Canadian Film Weekly (Nov 1, 1961)

Page scan 0004 from Canadian Film Weekly

Record Details:

Title:
Canadian Film Weekly
Date:
Nov 1, 1961
Volume:
Canadian Film Weekly (Nov 1, 1961)
Leaf #:
0004
Language:
English
Collection:
Canada, Hollywood Studio System, and Global Cinema
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
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November 1, 1961 CANADIAN FILM WEEKLY Page 5 News Clips | Many Canadians participated in the recent joint convention and trade show of the National Association of Concessionaires and the Theatre Owners of America, held in New Orleans. The next one is scheduled for the Americana Hotel, Miami Beach, Florida, Nov. 4-10, 1962 . . . Charles Mason, advertising and publicity director of The Odeon Theatres (Canada) Ltd., will act as Variety Week Chairman in 1962 for the Variety Club of Ontario El Cid, Samuel Bronston’s great production for Allied Artists’ distribution, will open its Toronto engagement at the Tivoli on Dec. 21 . . . One Plus One, made in Toronto by Arch Oboler, opens at the Palace, New York, on Nov. 7... Zoltan Korda, 56, younger brother of the late Sir Alexander Korda and his associate for many years, died of a heart attack in Beverly Hills recently. Star of the Year, as chosen by the Theatre Owners of America, is John Wayne. He is the eighth recipient of this annual award and the TOA felt that not only is he a major boxoffice attraction but a credit to the industry in the eyes of the public . . . Famous Players’ Capitol, London, which has been managed by W. K. Trudell for many years, reopened with The Guns of Navarone after a $50,000 refurbishing job carried out under Jules Wolfe, engineering head for the circuit, and his aide, Jack Harper. Mayor Gordon Stronach cut a ribbon across the entrance . . . Arthur Reiman has been promoted to the newly created post of manager of the domestic sales and contract department at United Artists, states James R. Velde, vice-president in charge of domestic sales. Classic, Cobalt, Ont., closed since May, 1960, may be reopened, since the Silver City is enjoying a bit of a boom. “Cobalt needs a theatre and I hope all the citizens will support it in every way,” Mayor Fulton Purdy said to a special Council meeting after announcing that there were parties interested in reopening the house . . . Meeting of the Variety Clubs International Region 1, which has Toronto among its nine tents, will be held in Washington on Jan. 10, 1962. No. 1’s International Representative is Past Chief Barker J. J. Fitzgibbons, Jr. of the Variety Club of Ontario. Midwinter meeting of the VCI is scheduled for Nov. 9-10 at the BellvueStratford Hotel, Phila... .R. J. Tercier, owner of the Century in Bonnyville, Alta., has taken over the Willies Drive-in in that community from Axani and Makorweski and renamed it the West End Drive-in. MY TRIBUTE to Archie Stone, veteran Casino conductor and sax man, drew this from Hugh McKandy of the Globe & Mail: “Archie is next to the late Rudy Weidoff as a sax player. I know. I played sola sax in a band once”. . . Jack Karr, Stratford pub chief, caught Douglas Campbell in Paddy Chayefsky’s Broadway-bound Gideon during the Philly engagement and opines: “I’ve never seen Campbell better” .. . CBC’s Canada and the Civil War, interestingly written and narrated by James Bannerman, surprised me at one point. Bannerman said that Canada was unaware of war coming and that “even in America” they weren’t prepared for it. Isn’t Canada in America? The British say “America” when they mean the United States but Canadians don’t . . . Possible head table guests at the next Variety Club luncheon are George Jessel, Hermione Baddeley, Jules Munshin and Walter Chiari. Tribute will also be paid to those sentries of the theatre, the doormen. Four have worn uniforms in that capacity for between 30 and 40 years and one for almost 50 and they’ll be at the head table in full regalia to take a bow. Date, time and place: Oct. 31, 12.30, Park Plaza Hotel. WHEN WILL TORONTO get over its official indifference to Mary Pickford? There isn’t a place in the civilized world that wouldn’t be proud to call her its own. Yet in Toronto, where she was born and where her career began, there is nothing to indicate a kinship. Paintings of local notables adorn the City Hall corridors —but not one is to be seen of Toronto’s most famous daughter. You know those grassy islands that used to divide broad and beautiful University Avenue before they were utilized for work on the new subway? In 1951 a group of citizens asked permission to place a $5,000 four-foot bronze statuette of Mary Pickford in her best-loved role, Little Mary, on one of them. The statuette would have been near the site of her childhood home, which was wrecked to make way for the new Hospital for Sick Children. The City said no. AN ARTICLE about Mary Pickford appeared in these pages in 1943 and I sent it to her. She wrote back: “Appreciation from my home town means more to me than appreciation from any other source. I am sentimental enough to have felt more than a little grief that the house on University Avenue should be torn down—it was one of the last remaining links between me and my childhood—but as long as I have the love of the people of Toronto, I shall be content.” She loves Canada. In 1951 she came to Ottawa to present the Canadian Film Awards and be the guest of honor at a dinner given by the Association of Motion Picture Producers and Laboratories of Canada. She was welcomed by the then Minister of Justice, the Hon. Stuart Garson, who acted for the Prime Minister, Louis St. Laurent,.and her health was proposed by L. W. Brockington, CMG, QC. Her reply touched everyone’s heart. “IT WONDER if you who have remained in Canada know my feelings when I come back to my motherland?” she asked. “T love my Canada and I love my United States. One is my mother and the other my husband. I would rather be dead— a thousand times dead—than see anything happen between them.” She hoped that the time would come when “the Mary Pickfords, the Marie Dresslers and the Walter Hustons’” wouldn’t have to leave Canada—“although it is wonderful of Hollywood to welcome people from all over the world.” Soon the Hollywood Motion Picture and TV Museum Building will be under construction. History dictates that Mary Pickford, the world’s first movie star and once Gladys Smith of Toronto, will have a prominent place in it. The restoration of University Avenue from Front Street to Queen’s Park will take three years and cost more than a half-million dollars. It will provide a fine opportunity for Toronto to officially claim Mary Pickford as its own through some means, perhaps a garden with a statuette. “Little Mary” grew up. Why can’t Toronto? HARNICK V-P & GM (Continued from Page 1) for the product of the two companies. Affiliated officially opened for business on Oct. 1, 1960. The departure from the company last Sept. 15 of Gordon Lightstone as ‘president and managing HARVEY HARNICK director of Affiliated indicated a reshuffling of top personnel. Announcement of the change affecting Harnick, who was general sales manager, and others was made by Louis Rosenfeld, chairman of the board. President is now Jerome Pickman and_ the three vice-presidents are Alfred R. Taylor, Howard Minsky and Bernard Birnbaum. A. L. Copas is secretary, R. E. Smith treasurer and Joseph Rosenfeld, QC, assistant secretary. The directors are Birnbaum, ‘Copas, Harnick, Pickman, L. Rosenfeld, Taylor, A. Montague and George Weltner. Board personnel and the executive and administrative structure is drawn from members of both film organizations. Paramount Film Service, ‘Canadian arm of Paramount Pictures, has also undergone changes and the present setup has George Weltner, head of world sales, as president and Alfred R. Taylor as. vice-president and managing director. A. L. Copas is secretarytreasurer. The members of. the board are Weltner, Taylor, Copas, Paul Raibourn and Barney Balaban, The structure of Columbia Pictures of Canada is unchanged, with A. Schneider president and board chairman, Leo Jaffe first vice-president and treasurer, Louis Rosenfeld vice-president and managing director, Bernard Birnbaum and Harvey Harnick vicepresidents, Jonas Rosenfield, Jr., secretary and R. E. Smith assistant treasurer.