Tag: old toronto cinemas

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The Metro Theatre’s red hot opening night

Eric Veillette

At Bloor and Manning, a giant poster advertising Emmanuelle adorns the facade of the Metro, Toronto’s only surviving legitimate adult movie theatre. But long before it began showing porn in the 1970s, it served as a neighbourhood theatre for over three decades. Despite the PG-rated nature of the cinema’s opening night (April 7, 1939) double-bill, Delinquent Parents and Looking for Trouble, things got a little heated during the second showing of the programme when a fire broke out in a storage room on the ground floor near the building’s entrance. Smoke billowed into the auditorium and a minor panic ensued … Continue reading The Metro Theatre’s red hot opening night

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Toronto cinema memories

Eric Veillette

One of our readers reminisces on the movie theatres of his youth: “My childhood-adolescent theatres were all the downtown palaces, the Towne, University; nabes Victory on Spadina (pie eating contests Saturday matinees), Garden at College & Robert, Bellevue on College & Brunswick (Superman serials). When we moved north:  the Vaughan, Radio City, Nortown, Eglinton, Christie, St.Clair, Paramount (small house on St. Clair near Dufferin)… plus others. I was a very precocious kid and started taking streetcars every Saturday by myself or with my younger sister when I was about 6 or 7. Distinct memories of which pictures I saw at … Continue reading Toronto cinema memories

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Aftershocks of Montreal’s Laurier Palace Theatre fire

Eric Veillette

The Laurier Palace Theatre fire which claimed the lives of 78 Montreal children in January of 1927 made headlines all over North America. The above front page from the Arizona Daily Star was recently added to our collection. Like many newspapers who reported the tragic event, it also pointed out other infamous theatre disasters. Among them: the Gillis Theatre, Kansas City (1925); Knickerbocker Theatre Washington, D.C. (1922); Rialto Theatre, New Haven, CT (1921); Catherine St. movie house, New York City, (1920). As mentioned in an earlier post about the Laurier Palace, at the time, nobody under 15 was allowed into … Continue reading Aftershocks of Montreal’s Laurier Palace Theatre fire

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The Westwood Theatre

Eric Veillette

The Westwood Theatre opened on February 28, 1952, with Ontario Premier Leslie Frost in attendance for ribbon-cutting ceremonies. Located at Bloor and Islington, the 1000-seat movie house was one of several new Toronto theatres built to serve the urban sprawl of the post-war years. It was a rather toned-down affair when compared to the opulence found in other new downtown theatres like the University and the Odeon Carlton. Still, the 20th Century theatre, originally built as a single-screen house (later tripled) is an example of the later work of architects Kaplan & Sprachman, who designed the Eglinton and the Circle; … Continue reading The Westwood Theatre

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Broken Blossoms at the Colonial Theatre

Eric Veillette

“The pinnacle of art expressed on the silver sheet,” proclaimed an ad for D.W. Griffith’s Broken Blossoms on November 4, 1919. The film opened on November 10 at the regal Regent Theatre on Adelaide St., which N.L. Nathanson and partners had purchased in 1916, before the formation of Famous Players Canada Corporation in 1920. Weeks later, the film was playing in several other theatres, including the Colonial, located across from Old City Hall (pictured above, to the left, on a particularly snowy day). One of Toronto’s first picture palaces, the Colonial predates the construction of the Loews/Winter Garden and Madison … Continue reading Broken Blossoms at the Colonial Theatre

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The Walking Dead at the Allenby Cinema

Eric Veillette

With Halloween but a day away, here’s a photo of the Allenby Theatre’s lobby in 1936, showing Boris Karloff in The Walking Dead, with Gorilla Man, Snooper Service and Night Watchman as b-pictures. The gimmick on the poster (“Blow on this spot — If it turns GREEN, you are too weak to…”) is typical of that era, and was probably tongue-in-cheekly enforced by a tuxedo-wearing cinema manager. By the time The Walking Dead reached the east-end cinema in July of 1936, it had already played several Toronto theatres, including the Aster, the Kenwood and the Madison (now the Bloor), where … Continue reading The Walking Dead at the Allenby Cinema

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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

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The Uptown Theatre

Eric Veillette

To cinephiles, the theatres we patronize are often just as important as the films they show. It might only be a building, but once an audience is at attention and the image is flickering, the place takes on an organic quality. Whether it’s a run-down rep house, a bicycle repair shop moonlighting as a cinema or the second floor of a restored hotel, these darkened spaces allow us to forget the outside world, and as Neil Gaiman once put it, let “others think of things of import and consequence.” A few days ago, I asked  our Twitter followers to share … Continue reading The Uptown Theatre

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Toronto’s Burlesque Legacy

Eric Veillette

Don Evans, of Meaford, On, wrote a great letter in response to a piece I wrote for the Toronto Star on the Victory Burlesque: “Re: Less sleaze, more tease, July 18 During the 1930s the south side of Queen St. between Bay and York St. had two burlesque houses: the Roxy and later, around 1936, the Casino theatre. The Roxy was converted into a regular Hollywood second run or older movie theatre before the Casino opened. I can recall seeing Burlesque stars such as Gypsy Rose Lee, Sally Rand, Rose La Rose with straight men like Rex Doyle and Robert Alda [father … Continue reading Toronto’s Burlesque Legacy

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The Eglinton Theatre’s Elegant Neighbours

Eric Veillette

When adding photos to the Silent Toronto collection, I typically look for theatres and cinemas, but most importantly,  neighbouring streetscapes showing some form of social activity. Where did neighbourhood cinema patrons dine, shop, and in this case, deposit their paycheques? So imagine my surprise when I found this gorgeous shot of the Eglinton Theatre‘s art deco neighbours. Probably taken in the late 1940s, early 1950s, we see the north side of Eglinton Ave., east of Castle Knock Rd. The giant structure on the right is indeed Kaplan and Sprachman‘s famed Eglinton, which closed in 2002 and now operates as a … Continue reading The Eglinton Theatre’s Elegant Neighbours