Canadian Film Weekly (Mar 20, 1970)

Page scan 0001 from Canadian Film Weekly

Record Details:

Title:
Canadian Film Weekly
Date:
Mar 20, 1970
Volume:
Canadian Film Weekly (Mar 20, 1970)
Leaf #:
0001
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
Something wrong or inaccurate about this page? Let us Know!

Thanks for helping us continually improve the quality of the Lantern search engine for all of our users! We have millions of scanned pages, so user reports are incredibly helpful for us to identify places where we can improve and update the metadata.

Please describe the issue below, and click "Submit" to send your comments to our team! If you'd prefer, you can also send us an email to mhdl@commarts.wisc.edu with your comments.




We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.

Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.

CANADIAN FILM WEEKLY UPTOWN A FIRST IN CANADA — With the opening of two new cinemas, Backstage | and Backstage 2, on March 20, the Uptown Theatre in Toronto becomes the first 5-theatre complex in Canada, with each auditorium presenting a different motion picture. Shortly after its acquisition from Loew’s, 20th Century Theatres initiated its plans to redistribute the UpThe balcony town’s. 2,500 seats into five individual theatres. BACKSTAGE(2) of the original theatre was completely enclosed to become the self-contained 922-seat Uptown 1. Uptown 2 and Uptown 3 divided the original orchestra section into two auditoria with seating capacities of 600 and 400 respectively. Built piggyback, Backstage 1 and Backstage 2, seating 180 and 150 respectively, previously comprised the backstage area of the original theatre. BACKST AGE(1) MARCH 20, 1970 tar Productions banner for Columbia Pictures. In the film, Miss Woodward will play a woman entering her middle years. Production is slated to begin in late June in San Francisco with Academy Award winner Joanne Woodward has been signed to play the title role in Mrs. Beneker, film version of Violet Weingarten’s best-selling novel, which Norman Twain will produce under the Ras Herb Mathers, general manager of Empire Films, Canadian distributor for Walt Disney (at right) presents W. V. (Bill) Novak, newly-appointed manager of Winnipeg’s Northstar Cinemas, with the Walt Disney Merit Award (the revered Mickey Mouse watch) for his outstanding publicity campaign on behalf of Disney’s ‘/The Love Bug’’, which had a highly successful extended engagement of thirteen weeks at Novak’s former theatre, the Metropolitan in Winnipeg. The presentation was made during the champagne reception which followed the opening of the Northstar Cinemas, Famous Players’ 11th and 12th units in Winnipeg. Herbert Ross directing from a screenplay by Ellen M. Violett. * ok ok Murphy’s War, starring Peter O’Toole, is now being filmed along Venezuela’s Orinoco River in a primitive and dangerous region of South America. Peter Yates is director and Michael Deeley is producer of the motion picture, which is being filmed as a partnership of London Screenplays, Ltd., Dimitri de Grunwold, chairman; Paramount Pictures, and Michael Deeley-Peter Yates Films Ltd. Paramount will distribute the film in the U.S. and Canada and de Grunwald’s International Film Consortium will distribute it in all other countries. O’Toole is cast in the title role as a machinist mate and the only survivor of an allied merchant vessel sunk by a Nazi submarine in the closing days of World War II. The film follows his determined effort to destroy the submarine, a One-man vendetta which extends even after hostilities have ended. Other members of the cast include Sian Phillips (Mrs. O’Toole) in the role of a medical missionary, French actor Philippe Noiret as an oil company engineer, and young German actor Horst Janson as the captain of the German submarine. Written for the screen by Stirling Silliphant, Murphy’s War is being photographed in Panavision and Eat Ao Barbara Bel Geildes has been signed to star with Michael Douglas and Jack Warden in Summertree, to be produced by Kirk Douglas’ Bryna Company for Columbia Pictures. Our Business (Continued from Page 1) Uptown Theatre has been converted into five auditoria. In some places six auditoria have been built and any multiple is now forseeable. The economics of multiple auditorium operation has been proven extremely good and is now too well known to require any further comment. However, there is a knack to their building and operation. Now a new phenomenon has arisen in the U.S. — huge chains of mini cinemas (many of them franchised units). Usually, they are planned with about 350 seats and are almost entirely automatic in operation — it being suggested that they require only two employees — a projectionist manager and a cashier-candy girl. To the uninitiated these bantam theatres may seem potential gold mines — but we urge the unknowledgeable to be wary. (to be continued next week) Vol. 35, No. 10 March 20, 1970 Editor: ED HOCURA CANADIAN FILM WEEKLY 175 Bloor St. East, Toronto 5, Ont. Second class privileges applied for Published by Motion Picture Institute of Canada, 175 Bloor St. East, Toronto 5, Ontario Canada ¢* Phone 924-1757 Price $7.50 per year ATES RL OE LENE, ERUPT TET A NEL EOP SEN ELIS LETTE LED,