Canadian Film Weekly (Nov 11, 1959)

November 11, 1959 Incorporating the Canadian Moving Picture Digest (Founded 1915) Vol. 24, No. 43 November 11, 1959 HYE BOSSIN, Editor aD _ Assistant Editor ....00..22.200.0.... Ben Halter Office Manager ..................... Esther Silver CANADIAN FILM WEEKLY 175 Bloor St. East, Toronto 5, Canado Authorized as Second Class Mail, Post Office Department, Ottawa Published by Film Publications of Canada, Limited 175 Bloor St. East, Toronto 5, Ontario, Canada — Phone WAlInut 4-3707 Price $5.00 per year. SUBSIDY PROPOSAL (Continued from Page 1) ated in his Our Business column in this publication, seems to have awakened the ideal of a theatrical production industry. Recently Dick Newman of The London Free Press devoted his column, Show Beat, to a Taylor column from here, How to Make the Dream Come True. In it Taylor called on Ottawa to help, observing: ‘Interestingly enough, a form of subsidy does not have to be a burden on the country or the taxpayer.’’ The foreign earnings they would bring to Canada and the income taxes from Canadian film workers would lessen the burden. ‘‘As a great trading nation we desperately need a film production industry,” the article said. ‘‘Our government has the means of sparking it and there is no longer an excuse for delay.”’ The Kitchener-Waterloo Record was also attracted to Taylor’s opinion and assigned a reporter to interview him during his recent visit to Kitchener. Another interesting observation was by Ed Hocura in The Hamilton Spectator, who headed his review of Allied Artists’ The Bloody Brood “Will This Film Pave the Way?” The Bloody Brood, a Canadian film produced by Julian Roffman and Yvonne Taylor, deserves to be a success if “it will prove to be the stepping stone to the world film market. On that basis alone, it deserves to be a _ success.” "Strangers When We Meet" Barbara Rush has been signed by Columbia to star with Kirk Douglas, Kim Novak and Ernie Kovacs in Strangers When We Meet, now before the cameras. MGM's ‘Only In America’ Only in America, scheduled for Broadway opening November 19th, adapted for the stage from Harry Golden’s sensational best seller, has been purchased by MGM. With its setting in Charlotte, North Carolina, the warmly dramatic story of Golden’s success as the publisher and editor of the Carolina Israelite is told with rich humor, CANADIAN FILM WEEKLY 162 French Dubs (Continued from Page 1) ber of companies with headquarters in Montreal which release such product exclusively. The largest and oldest of these is France Film. French-dubbed Hollywood films are responsible for the radical change in the composition of the Quebec market, which began when Warners tried All This and Heaven Too in Quebec City and did sensational business. Warners was able to do this because French law made dubbing obligatory for a certain number of features if import licences were to be obtained. All This and Heaven Too was one of these. An indication of the size of the change can be had from the fact that in 1944, when French dubs were still a trickle, about 70 per cent of Quebec’s theatres played films in the English language only and the current figure is 15 per cent. These percentages are based on the figures provided by Clare Appel, executive director of the Canadian Motion Picture Distributors Association. The flood of French dubs, growing out of the desire of France to aide its own industry, has its adverse side, for the Canadian revenue of its film makers has been cut sharply. Quebec was an important source of income and even in 1956 it was France’s fifth larg est film market. In 1955 the French Cinema Centre in NY reported that the first six month’s yield from Canada was £48,000 compared to £92,000 for the same period in the previous year. Quebec is an important section of the Canadian market for Hollywood and British companies as well, ranking next to Ontario. For example, of the $75,584,442 that came into the boxoffice of Canadian non-drive-in theatres in 1958 $19,385,056 came from Quebec. Ontario has about four cities where French-language films are played occasionally, Manitoba has one and there are about eight in the Maritimes — mainly in New Brunswick. A few Ontario parish halls and one Alberta theatre play 16 mm. films in French. Some film societies rent French films. In the following information the number of original French films to be released by each company appears in parenthesis: Warner Bros. — 15, Columbia — 16 (12-14), MGM — 14 (1), Astral—18 (12), Paramount — 20; IFD—18 (6), AA —6; 20th Century-Fox — (16); United Artists —15 (2); Rank — 12 (6); Disney—6; Universal — 13; Republic—9. The last three products come through EmpireUniversal Films, with the Republic pictures having been made the last year it was in business. An Evening of Gaiety For the Entire Industry CANADIAN PICTURE PIONEERS DINNER and DANCE Presenting The 1959 Award To HASKELL M. MASTERS ‘Pioneer of the Year’ CABARET STYLE FLOOR SHOW GIFTS FOR THE LADIES Crystal Ballroom KING EDWARD HOTEL THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 26th Cocktails 4 CURLY POSEN AND HIS ORCHESTRA mmodation Limited Obtain Your Tickets At Once! $6 per person Dinner 7.45 DRESS OPTIONAL George Altman, Ticket Chairman — EMpire 3-2909 Page 3 Our Business CANADA CAN DO IT TO judge by the reviews of and the public reaction to The Bloody Brood, a feature film recently completed here, one may conclude that it is ; possible for Canadians to make a theatre attraction that is professional and playable. The producer, Julian Roffman, has a long line of film credits but this is his first Canadian venture in theatrical features. Almost all past production in Canada has been in the shortsubject and documentary fields. Most of it has been undertaken by the National Film Board, a Government -owned organization, which has earned an enviable international reputation and many festival awards, as well as much praise for the standard of its work. However, short subjects have just about the same relationship to feature films as short stories do to novels. A country’s literature is not judged by its short stories. In the field of literature Canada has progressed to the point where many books are published annually and some compare favorably with those of any other country. We would hate to look back on Canada as a country with writing talent capable solely of creating short stories. We are proud of our published literature and we should like to look forward to the time when we may react in the same way to the features which our film-makers create. From time to time Hollywood and England have purchased Canadian novels. One of the latest has been Hugh MacLennan’s The Watch that Ends the Night. Canadian short stories and TV shows have been drawn upon for feature films, among them The Sheriff of Fractured Jaw and Time Lock. If such stories were made into films right here in Canada_ they would have a more authentic flavor. A novel by Sinclair Ross with a prairie background, The Well, has just been purchased and will be made here. This is commendable progress. It is worthy of note that Julian Roffman is himself an alumnus of the National Film Board. He has _ successfully crossed the river between the short subject and the featurelength film. There must surely (Continued on Page 7)