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Toronto Cinemas2 Comments

You’re fired: Silent film musicians & the talkie revolution

Eric Veillette

To coincide with our upcoming Silent Sundays screening of Eisenstein’s pro-labour Strike on May 1, we examine how the arrival of sound pictures affected the livelihood of silent film musicians. The successful commercialization of synchronized sound films in the late 1920s was arguably the medium’s most important technological achievement since its invention. But often neglected is how the costly conversion to sound systematically put thousands of silent film musicians out of work. In Toronto, sound films first arrived at the Tivoli, at Richmond and Victoria Sts., when the Fox Movietone film Street Angel premiered on October 5, 1928. As Luigi … Continue reading You’re fired: Silent film musicians & the talkie revolution

Toronto Cinemas1 Comment

Parkdale’s Odeon Theatres

Eric Veillette

In Thursday’s Toronto Star, I looked at the history of the 52-year old Toronto Film Society, which continues to offer rarely-screened classics every month at Innis Town Hall. During my conversation with TFS president Barry Chapman, he shared memories of some of the Queen St. West cinemas of his youth, like the Parkdale, the Kum-C, and the Odeon. Although the Odeon name is usually associated with the mighty British cinema chain which settled in Canada in 1948, two other Queen St. cinemas shared its name. At 1558 Queen St. W, a silent-era, 700-seat house opened around 1919. The building still exists, housing … Continue reading Parkdale’s Odeon Theatres