Draft:Cinema of Canada

Fortune and Men's Eyes Kamouraska (film) Eliza's Horoscope Alien Thunder Journey into Fear (1975 film) Born for Hell Shadow of the Hawk King Solomon's Treasure The Changeling Silence of the North

http://femfilm.ca/firsts.php?lang=e

James McKay introduced cel animation to the NFB. (need to check on this with more info)

The Oxford Handbook of Canadian Cinema

Financial
Check Deux Femmes en or and Meatballs (film)

Ouimet bio
Ouimet, who was working as an electrician, attended an event organized by Louis Minier and Louis Pupier using a cinematograph in Saint-Laurent, Quebec, on 27 June 1896. It was the first time a film was shown in Canada and Ouimet's testimony about the event would be the main evidence for its existence until Germain Lacasse proved its existence in 1984. Ouimet opened the first film distribution exchange in Canada.

Ouimet was born in St. Martin, Quebec, on 16 March 1877. He dropped out of school at age twelve and worked on his family's farm from 1889 to 1894, when he moved to Montreal. He was a plumber's apprentice before becoming an electrician.

He gained the Canadian franchise rights for Kinetographe Company. He opened the Ouimetoscope on 1 January 1906. Georges Gauvreau, who owned the Theatre National before selling it and retiring, attempted to reenter the film industry by buying the Ouimetoscope. Ouimet stopped him after purchasing the property for $150,000 with $70,000 being for the property itself, $30,000 for the hotel licence, and $50,000 for design and construction. The theatre reopened on August 31, 1907. His theatre was initially successful, but was financially strained by lower-cost theatres around it. He rented the theatre out in 1915, and went out of business in 1926.

He established one of the first Canadian film exchanges in May 1906, with its first branch office being in St. John, New Brunswick. He started creating films in 1908. Ouimet's first films focused on his children and recording life. He sold Quebec: The Tercentenary Celebration (1908) to Charles Urban and The Eucharist Congress in Montreal (1910) to Butcher's Film Service. He was unable to produce films from 1912 to 1915, due to an illness. He reentered the industry and formed the Specialty Film Import in 1915, and became Pathé's representative in North America. He distributed serials staring Ruth Roland and Pearl White.

Ouimet sold Specialty Film Import to Nathan Nathanson's Regal Films for $200,000 in May 1922, and moved to produce films in California. Why Get Married? was his first film after moving and it was released in Montreal in December 1923. It received middling reviews and did not fare well financially. It was the end of Ouimet's filmmaking and destruction career. He managed the Imperial Theatre for two years, but a fire killed two children ending his activity there. He gained a position on the Quebec Liquor Board and served on it until 1956. He died in Montreal on 3 March 1972.

https://www.pc.gc.ca/en/culture/clmhc-hsmbc/res/information-backgrounder/LeoErnestOuimet

Balablok
Balablok is a 1972 Canadian animated short film created by Břetislav Pojar. The film cost $37,000 to make. It won the Short Film Palme d'Or at the 1973 Cannes Film Festival.

Look at page 200

Famous Players
Look through the first 64 pages of the Pendakur book.

Nathanson became interested in the film industry while working for the E.L. Ruddy Company. He formed the Regent Theatre Company Limited with financing backing from Jack Bickell, P.W. Cushman, E.L. Ruddy, W.J. Sheppard, and James Brockett Tudhope. Nathanson was the managing director, Ruddy was president, Bickell was vice-president, and Cushman was secretary-treasurer. They purchased the Majestic Theatre in Toronto from J. Ambrose Small for $300,000 and spent $200,000 to have Thomas W. Lamb redesign the theatre. The theatre opened on 25 August 1916, with Little Lady Eileen as its first showing. The company was later renamed to Paramount Theatres.

Nathanson attempted to gain the distribution rights for Paramount Pictures films and a fifty-fifty partnership after the Allen brothers rejected Adolph Zukor's offer, but Zukor stated that Nathanson needed to build more theatres. The group had sixteen theatres by 1919, and formed the Famous Players Canadian Corporation on 23 January 1920, with a capital of $15 million. Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook, whose financial offer to the Allen brothers was rejected, gave his financial support to Nathanson. Zukor formed a partnership with Nathanson, invested $100,000 into Famous Players on 5 February, and gave them the distribution rights for twenty years.

During the organization's existence Bickell, Herbert Samuel Holt, Izaak Walton Killam, and William Donald Ross served on the board of directors. Zukor served as its president and Nathanson as its managing director.

He formed Regal Films, with his brother Henry Nathanson as its managing director, and it had the distribution rights to films from Metro Pictures, Pathé, and Triangle Film Corporation.

The company had $291,987.91 in revenue in its first year. Famous Players operated twenty theatres in 1920, and grew to seventy by 1924, becoming the largest chain in Canada. The compnay had 153 theatres by 1929, and 311 theatres by 1945. 462 films were theatrically released in Canada between 1930 and 1931, with Famous-Lasky distributing 74 films, 16.02%, and another 92 films, 19.91, through Regal Films, one of its subsidiaries.

Nathanson attempted to purchase the Allen's theatre chain for $4-5 million in 1921, but was rejected. In 1922, the Allen brothers' creditors attempted to have them declared bankrupt and formed a company to negotiate a sale with Famous Players, but the committee decided that the Allen Theatres would be able to repay its debts and rejected Nathanson's $1.05 million offer. However, G.T. Clarkson decaled that Allen Theatres was bankrupt, with $1.25 million in debts and 36 theatres, and it was sold to Famous Players for $650,000 on 23 June 1923.

Famous Players controlled the first run of films resulting in competitors, such as Nat Taylor, basing their business around the second run of films. In 1938, United Artists stopped giving their first run to Famous Players and instead gave them to Taylor, but later returned to Famous Players. Taylor rejected an offer from Nathan Nathanson for a partnership with Odeon in 1941, and instead accepted an offer from Famous Players to manage twenty-five of their theatres.

On 1 March 1929, a trust was created that gave all voting control to Killam, Nathanson, and Zukor for ten years. Gaumont-British attempted to purchase Famous Players at $75 a share with Nathanson's support in 1929, but Zukor and Killam rejected the offer. Nathanson resigned from the board of directors on 18 September, after the failure of the deal. Zukor conducted a stock swap in 1930 which gave him 93.8% of the shares of Famous Players.

Block booking by major studios, that were from outside Canada, prevented independent theatre owners from obtaining films at a reasonable price. R. B. Bennett, who invested into the film industry, made investigating the film industry an issue in the 1930 election. Peter White was appointed to investigate Famous Players' monopolistic control of theatres under the Combines Investigation Act. White concluded that "a combine exists and has existed at least since the year of 1926" and Famous Players was detrimental to the public interest in 1931, but no action was taken against the company. Bennett supported taking action and the attorney generals of Alberta, British Columbia, Ontario, and Saskatchewan would prosecute Famous Players. Fifteen companies and three people, including Nathan Nathanson, were charged, but the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in favor of the companies on 18 March 1932.

Nathanson attempted to create a theatre chain with Fox Film, but was unable to due to the company entering receivership. Nathanson returned to the board of Famous Players and became its president in May 1933, resulting in the rest of the board resigning in protest. Holt and Ross, who left alongside Nathanson, returned with him. Zukor agreed to give control of the company back to Nathanson after the expiration of the voting trust on 8 March 1939. Barney Balaban replaced Zukor as president of Paramount-Publix Corporation in 1936, and rejected the agreement. Nathanson resigned from Famous Players on 14 May 1941, and Balaban selected J.J. Fitzgibbons to replace him. Nathanson worked on creating a new theatre chain while serving as president.

His brother, Henry Nathanson, formed Odeon Theatres in April 1941. It initially started with four theatres in Vancouver and expanded using equal partnerships with Henry Morton's four theatres, Jack Barron's theatre, and Henry Friedman's theatre which were later bought out. Famous Players sued Nathan over the ownership of Regal Films, managed by Henry, in 1942, but the case was dismissed in 1948. Nathan attempted to hire Nat Taylor, but he rejected Taylor's demands and Taylor was instead hired by Famous Players to manage 25 theatres.

The company closed 143 of its theatres between 1954 and 1965. The company operated 418 screens, 25.6% of the amount in Canada, by 1977.

Nicholas Schenck, the president of Loews, whose company owned Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer met with Nathanson, Fitzgibbons, Balaban, and other people in New York to allocate MGM films between Famous Players and Odeon months after Odeon was formed. Famous Players retained MGM's films, but they would be distributed by Regal films.

Gulf and Western Industries purchased Paramount in the 1960s. The regulations of the Canadian Radio and Television Commission required that at least 80% of voting shares in a company with broadcast interests in Canada be owned by Canadians. Famous Players was reorganized in 1971, with Gulf and Western's Canadian division holding 51.15% while Canadian Cablesystems Limited held 48.85%. Gulf and Western purchased the remainder of the stock in July 1981.

Nathan Nathanson/Odeon/Cinplex
Nathan Nathanson was born to Benjamin and Yetta Nathanson, Russian Jews. Benjamin immigrated from Tauragė to the United States in 1885, Yetta brought her five children in 1889, and the family settled in Minneapolis. Nathan worked as a paperboy as a child. In 1907, he moved to Toronto and managed concession stands at H.A. Dorsey's amusement parks. He became a salesman for the E.L. Ruddy Company, which later made posters for his movies.

Nathanson served on the Toronto Region Board of Trade and Canadian Broadcasting Corporation Board of Governors.

Nathanson married Violet Ruby Kuppenheimer in 1909, but they divorced in 1913. He married Irene Harris, the daughter of a newspaperman from Omaha, Nebraska. He became a citizen of Canada around 1926. He died on 27 May 1943.

https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/cineplex-approaches-cineworld-lenders-revive-merger-with-regal-wsj-2022-09-28/ https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/cineworld-takeover-cineplex-termination-1.5573054 https://globalnews.ca/news/8247627/cineworld-cineplex-recroom-sale/

NFB
John Grierson October 1939-August 1945 Ross McLean August 1945-January 1946 Ross McLean January 1946-January 1950 (interim) Arthur Irwin February 1950-June 1953 Albert Trueman July 1953-April 1957 Guy Roberge May 1957-April 1966 Grant McLean April 1966-June 1967 (interim) Hugo McPherson May 1967-July 1970 Sydney Newman August 1970-August 1975 André Lamy August 1975-January 1979 James de Beaujeu Domville January 1979-January 1984 François Macerole January 1984-May 1984 François Macerole May 1984-December 1988 (interim) John Pennefather December 1988-September 1989 (interim) John Pennefather September 1989-?

https://www.canada.ca/en/national-film-board/corporate/about/history/commissioner.html https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3138/j.ctt1287z84 https://cfe.tiff.net/canadianfilmencyclopedia/content/films/candid-eye https://www.canada.ca/en/national-film-board/corporate/about/history.html

Tom Daly oversaw Unit B as its executive producer

The NFB gained its logo, Man Seeing, following a competition in 1969, and it was shown before every NFB production as a static image starting in 1970. Michael Rubbo created an animated version in 1978, and Ishu Patel created another animation in 1986.

https://blog.nfb.ca/blog/2019/04/24/history-nfb-logo/

French-Canadian
Vincent Paquette became the NFB's first French-Canadian filmmaker in 1941, and directed La Cité de Notre-Dame, the board's first in-house French-language film, in 1942. The number of French-Canadian employees grew to seventeen by 1945, and a quarter of the board's budget was spent on French productions. Seventy English films were released by the board in 1949, while four French films were released. The Massey Commission and Gratien Gélinas, a member of the NFB's Board of Governors, called for an improvement in French-language productions, but Duplessis opposed it.

Other stuff
The Motion Picture Exhibitors and Distributors of Canada, which was inspired by the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, was formed in 1922, and incorporated in 1924. It was referred to as the Cooper Organization after John Alexander Cooper, its first president. The MPEDC was controlled by Will H. Hays, the head of the MPPDA, and was formed using a $2,500 loan from him. The organization had a revenue of $27,236.56 in 1929, with $21,841.56 of it coming from American distributors.

The New York Post stated that The Silent Enemy should receive a Pulitzer Prize.

A censored version of The Great Train Robbery which eliminated scenes of violence and displays of the flag of the United States was released in Canada in 1927. (see page 16 of Censored! Only in Canada: the History of Film Censorship - The Scandal Off the Screen)

Carry On, Sergeant! was criticized for its inaccurate depiction of the American entry into World War I and for the usage of the American flag. The film was also criticized for having the sergeant conduct an affair. (see page 28 of Censored! Only in Canada: the History of Film Censorship - The Scandal Off the Screen)

Joe Rosenthal was the cameraman for Hiawatha, the Messiah of the Ojibway. (see page 15 of One Hundred Years of Canadian Cinema)