Canadian Film Weekly (Dec 23, 1959)

Christmas Number CANADIAN FILM WEEKLY Page 7 ERY WELL, Walrus, how about these?—Gen eral Pike, Mary Pickford, Ginger Ale, The White House, Insulin, Wayne & Shuster, The Henry Miller Theatre on Broadway, Standard Time, Tugboat Annie and I’ll Never Smile Again. But first a question: Can a place with these things ‘in its history be dull? The place I mean: Toronto. Toronto dull? We hope not — for the sake of the ladies and gentlemen of the Variety Clubs International, the Women of the Motion Picture Industry and the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers. The first two, totalling about 2,000 members and spouses, will be in Toronto and Canada for the first time during 1960 and the last, which has a vast membership, will come in 1961. Across the years many of these guests-tobe have plagued our delegates with their favorite question: “When are you going to invite us to Canada?” Since the question was asked in such glamorous places as New Orleans, Miami, Mexico City, Las Vegas, San Francisco, Hollywood, New York and London, it always sent a shudder through the Canadians. The prospect of matching the enjoyment of the moment seemed just too great. The Canadians usually answered with relief and truthfully that Toronto didn’t have a banquet hall large enough. Then came the new wing of the Royal York Hotel to eliminate that answer. Also the dining facilities next to the new Queen Elizabeth Theatre in the Canadian National Exhibition, a good convention combination. Like the others, the Variety Club members thought it was about time they faced up to the question. So in London in 1958 they bid for and got the 1960 convention. Now they’re glad. They and the others are declaring openly what they couldn’t get themselves to say in other years: that Toronto is a mighty interesting city and — what’s more — always has been. So much for characteristically Canadian unassertiveness! All of us are looking forward to 1960, stimulated by the finest conventions the world has known. OUR guests will find our community so old that the first white man to get here, Etienne Brule, was one of Champlain’s boys — and so new that, next to Los Angeles, it’s the fastest-growing city in North America. It has 1,429,207 people, 200 churches, 134 parks, Canada’s only subway and 10 miles of waterfront that makes it a top Welcome WOMPI, SMPTE AND THE Variety Clubs International fo Toronto A Very Interesting City “The time has come,” the Walrus said, “To talk of many things: Of shoes—and ships—and sealing wax— Of cabbages and kings—” By HYE BOSSIN stop on the St. Lawrence Seaway. Toronto is third among cities in ratio of automobiles. It’s the home of the Maple Leaf Baseball Club, which will have major status one of these days, and the famed Maple Leaf Hockey Club. Here you will find the Mendelssohn Choir, one the finest symphony orchestras in North America, and the Canadian National Exhibition, which occupies 350 acres and is the greatest annual exhibition on earth. Variety Village, a vocational guidance school and residence for crippled boys, was until a couple of years ago the only place of its kind in the world, every last thing having been built to suit the physical characteristics of its occupants. Because of this it was a regular stop for educationists from all parts of the universe, who regarded it as a laboratory as well as a school. It’s in Scarborough, one of the 13 municipalities that constitute Metropolitan Toronto. Toronto is the head office city for most of the Canadian picture industry, the publishing business and the companies that make up Ontario’s vastly-rich mining field. It’s the main English-language centre in the land and Americans have called it “The Boston of Canada” — perhaps for its dignity as much as anything. It has been the capital of Ontario since the year of Canadian Confederation, 1867, and the Parliament Buildings are in Queen’s Park. The largest of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s radio and television network shows originate in Toronto, which is the third largest centre of theatre, film and kindred activity on the continent. The Royal Conservatory of Music, the Ontario College of Art and the Royal Ontario Museum, which houses one of the finest Chinese collections in the world, are here. Young Canadians whose language is English head for Toronto in search of a career in the arts, just as young Americans head for New York and young Britons for London. To them it’s a city of dreams. It has theatre schools among those of the arts. One of its legitimate theatres, the Royal Alexandra, is a link with the rich past, having been opened in 1907. It’s newest theatre will be the 3,100-seat O’Keefe Auditorium, to open in 1960. Toronto is one of the three great crossroads of the English-speaking world, only London and New York being ahead of it. A bit of lingering in our hotel lobbies and such places as the Variety Club quarters can acquaint one with the variety and importance of the people who come here on matters of business, art and education. T ISN’T strange that a city with enough odd elements in its history to interest Lewis Carroll’s Walrus should have a little of Alice in Wonderland about it. Its name, for instance. Nobody is sure, after hundreds of years, what it means. Historians have conjectured that “Toronto” is Indian for (1) “A place of meeting,” (2) “trees in the water” and (3) “lake opening.” Some hold that it is derived from (4) “Atironta,” chief of the Arenderonons. They can’t even say for sure how it’s spelled; old documents show it as “Torontou” and “Torontaux.” For that matter, no one can say how long the name will last, if we go by the record. It was called ‘Fort Toronto” and “Fort Rouille,’ the latter for a French official. When the British took over from the French after the capture of Quebec they bought the land from the Mississaugas. Came the American Revolution and in 1793 Governor John Graves Simcoe, who had commanded the Queen’s Rangers First Americans, decided to move the capital. He picked the 12-house community, had his army engineers lay out a town and erected government buildings. Simcoe renamed the place “York” after the Duke of York, second son of George III, under whom the family trouble started with what were then our fellow British Americans. The Duke of York was a popular soldier of the day but great doubt developed later about the victories he claimed. So it could be that the choice of “York” was influenced by fraud. The capital was at Newark, now known as Niagara-on-theLake, and the arrogant Simcoe, who hated the cocky and eruptive victors, decided to move it to a safe distance from the troubled border. Simcoe fostered the over-privileged whose greed, airs and entrenchment led to a revolt four decades later. He left in 1796, because “‘the governor’s undisguised prejudice and unguarded language against the Americans, particularly in the presence of Indians, brought about his recall,” according to A. P. Cockburn in Political Annals of Canada, although the official reason was poor health. From Canada he went to San Domingo as governor. Much can be said for Simcoe as the first governor of Upper Canada. The second session of parliament during his regime, held at Niagara in 1793, curtailed slavery and passed bills aimed at its abolition. Lower Canada followed the same year, Great Britain 41 years later and the USA 70 years after that. In 1834 York, with a popu(Continued on Page 13)