Canadian Film Weekly (Aug 25, 1954)

Page scan 0006 from Canadian Film Weekly

Record Details:

Title:
Canadian Film Weekly
Date:
Aug 25, 1954
Volume:
Canadian Film Weekly (Aug 25, 1954)
Leaf #:
0006
Language:
English
Collection:
Hollywood Studio System, Global Cinema, and Canada
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
Something wrong or inaccurate about this page? Let us Know!

Thanks for helping us continually improve the quality of the Lantern search engine for all of our users! We have millions of scanned pages, so user reports are incredibly helpful for us to identify places where we can improve and update the metadata.

Please describe the issue below, and click "Submit" to send your comments to our team! If you'd prefer, you can also send us an email to mhdl@commarts.wisc.edu with your comments.




We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.

Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.

Page 6 a AA TAKEOVER (Continued from Page 1) small-gauge chief at JARO. Ivight now the IFD head office and the Torento branch are in the 20th Century Theatres building at 175 Bloor Street East, while the shipping and poster departments are in the Film Exchange Building at 277 Victoria Street, Toronto. IFD’s move means that in the future there will be three exchange buildings a few blocks east of the Film Exchange Building. MGM, now at 277 Victoria, is erecting its own building at the corner of Victoria and Gould, a half-block south of the new IFD quarters, while Paramount has plans for a new structure at Church and Gerrard, several blocks to the north-east. Some $12,000 will be spent for alterations by IFD. Currently Rosen is busy lining up a sales staff for the Allied Artists takeover and he said he would announce the name of the new AA general sales manager shortly. The [AA sales chief will succeed Frank Vaughan, who is under contract to JARO and who will assume other important company responsibilities as aide to Frank H. Fisher, Canadian general manager. IFD’s acquisition of the Allied Artists’ franchise for Canada, which resulted from negotiations in which Rosen, IFD president N. A. Taylor and AA Canadian representative O. R. Hanson participated, along with top AA executives, seems timed with the company’s “new program for entering the high budget picture field with top talent, while at the same time continuing our regular output of pictures in medium and lower budget brackets,” as Steve Broidy, president, wrote to the stockholders. AA has contracts for films to be made in Britain for it by such leading producer-directors as John Huston, Billy Wilder and William Wyler. Huston’s feature, following his completion of Moby Dick for another company, will be Rudyard Kipling’s The Man Who Would Be King. Sam Bischoff may also make a series of features under a deal with AA. Ready now is Walter Wanger’s The Adventures of Hajji Baba, with John Derek and Elaine Stewart, and coming is a CinemaScope spectacle being produced in partnership with 20th Century-Fox, The Black Prince, with Errol Flynn and Joanne Dru. David Niven, Yvonne De Carlo and Barry Fitzgerald are in Tonight’s the Night. Other films coming up are The Annapolis Story, with John Derek; The Human Jungle, with Gary Merrill and Jan Sterling; and The Big Combo, with Cornel Wilde, Jack Palance and Jean Wallace. CANADIAN FILM WEEKLY George Georgas Wins Canadian Film Weekly Golf Trophy Although he tied with Lionel Axler of Toronto and Tom Naylor of Woodstock (83) for Individual Low Net in the Canadian Motion Picture Golf Championships, sponsored by the Ontario Division of the Canadian Picture Pioneers, George Georgas of Owen Sound won the draw. This got him the Canadian Film Weekly's challenge trophy, which is shown here being presented by Ben Halter of our staff as Tom Naylor looks on. Columbia's Brazil Pic Columbia has acquired worldwide distribution rights to Vera Cruz Productions’ Cangaceire (The Bandit), produced in Brazil. The picture won an award at the Cannes Festival. MGM's 'Paris Story’ Anne Baxter and Steve Forrest head the cast of MGM’s Paris Story, which will be filmed in color on location in the French capital. Mitchell Leisen is slated to do the directing. PERKINS ELECTRIC CO. LTD. ALL EYES ARE ON OPTICAL CINEMASCOPE Perkins have it! MONTREAL VANCOUVER TORONTO MONCTON Page 7 Short Throws CANADIAN Movietone News issued an all-Canada subject recently. The items were about the death of Emily Dionne, the visit of the Duke of Edinburgh and the British Empire Games. Shelly Films is the Canadian photographer for 20th CenturyFox. SUNDAY drive-in operation in British Columbia, under threat of prosecution, is drawing to an end. Operated as charity shows sponsored by service clubs, they have been open on Sundays for several seasons and the government gets a_ tencents-per-head tax. Operators of standard theatres have threatened to open if the driveins weren’t closed on the Sabbath. Three ozoners in Burnaby, Vancouver suburb, closed after the RCMP threatened to enforce the Lord’s Day Act. Three others remained open but may be closed now on Sundays. NICK LANGSTON, manager of the Capitol, Hamilton, gota $1,000 bill and, accompanied by local movie columnist John Robinson, toured the town creating excitement and_ interest for JARO’s Man With a Million. HALF OF Canada’s population will be within range of a TV transmitter by the end of this year and right now 7,000,000 can watch television. Canada has 13 transmitters and five will be added next year. EMERGENCY depots established by film distributors will be serviced by Mavety Film Delivery Service, in case of a railway strike, state George Altman, president, and Clare Appel, executive director of the Canadian Motion Picture Distributors Association. CHARITABLE organizations whose trailers were shown gratis recently are the Ontario Society for Crippled Children, The Salvation Army, Kinsmen’s Illahee Lodge and The Navy League of Canada. They each wrote a letter thanking exhibitors through the Motion Picture Theatres Association of Ontario. —— OUR BUSINESS (Continued from Page 3) merit such a gamble. Top drawing motion picture entertainment today is definitely enjoying a seller’s market. We have never had too much of it at any time but, since it is more vital than ever to the welfare of so many exhibitors, such product now can, and does, dictate terms and admission prices,