Tag: imperial six

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Extreme Usher: The Imperial Six

Eric Veillette

by Gerry Flahive I was a teenage usher. I don’t think anyone is going to make a feature film, a la FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH, based on my early 1970’s adventures at the somewhat-forgotten, and largely-underrated palace of guilty pleasures, Yonge Street’s Imperial Six. But if they did, it probably would be called USHERETTES GALORE, or EXTREME USHER, or even MATINEE IDLE. And it would be the kind of movie that probably would have played at the Imperial Six. The kind of movie that wouldn’t even get made for the straight-to-video market today. On Friday, June 29, 1973, at … Continue reading Extreme Usher: The Imperial Six

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Oh to be Shocked and Awed on Yonge Street

Eric Veillette

In today’s Toronto Star, your humble editor writes about the dearly departed, sleazy dens of cinematic iniquity which lined Yonge St in the 1970s. The strip from Gerrard to Queen marked the city’s Red Light District. Amidst the drugs, strip clubs like Starvin Marvin’s and over 75 body-rub parlours were the bright lights of the Biltmore, Downtown, Cinema 2000, Coronet, Rio, Imperial Six, Yonge/Elgin, among many others. Compared to the seediness of the era, which culminated in the grisly death of 12-year old shoeshine boy Emmanuel Jaques, it’s all pretty sanitized now; and there’s certainly no trash cinema to be … Continue reading Oh to be Shocked and Awed on Yonge Street