Kinematograph year book : 1931 (1931)

22 The Kinematograph Year Book. The wiring of theatres meant the passing of more musicians out of the picture while vaudeville also permanently went into the discard at many houses. At one time, there were practically onlj' three theatres in the whole Dominion with vaudeville, these being Shea's Hippodrome at Toronto ; the Palace at Hamilton and the Capitol at Winnipeg. This was during the strike of musicians at Montreal, but eventually vaudeville was restored at Loew's Theatre there. At the same time, there has been another interesting trend in the revival of so-called sta.ge presentations at the Imperial, Toronto, and the Capitol at Montreal, while the promise has been made by Famous Players Canadian Corp., that stage shows will gradually be added to the performance at various other key cities, literally tor sake of variety — to provide a difference between rival local houses. The year saw a distinct improvement in the accommodation and facilities for film renters in different Canadian cities. A magnificent film exchange building was erected at Montreal ; another was provided at Calgary ; the film building at Toronto was doubled in size and otherwise improved, while plans were laid for an appi^opriate film building at St. John, N.B., to provide quarters for all local distributor branches. The Canadian Government also saw fit to construct a splendid and completely equipped talking picture studio at Ottawa for the production of its own pictures, the old building, which served the purpose for the previous 10 years, being considered unsafe and inadequate. The greatest blow of all from censors in Canada during the year was the condemning of the costly " Hell's Angels " by the Ontario Board of Moving Picture Censors on the ground that the production was a reflection upon the personnel of the Air Forces in Great Britain and Canada. Earlv in the year an important conference was held at Toronto at which representatives of all censor boards in the Dominion discussed standardised practices with trade officials representing the film renters, and this round-table talk undoubtedly had good result. Independent exhibitor organisations were not active anywhere in Canada during the 12 months and the only indication of organised effort was a meeting of 30 proprietors at which the Ontario Government was asked to provide further relief from the ticket tax. Ontario closed several theatres which were called unsafe and required substantial structural improvements in many others, particularly after the theatre disaster at Paisley, .Scotland. The Quebec Government continued to bar all children under 16 years from theatres where pictures were shown but did not enforce the Sunday closing law. Despite the stock market crash and general business depression, the theatres of Canada did not do badly during 1930. A splendid corrective feature in October was the staging of a Canada-wide Prosperity Week by Famous Players Canadian Corp., with the co-operation of Hon. R. B. Bennett, Prime Minister of Canada, and other Government leaders and business men generally. There was a normal amount of theatre building during the year, the largest and most costly of the new cinemas being the Capitol at Halifax, N.S., which was reputed to represent an investment of one million dollars. Atmospheric theatres were opened also at Gait, Port Hope, North Bay, Montreal, Renfrew, Pembroke, Arnprior, Toronto and other centres, United Amusements, Limited, being particularly active at Montreal in this connection. The film-producing industry made little headway in the making of Canadian fiction features, the public looking askance at studio projects by private interests. The Dominion and Ontario Governments continued to turn out a steady supply of sound and talking short subjects. In a word, normality prevailed and the theatre men of Canada carried on despite a certain degree of financial stringency.