Tag: old toronto cinemas

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Latin American Revue at the Casino

Eric Veillette

From the June 6, 1953 edition of the Toronto Telegram comes this tempting offer from the Casino Theatre at Queen & Bay: Latin-American chorus girls, the Marciano-Walcott fight and a Columbia cheapie about a school for sassy juvenile delinquents. If that wasn’t scintillating enough, your retinas would burn out to a newsreel of the recent coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. If you preferred the full royal experience, a visit to Yonge and Carlton was your best bet. That same day, the Odeon Toronto was showing A Queen is Crowned, “the only full-length Technicolor film of the coronation.” And hey, a … Continue reading Latin American Revue at the Casino

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Letters to the Manager

Eric Veillette

A great little ditty uncovered by Colin Geddes while leafing through my copy of Famous Players Canada’s What’s New? employee newsletter from July, 1973. Sure, you can still expect to be treated this way by your fellow movie-goer, but gosh, those ushers knew a thing or two about customer service! And as evidenced by the photo to the right, they either used a really tough starch, or those jackets were full on bulletproof: Dear Sir, My boyfriend and I visited your theatre at the Skyline Hotel on Tuesday July 3rd. We were sitting in Cinema 2 watching Class of ’44, when … Continue reading Letters to the Manager

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The Evolution of Cool

Eric Veillette

Early cinemas were used to convince the populace that air conditioning was cool. by Alfred Holden I watched poetic justice unfold in a cool way last month, when the brief May heat wave hit. The clamour for air conditioning erupted that very day in my own home, and spread like a storm through the St. George Street building where I live. But by the time the engineers turned on the central air, the weather, too, had turned. We froze. The system leaked. “A wonderful thing,” the U.S. watchdog magazine Consumer Reports found fit to say about air conditioning in 1957, … Continue reading The Evolution of Cool

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Classics From The Vault presents Joan Crawford in “Rain”

Eric Veillette

by Eric Veillette In its continuing efforts to offer specialty programming, Toronto’s Revue Cinema, NOW Magazine’s favourite rep cinema, presents Classics From The Vault, a new series featuring little-seen classics from the 1930s and 1940s. Screening Wednesday, Nov. 18 (7 p.m.) is director Lewis Milestone’s Rain (1932). Set in the South Pacific, it features rising star Joan Crawford as Sadie Thompson, a tough-talking, hard-drinking prostitute who spells certain destruction for a missionary (Walter Huston) seeking to redeem her soul. This was the second film adaptation of W. Somerset Maugham’s short story, the first being Sadie Thompson (1928), a silent starring … Continue reading Classics From The Vault presents Joan Crawford in “Rain”

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Lecture on Toronto Theatres at the Revue Cinema

Eric Veillette

Above image from January 1929 shows Yonge St. facing north from Queen St. On the bill at the Loews Yonge St. is a Buster Keaton film, probably Steamboat Bill. Source: Toronto Transit Commission. Ten-cent admission, newsreels, adventure serials and slapstick. That’s what you would find if you could return to the early days of movie-going. As this site, dedicated to preserving the stories of our varied theatres, nears its first anniversary, I am partnering with Toronto’s Revue Cinema on a new lecture series chronicling the history of local movie theatres. On August 22, the first lecture, “Toronto Movie Theatres: Palaces … Continue reading Lecture on Toronto Theatres at the Revue Cinema

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Dracula Triple-Bill at the Elgin!

Eric Veillette

I present a fang-tastic ad for a Hammer Dracula triple-bill. Back before you could see Cats or some other Broadway schmaltz at the Elgin, some lucky film-goers spent an afternoon in September of 1978 watching Taste the Blood of Dracula, Dracula Has Risen From the Grave and Dracula A.D. 1972. If Hammer wasn’t your thing (really?), there were plenty of other sights and sounds to take in that weekend:  Nazi zombie flick Shock Waves opened at the Imperial Six: kids could see The Cat from Outer Space at the Bayview Village Cinema (“Children $1.50 Anytime,” says the ad): Omen II … Continue reading Dracula Triple-Bill at the Elgin!

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Mae West at the Cinematheque Ontario

Eric Veillette

“This picture will not amuse or interest children,” reads a March 10, 1933 ad for She Done Him Wrong. The Toronto Star‘s disclaimer was rather tame compared to the cries of indecency coming from various Catholic groups around the U.S. It’s often been said this film led to the formation of the Catholic Legion of Decency and the subsquent enforcement of the Production Code, whereby Hollywood would endure three decades of censorship. Tonight, the Cinematheque Ontario is showing She Done Him Wrong as part of “Under the Spell: Surrealism and the Cinema”. Rather than being eight screenings of Un Chien … Continue reading Mae West at the Cinematheque Ontario

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Talkies the Talk of Toronto!

Eric Veillette

by Eric Veillette Eighty years ago, on Dec. 28, 1928, the talkies came to Toronto. Despite the freezing weather that winter evening, over a thousand movie-goers ventured out to the Tivoli, located at the intersection of Richmond  and Victoria Sts. to see a midnight preview of The Terror, a haunted-house whodunit. This was more than a year after a New York City audience watched and listened as Al Jolson got down on one knee and sang “My Mammy” during The Jazz Singer premiere on Oct. 6, 1927 at the Warner Bros. Theatre.  Contrary to popular belief, that wildly successful “photo-dramatic … Continue reading Talkies the Talk of Toronto!

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The Eaton Centre Cineplex

Eric Veillette

This week, we take a break from our usual musings over Art Deco and Atmospheric palaces and instead concentrate on a more recent phenomena — the multiplex cinema! by Jesse Hawken They knocked down the above-ground parking lot at the Eaton Centre a few years ago and with it, the late, not particularly lamented Cineplex theatre that was situated at the base of the parkade. The Eaton Centre Cineplex was the first mega-multiplex theatre in the world. There were 18 screens when it opened in 1979, expanding to 21 a few years later. When the place first opened it was … Continue reading The Eaton Centre Cineplex