Balance the Books

When motion picture ­technologies blossomed in the early twentieth century, filmmakers around the world set up small studios. In Halifax, for example, the Canadian Bioscope Company got to work and released Evangeline, the first of six features, in 1914. But by the 1930s, the feature film industry in this country was a thing of the past. Filmmaking shifted to the better-financed studios of Hollywood, with American companies operating large distribution and exhibition chains here. Our local movie theatres showed what they were sent. Today, even before London-based Cineworld completes its takeover of Cineplex, it is rare to find a Canadian feature in general release. “The box office in Canada largely belongs to American films,” as a parliamentary committee put it several years ago.

The failure of our early film industry was a power­ful warning for artists and politicians. It set the context for the Conservative government’s decision in 1932 to intervene in the...