Canadian Film Weekly (Dec 23, 1959)

Page 18 CANADIAN FILM WEEKLY Christmas Number S OUR readers are aware, theatrical production in Canada, an old dream, has a new protagonist, Nat Taylor, a man with his feet squarely on the ground — and his head in the clouds. A practical dreamer, this Taylor, as his accomplishments show. Though involved in almost every phase of entertainment, cinemas are his main and favorite interest, and they require full-length features. He’s the chief principal in Toronto International Film Studios. Taylor’s contention, as offered by the heading on his recent production articles in this paper, is We Can Make An Old Dream Come True. The dream of Canadian-made feature films began little more than a decade after the first audience showings in America in 1906. Since then much money has been lost in pursuing it, and people have even landed in jail. The new interest in the old dream provides an opportunity to touch on current and historic aspects of Canadian production. Let’s start with a brief survey written by Hye Bossin, editor of this publication, for The Journal of the Screen Producers Guild at the request of its editor, Lou Greenspan, formerly executive director of the Motion Picture Industry Council of Hollywood. The article, without quotation marks, follows: ANADA, in which the mo tion picture industry is almost day-and-date with that of the United States, has never managed to establish a continuity of feature production. Canadians, who have considerable national pride, have talked about this for a half-century. Much money has been lost in efforts to establish studios and such projects all too often proved to be boobtraps. Nevertheless, quite a few features were made in Canada in the silent days, some by American companies. Even these sporadic efforts ended when sound came in and outdoor shooting was a problem still to be overcome. What held back domestic production was the absence of a majority language different from that of the leading filmmaking countries, the United States and Britain. Also the proximity and neighborly closeness of the former, whose film exports satisfied Canadians and whose friendly borders they crossed easily for stage and cinema careers. It should perhaps be noted at this point that Canadians, nurtured by the Government’s National Film Board, are among the world’s best documentary makers. The language walls which protect the production industries of Mexico, South America, Europe and Asia had a small counterpart for a few years in Quebec, where the main language is French. Quebec was sions followed English ones by about a year. This has occasionally been reversed. The grosses of such dubbed films as The Bridge on the River Kwai and The Ten Commandments have been fabulous. THEATRICAL FILM PRODUCTION IN CANADA We Gan Mane An Oto Dream Come True’ For more than a half-century good men and bad, realists and dreamers, the talented and the bumblers—all have tried to establish a theatrical motion picture production industry In our country. Or talked about It. Most had litle standing In the Industry as business executives or creators. Now the old dream is rising again but this time it belongs to people who have proved something. Here are the views of some and part of the history of production, along with a report on the present. France’s fifth largest film customer. When war came and the French industry was crippled, the opportunity to get into the market was taken by different Quebec groups, who turned out 15 French-language features, two of which had _ Englishlanguage versions. They did well until something happened that affected not only this type of exhibition but also that which relied completely on imports from France. French law makes a certain amount of dubbing obligatory. In 1943 Wolfe Cohen, then Canadian general manager for Warner Bros. and now president of WB International, tried an experiment. He brought in a Hollywood film dubbed in France, All This and Heaven Too. The availability of Hollywood stars in the French language was just too much for Quebecois. They swamped the theatre. Soon after that every Canadian distributor had not only an English-language releasing program but a French-language one and this is now a permanent part of the industry in Quebec. Current Hollywood features in the English language still occupy the large theatres, such as those in Montreal. But even that is changing. Some of the newest pictures have been dubbed quickly in French and brought in to be released simultaneously with the English versions. It used to be that French ver While talking about films not in the English language let me introduce the fact that 35 per cent of the 567 features submitted to the Ontario Board of Censors for the fiscal year ended March 31, 1959 were in this category — and Ontario does not use the films described in the information about Quebec. Canada’s population jumped from 11,506,665 in 1941 to 17,550,000 now largely through immigration. Because of this 91 of the 567 features were from Italy and 29 from West Germany, the main sources of immigrants outside of the 30 per cent from Britain. For a while Canada, which has no restrictions on the export of film remittances, gave Hollywood about nine cents of every dollar that it got from outside of the USA and today it returns about $18,000,000. Most distributors are USA-controlled and Paramount owns 51 per cent of the largest—by far —theatre circuit, Famous Players, which will launch the world’s first Telemeter installation early in January. The second largest circuit is J. Arthur Rank’s Odeon Theatres and it and his exchange is one reason why British films earn more money in Canada than in the USA. Rentals from theatres and TV for all companies totalled about $34,000,000 in 1958. Interest in producing theatrical features is again keen. Since the war about a dozen features have been produced in Canada by Canadians, several in the past few years, and all aimed for the general market. Hollywood and English companies have done some extended location shooting for big pictures and two small features were shot in their entirety two years ago by one of the groups responsible for the several TV series made in Toronto with Hollywood and Canadian players. Toronto has a number of studios, two of which are important, Canadian Film Industries and Toronto International Film Studios. The latter, with two sound stages, has been described as the finest east of Hollywood and was erected by a group of which the head is N. A. Taylor, president of N. A. Taylor Associates, which embraces exhibition, distribution, production and television companies. Taylor, in association with Julian Roffman of Meridian Films, has plans for a series of features based on important books. A significant development is the brief which the Association of Motion Picture Producers and Laboratories of Canada will submit to the government soon. It asks for support for Canadian filmmakers and points out the practices of other countries. Efforts are also being made to induce a more liberal view of film financing from the Industrial Development Bank, which lends money for new businesses. Next to Hollywood and New York, Toronto has the third largest acting corps in North America—this largely because it is the English-language production headquarters of the government-owned Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Montreal is also an important TV production centre, although mainly in the French language. Those who seek to make features are interested in commercial competence and a waiting market rather than art. But they look to better times and better films. THATS the article, called Production in Canada. Now for some light on some of the ambitious projects of the past, none of which did well. In Trenton, Ont. there is a sign which reads ‘Film Street” and that is a link with an interesting story. In 1916 a group of promoters led by George Brownridge, then manager of a Toronto film exchange and now a New York liquor importer, raised money for a Canadian Hollywood and their company, the Adanac Production Co. Ltd., built it in Trenton. Two pictures were made there years apart by dif (Continued on Page 27)