Canadian Film Weekly (Jan 9, 1957)

Page scan 0000 from Canadian Film Weekly

Record Details:

Title:
Canadian Film Weekly
Date:
Jan 9, 1957
Volume:
Canadian Film Weekly (Jan 9, 1957)
Leaf #:
0000
Language:
English
Collection:
Global Cinema, Canada, and Hollywood Studio System
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.

Vol. 22, No, 2 TORONTO, JAPUARY 9, 1957 $3.00 Per Annum TOTAL UP ‘55 FIGURES — $3,072,922 VIA VIDEO, $30,024,863 FOR 35 MM. FILMS Film rentals from all sources in Canada decreased in 1955 by one per cent compared with 1954, or $395,593, the total being $36,272,019. In the 1955 summary the Dominion Bureau of Statistics, for the first time, gave the part of the total yielded National Contest By Star Weekly For the first time in Canada a newspaper is undertaking a national poll of theatregoers to determine which three films, actors and actresses were best liked by Canadians in 1956. Called a Movie Popularity Poll, the competition is being run by The Star Weekly and (Continued on Page 3) Canadians Enter Film Assembly The Golden Reel Film Festival, sponsored by the American Film Assembly, has been the means of recognition of Canada’s ability to make 16 mm. films that play a big part in the communication of facts and ideas. Canadian government and non-government films have (Continued on Page 3) Two-Year Drop In Per Cap Movie Spending: $1.56 An indication of the effect of TV and other competition on Canadian motion picture theatre business is the information from the Dominion Bureau of Statistics that the per capita expenditure of patrons fell from $7.80 in 1954 to $6.74 in 1955—and it dropped further in 1956, as movie people will tell you, but the figure for last year hasn't been worked out yet. In 1953 the per capita outlay, $8.30, was the greatest on record, so that in one year it declined by $1.06 and in two years by $1.56. Previous figures are: 1946—$6.15; 1949—$6.89; 1950—$7.12; 1951— $7.72; 1952—$8.21. The fact that admission prices were higher in many cases makes the decline in attendance seem greater. The average admission price in 1955 was 52c compared with 50c in 1954 and 47c in (Continued on Page 2) Immigration Rush Seen During Coming Year Immigration to Canada, one of the factors that has lessened the impact of TV on the film theatre business, had one of its biggest years since new residents began arriving in numbers after the war. In 1954 about 45,000 persons came here from the United Kingdom and this rate, stimulated by the Suez affair, is expected to continue in 1957. Canada has added about 1,300,000 people through immigration since Warld War II. But an adverse factor in the immigration picture was the emigration to the USA from Canada of about 280,000 persons. Among Canada’s 1957 immigrants will be 15,000 Hungarian refugees. (Continued on Page 3) ‘Witness For The Prosecution’ Marlene Dietrich has been signed by Arthur Hornblow, Jr. to star opposite Tyrone Power in Witness for the Prosecution. SCREEN AD REVENUE TOTALLED $194,244 "IN 1955, DBS STATES Canada’s 1,950 ' "80 Days’ Best '56 Film, Says Board United Artists’ Around the World in Eighty Days was named the best film of 1956 by the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures, while the best foreign film is Columbia’s The Silent World, a French-made documentary. John Huston was named the best director for Moby Dick, Yul Brynner the best actor for his performances in 20th-Fox’ The King and I and Anastasia and Paramount’s The Ten Commandments. Best actress is Dorothy McGuire for AA’s Friendly Persuasion. by television, the return from 12,773 films being $3,072,922. An additional statistic related to the whole revealed that $301,208 was the amount from the renting of 6,161 films for other non-theatrical use. Rental from 35 mm. theatrical films, of which there were 4,084, yielded $30,024,863 or 84.6 per cent of the overall total. In 1954 the rental from 7,302 films amounted to $32,831,209, a decrease of 2,498 films and $2,806,346 in revenue — follow, Allied Artists went Eight Features In Work At AA Currently occupying the continent’s top playing time with The Friendly Persuasion and _ with several of the same quality to into first flow first full-scale production at the of the year to maintain its of product for theatres. The (Continued on Page 2) New NWT Theatre J. W. and D. H. Stewart have opened their 200-seat, seven-day Stewart Theatre in Hay River, Northwest Territories. Previously reflecting the dearth of product that plagued exhibitors in 1955 and ‘regular’ theatres and 242 drive-ins operat ing in 1955 had a combined revenue of $194,244 from the screening of commercial films, it is shown in the recent report | of the Dominion Bureau of Statistics, which gave these figures g } Hay River, which has a population of 600, saw its movies via 16 mm. in the Community Hall. 4,500 PROJECTORS IN SCHOOLS There are some 4,500 16 mm. projectors and 4,000 filmstrip projectors in Canadian schools, it is estimated by Crawley Films Limited, which gathered the information from directors of audio-visual education in nine provinces and added approximate figures for Quebec. The statistical report showed that the number of sponsored films now totalled 827 and that there are available over 40,000 16 mm. prints, of which about 20 per cent are in color, and 20,000 filmstrips. The annual number of screenings is in excess of 600,000 in the 7,331 schools using films. A great deal of the figures and facts obtained by Crawley Films was from a bulletin by the Canadian Education Association and the company is issuing these under the title of Survey of 16 mm. Sponsored Film Distribution through 24 Provincial Government Agencies and Universities. WOMPIS BUSY IN GIFT SEASON The Toronto branch of Women of the Motion Picture Industry carried on a busy holiday program. Len Bishop was master of ceremonies at a Christmas show before 100 patients of the Ontario Hospital, Toronto, who also joined the WOMPI choir in carols. The patients, both men and women, received gifts in stockings sewn by Loraine Geary. Representatives of the Canadian Mental Health Association were present and expressed appreciation. The gifts were obtained through a dinner given by the organization for 75 ladies of the industry who brought a gift for the needy as their fee. Scene of the dinner was the dining hall of Woodgreen Community Centre. Mavety Film Delivery loaned its facilities to distribute the packages. Gladys Rawnsley of UA is WOMPI president and Florence Long of GTS is chairman of the Projects Committee, of which the members are Catherine Anderson, UA; Mrs. Viola Creighton, UA; and Mrs. Geary, IFD. (Continued on Page 2) _ for the first time, Drive-ins got $100,128 of the total and the auditorium theatres $94,116. Of the latter figure Ont. received $27,328, Que. $21,659, Alta. $17,261, BC $9,375, Sask. $5,151, Man. $3,655, and the Maritimes and Nfld. $9,697,