Canadian Film Weekly (Mar 6, 1970)

Page scan 0006 from Canadian Film Weekly

Record Details:

Title:
Canadian Film Weekly
Date:
Mar 6, 1970
Volume:
Canadian Film Weekly (Mar 6, 1970)
Leaf #:
0006
Language:
English
Collection:
Canada, Hollywood Studio System, and Global Cinema
Format:
periodicals
Contributor:
Media History Digital Library, Canadian Media Magazines Project, 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:
April 11, 2024
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} { f } f i MARCH 6, 1970 CANADIAN FILM WEEKLY Page 7 movie reviews By GARY TOPP ELIZABETH TAYLOR AND WARREN BEATTY The Only Game In Town The expression “star vehicle” in movies impties a plot designed to transport the characters as subtlely as possible through some 2 hours of enamoured overexposure. Twentieth Century-Fox’s The Only Game In Town is just that — a star vehicle minus the vehicle end two stars who are desperately attempting (and without much success) to regain some of the charm captured in their earlier films. Elizabeth Taylor is a nightclub dancer from Las Vegas who lives each day with the hope that the man she loves will leave his wife for her; Warren Beatty is a Las Vegas piano player who can’t stay away from the crap tables, even when he is losing. They live together, strictly out of convenience — she keeps him away from the gambling halls so that he can save his money in order to get to New York; he serves her physical needs while she awaits her hesitant lover, strictly for “immoral support”. Director George Stevens’ instinctive sentimentality has been evident in most of his work, films such as A Place In The Sun, Shane, Giant and The Diary Of Anne Frank being intelligently restrained and carefully graded. The Only Game In Town, his newest movie, professes to be more virtuous and realistic than all of his others, but unfortunately, happens to be a static vehicle, composed of cardboard characters, a 1950’s (or ’40’s or ’30’s) Hollywood happy-ending, and a nervous screenplay, hopelessly addicted to Holywood wise-cracks as statements of the human condition .. . LIZ: ’'ve met some nuts in my time but you take the cake. WARREN: Made? LIZ: I said met! Motion picture periodicals have recently be concerned with the boom in the number of younger moviegoers. Surveys have shown that in the U.S. last year, 48 per cent of the movie ticket buyers were between the ages of 16-25. With the tremendous success of films like Midnight Cowboy, Easy Rider, They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?, The Graduate, and Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid, it’s not very difficult to notice the new trend appearing in the motion picture business, and that it is being directed towards this young, discriminating audience. Is nostalgia the reason for movies like The Only Game In Town? Or is it a lack of fresh material? Ill be surprised if fat, aging Liz or sentimental old George can/or will still attract the crowds, even with the recent popularity of Warren ‘Clyde Barrow’ Beatty. I might be wrong though. Just maybe, this is the type of film that the over °30s have been looking for. Certainly, The Only Game In Town is not for my generation, even if it were the only movie in town. The Magic Christian Everyone has, at one time or another, considered the enchanting prospect of owning a million dollars. Based on a novel by Terry Southern (Candy, Dr. Strangelove), The Magic Christian is a_ surrealistically militant motion picture describing what one man might do with lots and lots of money. Peter Sellers, in his finest hours since Dr. Strangelove, and very reminiscent of his early “Goon Show” days with Spike Milligan and Harry Secombe, plays the multi-millionaire, Sir Guy Grand, who buys himself a son and heir (Ringo Starr) and proceeds to prove that everyone and everything has its price. The Magic Christian is, at its simplest, a series of episodes depicting how Sellers and Starr bring out all of the evil and deceit in peop‘e, by bribing them with money to do what they want them to do. It is a brilliant satire which pokes fun at people of all walks of life, concentrating though, on upper crust conformity and conservatism. Terry Southern, the film’s director, Joseph McGrath, and Sellers adapted the novel for the screen, and not having read the original, I was highly impressed. They have written a crazy clatter of dialogue, the total result being a wildly, free-wheeling comedy with lots of ‘magic’. Each sequence attacks a different aspect of our society, and each features a guest star playing an unusual character: — Richard Attenborough as a corruptible Oxford rowing coach; Lawrence Harvey as a mod, stripping Hamlet; Christopher Lee as a vampire; Spike Milligan as a po‘iceman who takes bribes; Yul Brynner as a drag queen and Raquel Welch as a tough salve ‘master’ who whips her girls into shipshape condition. The collection of international performers is outstanding, and each player perfectly suits his role. Oh yes — the title refers to a newly conceived ship, The Magic Christian, which isn’t really a ship but which fools all the fools into thinking that it is actually going somewhere. The Magic Christian (distributed by Astral Films) is a spirited motion picture, full of lunatic comedy, and one which brings out the best in both Sellers and Southern. Had Southern included a movie reviewer in his work, the dialogue might have read, The Magic Christian is “one of the year’s ten best”. Anyway, I liked it a lot. London new European headquarters for MGM Douglas Netter, MGM_ vicepresident — sales, recently announced the scheduled move of Europen distribution headquarters from Paris to London within the next three months. In addition, Herbert F. Solow, MGM._ vicepresident in charge of production, announced European production plans for the company. regarding deals with producers, stars and other talent approaching MGM with desirable projects. MGM’s policy of film budgets ranging from $300,000 to $4,000,000, as is practiced in California, will be carried out in Europe as well. The company hopes to launch six to nine pictures there by the end of the summer, one of which, Once the move of the home No Blade of Grass, begins produc office from New York to California is completed, London will be second only to Culver City as company headquarters for production, distribution and related activities. In line with this move, the company intends to produce this year, approximately 12 pictures — half in England end half on the continent — with complete flexibility tion May 1 on locations in England. The film will be produced and directed by Cornel Wilde. Netter again stated that MGM has no intention of selling Borehamwood Studio, the Empire and Ritz Theatres or any other Engtish properties. Borehamwood, however, will be available for rental.