… there was Hitler’s Women in Bondage, playing at the Rio Theatre on Yonge St., April 15, 1948. This photo from the City of Toronto Archives was taken around that time. Continue reading Before Ilsa, She Wolf of the S.S…
This week, I’m looking at vintage and iconic signs for OpenFile Toronto. Discussed are the neon spinning records at the former Sam the Record Man (including comments from its designer, Sam Markle), the Vesta Lunch, the former Suspect Video on Queen St. West, as well as the radioactive palm tree that is the El Mocambo at Spadina and College. But there are plenty more. Toronto’s cinemas — whether still active, downtrodden or re-purposed — also offer a few gems, from art deco marquees to faded, ghostly signs. Among them is the painted signage (shown above) claiming “Loew’s leads in Toronto!” … Continue reading Loew’s Yonge St. Theatre signage
With the passing of Elizabeth Taylor last month, here’s her name on the marquee of the Loew’s Yonge St. Theatre on October 3, 1952, opening day of the MGM Technicolor epic Ivanhoe, which also starred Robert Taylor and Joan Fontaine. When was the last time horses showed up to a Toronto film premiere? The Loew’s, located steps north of Queen on Yonge, opened on December 13, 1913 and was joined by the upstairs Winter Garden Theatre the following February. Fully restored in the 1980s and still operating as the Elgin & Winter Garden, the building’s current marquee is closer in … Continue reading Elizabeth Taylor on the Loew’s marquee
From left to right: Loew’s Yonge St. Theatre projectionists and operators Earl Winslow, Phil Ristow, Charles Sturgess and Charles Hallett pose for the January, 1946 issue of Lo!, the Loew’s Inc. employee magazine, which was in its second year of publication. Winslow was the veteran of the bunch, having manned the booth on the Yonge St. theatre’s opening night in December, 1913; “select photoplays” by Selig, Pathe and Biograph were shown. Long-lasting tenures weren’t uncommon at the time. Jules Bernstein, a veteran of the Loew’s circuit in New York, was managing director of the Yonge St. Theatre from its first … Continue reading Projectionists at the Loew’s Yonge St. Theatre
Here’s a shot from April, 1946, showing a long lineup of ladies as the Uptown Theatre‘s marquee advertises Turhan Bey and Merle Oberon in Universal’s Technicolor spectacle Night in Paradise. The Star‘s Jack Karr called Arthur Lubin’s film “a big, wondrous joke.” The film opened on Wednesday, April 17, 1946. Check out the opening night ad! But what are the ladies lining up for? [1] Christina Stewart, media archivist at the CNE Archives, supposes they are waiting for a new shipment of nylons at the hosiery shop next to the Uptown — a likely occurrence in the post-ration days after the end … Continue reading Ladies line up near the Uptown Theatre
More Halloween fun, this time an ad for Hammer’s The Vampire Lovers from the Toronto Star, June 1972. The film starred the sultry Ingrid Pitt, and I’ve put up an interview I did with her at the virtual haunt for my old zine 32 Elvis Movies. Continue reading The Vampire Lovers at the Yonge Theatre
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
The above image is the cover for a 12″ record I dug out of the archives to share with you all. A benefit recording for the Evergreen Mission, behind these tough-looking chaps is the former Rio Cinema on Yonge St., which in 1985, when this photo was taken, was showing Chuck Norris in Missing In Action II, Cat People, and a selection of other films which ran continuously until 5am. The Rio was a 500-seat cinema located at 375 Yonge St. which now houses an adult video and toy store. One of the oldest flicker-houses in the city, it first opened … Continue reading The Rio in 1985
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
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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