The MHDL's Canadian collection encompasses domestically produced periodicals from the 1910s to the 2000s. This collection highlights exhibition rather than fandom or film production, with a focus especially on media industry trade periodicals of national scope based in Toronto and published in English. Also included are a significant collection of house publications of Famous Players Ltd., the predominant national cinema chain, and French-language fan magazines that give a glimpse at the distinctive francophone film culture in Québec.

Hollywood always treated Canada as part of the American domestic market, continuing habits set long before cinema. U.S. theatrical, circus and vaudeville touring circuits extended across the border and many Canadian theatres were built, owned or networked into the tentacles of U.S. theatrical syndicates and vaudeville circuits. Orpheum, Pantages, Keith’s and Loew’s all built in Canada, for example. This continent-wide reach across the border was also true of coverage in the American film and media industry press. Early theatrical papers, the Clipper, Dramatic Mirror, and Billboard, all included weekly reports from theatres in Toronto, Montréal, Winnipeg and other Canadian cities. The film trade press followed suit. Many early film exhibitors sent regular correspondence to the U.S trade press and are often reported attending fraternal conferences or visiting exchange headquarters in New York and Chicago. Advertisements and directory lists almost always include Canadian details. Even in later decades, the Film Daily Year Book included a list of Canadian theatres, Boxoffice published a Canadian regional edition, and the Exhibitor included a “Canadian Highlights” column.

As far as we are aware, the first Canadian film industry trade paper was the Canadian Universal Bulletin, created in 1915 and first edited by W. S. Bach, head of the Universal exchange in Toronto. The Bulletin began as a one-page house organ but Bach expanded quickly to eight pages and embraced a mandate to provide general film news to the entire country. Soon after, a competing magazine began in Montréal, Canadian Moving Picture Digest (1917-57), initially edited by Merrick R. Nutting. The two were combined in 1918, keeping the Digest name but moving offices to Toronto. Volume numbering reflected The Bulletin’s earlier start, and 1915 was always later claimed as the Digest’s year of origin. The Digest was eventually edited and then owned by Ray Lewis, who became a force in the industry through her distinctive editorials promoting independent exhibitors, patriotism during WWII, and advocating for greater screen time for British films. She was well-known in the U.S. industry (Variety’s Sime Silverman called her “the Girl Friend in Canada”) and well-connected on Toronto’s Dundas Square exchange row. She was later an inaugural member of the Canadian Picture Pioneers and the groups’ first female president.

The film industry worked in English across Canada, including in most exchange offices in Montréal. However, there was a significant and distinct francophone film culture in Québec, even in the years of silent film. Indeed, the first moving pictures ever shown in Canada in 1896 were presented by French representatives of Lumière to a primarily francophone audience in Montréal, while in 1907 Léo-Ernest Ouimet opened what is considered the earliest picture palace in Canada, Le Ouimetoscope. French-language film fan magazines catered to this unique, distinct audience. Le Panorama (1919-21), edited by Fernand de Verneuil, called itself “the only magazine in the French language dedicated to moving pictures,” and provided translated illustrated stories from Hollywood studios. These were, however, published side-by-side with local advertisements, including those of Ouimet’s Canadian Pathé Specialty Import exchange, which was an important financial backer. Just two years later, the same publisher launched Le Film (1921-60), also edited by de Verneuil. Smaller and cheaper, but featuring similar illustrated, translated stories of Hollywood stars, this Québécois fan magazine was published for many decades. In its early years, Le Film counted Robert Florey as one of its Hollywood correspondents.

With the transition to sound film, concern about Hollywood’s predominance on Canada’s screens became a political issue. Attempts to privilege British film imports were taken by the Ontario Censor Board, for example, which began tracking feature film languages and countries of origin. The largest theatre chain in the country, Famous Players (1920-2005), was controlled by Paramount. Anti-competitive ties with distributors became a target of investigation, similar to anti-trust lawsuits concurrently happening in the United States. The resulting 1931 report of an Investigation into an Alleged Combine in the Motion Picture Industry in Canada, known as the White Commission, stands nearly a century later as a rare overview of the national exhibition terrain and the struggle between independent showmen and branches of Hollywood distributors, who continually gave preference to first-run theatres, largely controlled by Paramount through Famous Players.

Following heightened political and policy interest, the Dominion Bureau of Statistics (now Statistics Canada) in 1933 began publishing annual aggregate surveys of motion picture theatres and exchanges, including counts of theatres, average ticket costs, total admissions, box office, employees’ wages, and film rentals at the provincial level. These statistical reports later included tallies for non-theatrical venues, 16mm and itinerant exhibitors, television and videotape distributors. These reports continued for decades until 2012. Other Statistics Canada and Canadian Government documents have addressed film production, film festivals, feature film policy, and more.

The White Commission and anti-combine lawsuits energized independent theatre owners in the 1930s, and a new film trade paper, The Canadian Independent (1936-40), was launched as an organ of the Independent Theatres Association. This publication was largely created to be completely independent from the delicate dance Ray Lewis’ Digest continually had to play in courting the business of Hollywood distributors, shown to have a tangle of ties to Famous Players’ chain theatres. Another woman, Stella Falk, was the editor of The Independent, positioning herself as a stronger advocate for independent theatre operators than Lewis. The two women eventually became embroiled in an editorial battle on the topic, which soon resulted in a libel case.

Out of the wreckage of that legal battle, The Independent was renamed The Canadian Motion Picture Exhibitor (1940-41). Hye Bossin took the helm as editor in June 1941 when the publication was officially bought by Nat Taylor, an important chain exhibitor. Taylor incorporated Film Publications of Canada, Ltd. and gave the magazine a new name, Canadian Film Weekly (1942-70). This long-standing key publication no longer solely focused on independent exhibitors but instead covered the entire industry–exhibition, distribution and production–with some attention given studio news from New York and Hollywood. Bossin also created an annual Canadian Film Weekly Year Book (1951-70). Early volumes of the yearbook included several significant historical essays under his byline, remarkably comprehensive and still cited today. Later volumes provided an annual spotlight of the Canadian Picture Pioneers of the Year.

Longtime Digest editor, Ray Lewis, died in 1954. Although the magazine continued, edited by her son, Jay Smith, it was soon bought by Taylor in 1957 and incorporated into the masthead of Film Weekly. The other longtime editor, Hye Bossin, died a decade later in 1964. In the late 1960s, under its new editor, Stan Helleur, the magazine was renamed Canadian Film & TV Bi-Weekly, scaling back the pace of publishing but added 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 was short-lived and Nat Taylor decided instead to relaunch under an entirely new title, Canadian Film Digest (1971-77), still claiming roots all the way back to 1915. Edited by Dan Krendel and then Garth Drabinsky, the publication continued to include an annual, Canadian Film Digest Year Book (1971-86), which lasted a decade longer than the magazine. Taylor’s Film Publications of Canada was then purchased by yearbook editor, Patricia Thompson, who gave it a new name Film Canada Yearbook (1986-2007). That title was continued by its final owner and publisher, Deborah Tiffin, who has collaborated with the Canadian Picture Pioneers to archive and digitize its legacy. For nearly a century, from The Bulletin in 1915 to the Film Canada Yearbook in 2007, a single thread of ownership published these main periodicals and annuals of English Canada’s film press.

Other exhibition magazines were published by Famous Players’ publicity and advertising department. What’s New? (1942-74) was a house magazine of general interest to all employees, celebrating construction, retirements, and blockbusters alike. The various titles of Ballyhoo (1952-61) were newsletters specifically sharing local promotional drives in the face of declining attendance. Famous News (1981-90) was launched to coincide with a new corporate headquarters.

Canadian film production and cinephilia gained a more secure footing following WWII. Accompanying the assurgence of the National Film Board of Canada, various film societies and annual festivals were created in the 1950s, along with the establishment of yearly film awards, critics’ polls, and a national film archive. An entirely new slate of film journals followed this flourishing cultural appreciation of Canadian cinema as an emerging national cinema, with an emphasis on profiling the production industry and spotlighting domestic feature and documentary films. Cinema Canada (1962-89) and the original Take One (1967-79) dovetailed with a renewed sense of nationalism and cultural pride tied to the 1967 centennial of the country’s creation.

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.

———. “At the Very Beginning, The Holland Brothers of Ottawa Ushered in the World Motion Picture Industry.” In Canadian Film Weekly Year Book of the Canadian Motion Picture Industry, 45-49. Toronto: Film Publications of Canada, 1952.

———. “The Story of L. Ernest Ouimet, Pioneer.” In Canadian Film Weekly Year Book of the Canadian Motion Picture Industry, 23-43. Toronto: Film Publications of Canada, 1952.

Moore, Paul (2024) “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.

Pelletier, Louis and Paul Moore, “Une Éxcentrique au coeur de l’industrie: Ray Lewis et Canadian Moving Picture Digest,” Cinéma(s) 16, no. 1 (2005): 59-90.

Whitehead, Jessica, Louis Pelletier and Paul Moore, “‘The Girl Friend in Canada’: Ray Lewis and Canadian Moving Picture Digest (1915–1957).” In Daniel Biltereyst and Lies Van de Vijver, eds., Mapping Movie Magazines: Digitization, Periodicals and Cinema History, 127-52. London: Pagrave-Macmillan, 2021.