchtalked-about Pola-Lite attachment. It will take place at 10 p-m, in the Hollywood Theatre, Toronto, on June 16 and The Heineman, UA distribution chief, championship fight between Mad Magician, a new feature, Rocky Marciano and Ezzard_ will be shown. Charles on June 18, the day after Dr. Leon Wells, from Polait takes place in New York, Lite’s head office in NY, will join through United Artists. W. J. A. E. (Tex) Cates, the company’s Canadian sales represenin making the announcement tative, for the demonstration as pointed out that there is no TV of the fight. tions. FOX TO SNEAK ROYAL TOUR FEATURE Sneak previews in theatres in every exchange centre in Canada and the USA will be used by 20th Century-Fox to introduce its full-length feature, The Royal Tour of Queen Elizabeth and Philip, to exhibitors and critics. Running 96 minutes, the film is in Eastman color and CinemaScope and was photographed by British Movietone during the recently-completed 50,000-mile journey of the royal couple. Plan calls for the film to be shown during regular show hours with audiences in attendance, so that invited reviewers of TV, press and radio, as well as film industry leaders, will be able to judge the patrons’ reaction. UK critics and preview audiences have acclaimed the documentary. MORRISS BUSY IN BRITAIN During his present visit to Great Britain Frank Morriss, motion picture columnist of the Winnipeg Free Press and film commentator over Station CKRC, interviewed many industry people, among them 35 stars and technicians of the J. Arthur Rank Organization. Morriss was met on arrival by JARO publicity chief W. H. Jamieson, and star Elizabeth Sellars working in Forbidden Cargo. Morriss went through JARO’s Ealing and Pinewood studios and tape-recorded interviews with Dirk Bogarde, Anthony Steel, Joan Rice, Terence Morgan, David Knight, Jack Warner and others. Before leaving for the continent he was entertained by John Davis, JARO managing director, and Air,Commodore F..W. West, VC, head of JARO overseas distribution. a speaker and to answer ques Page 3 Our Business yA Taylor HE ingenuity and ability of the people in our business, in Europe, to keep their heads above water is remarkable to see and something to be greatly admired. The European exhibitor is not the slightest bit shy or backward in doing a selling job. He relies very little on newspapers as do his North American cousins. There are a number of reasons for this. In some places there are a multiplicity of newspapers, each with comparatively small! circulation. It is impossible to advertise in all of them. In England there is still a great shortage of newsprint and space is too expensive to permit liberal use of display advertising. In many places on the Continent bill posting is permitted and one sees walls plastered with colorful ads for current and coming movie attractions. Where this is not permitted a liberal use of __billboards is the mode—not the 24 sheets we are accustomed to see, but smaller boards. In other cases window cards are used extensively. The point is that effective ways are found to sell current attractions. The producers have found their own roads to survival. Both French and _ Italian producers found they couldn’t economicalJy make pictures exclusively for their own language markets on a scale grand enough to compete with American epics. So they invented the co-production deal. A film is produced in one country with stars from both countries. Sometimes it is shot in two versions and sometimes it is post-dubbed. If it is successful it can be a draw in both countries and in the natural markets for these two languages the cost can be recouped and a profit made. And there is always the chance of getting an extra dollar from the rest of the world. One European producer of a current release realized a huge profit in Europe alone because of the great popularity of his film. He has now dubbed it in English and has the entire English-speaking world from which to garner additional profits. Both Italian and French producers are now in hot pursuit of the American dollar and are actively planning how to capture it. They are making more and more pictures in color—on a grand scale and with an eye to more action and less talk. They are planning to dub more and more pictures into English and in a more skillful manner because they have come to the realization (Continued on Page 4)