A little over a year ago, my girlfriend and I moved into an apartment in the Forest Hill area, kitty-corner to what was once the flagship cinema of the Famous Players theatre chain: The Eglinton. It closed down in early 2002, when Famous Players refused to comply with an Ontario Human Rights Commision directive to make the theatre wheelchair accessible. Although dedicated as a Heritage Site by the city, preserving the original facade, it has since become an upscale event hall. Coming home at night is always a joy, as the original, brilliant marquee, still in place, shines brightly to onlookers heading east and west. It is among my favorites, second only to Montreal’s Snowdon Theatre. Unfortunately, the marquee no longer greets you with the possibility of seeing “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre 7:30″ or “Myrna Loy & William Powell in The Thin Man Goes Home 2:00″ - you’re stuck with “David’s Bar Mitzvah!” or “When Larry met Rebecca!”

The Eglinton Theatre was designed by architects Kaplan & Sprachman. Located on the north side of the first block west of Avenue Rd. on Eglinton Ave., it is one of the city’s greatest examples of 1930’s Art-Deco style. Prior to designing the Eglinton, Kaplan & Sprachman had designed other neighborhood theatres such as The Circle (1932) at Yonge & Sherwood, and The Cameo (1934) at Pape and Cosburn. At a cost of $200 000, you never would have thought the country was in the grip of the Great Depression when this majestic theatre was built. At the time, Forest Hill was a young suburban neighborhood whose residents were mainly Anglo-Protestants, and this new building provided a new attraction for the growing area. There was no need to start up the Packard and head to the Uptown Theatre when you lived around the corner from such a great theatre!

The 800-seat theatre, funded by Famous Players, was operated by the Capitol Entertainment Theatres group, which also operated The Parkdale, The St-Clair, The Runnymede, and The Bloor — which is now Lee’s Palace — among many others. Of those operating at the time of the Eglinton’s premiere, The Belsize is the only building still operating as a cinema. It is now The Regent, on Mount Pleasant Ave, and has retained much of its old charm.

While many theatres were built in Toronto after the arrival of talking pictures, very few of them went to such length to be acoustically designed with talkies in mind. The Eglinton was unique in that the sound system, ceiling and walls were acoustically treated to carry well throughout the hall. Another highlight was air conditioning, still quite a novelty in neighborhood theatres of its time. Many of the chain-operated theatres who could afford to do so had converted to climate-control in order to attract more customers from the independents.

Opening night

On April 2, 1936, (The Eglinton Grand’s official site erroneously reports the opening night as April 15), patrons lined the block westward on Eglinton Ave. to be among the first to step foot in the new theatre. The prices back then varied a little from today’s: 35 cents got you into the orchestra seating, and 45 cents got you into the loge circle, where you could also smoke. In Toronto Sketches 8, Mike Filey describes how every seat in the loge was equipped with its own ashtray. The opening night’s prices were slightly inflated due to the occasion, as two weeks later, when you could see James Cagney and Pat O’Brien in Howard Hawks’ Ceiling Zero, orchestra seating would cost you 25 cents. That’s what people were paying over at The Imperial, one of Toronto’s grandest movie palace of the day.

Lining up the street that night, I wonder what was on people’s minds? Perhaps some patrons discussed that one of the biggest media sensations of the 1930s was about to come to an end the next day, as Bruno Hauptmann, the convicted kidnapper and murderer of the Lindbergh Baby, was sentenced to die in the electric chair. Maybe someone was telling an acquaintance of his about the new Northern Electric radio he just bought at Eddie Black’s store over on Yonge St. The kids must’ve loved it, since The Green Hornet had premiered on various radio networks in the United States in January of 1936. Maybe people discussed the threat of war, as the Nazis had just violated the Treaty of Versailles, or maybe they didn’t discuss these things at all - they were stepping into this place in order to escape all of this and forget about what was going on in the outside world.

The King of Burlesque seemed like an odd choice for a “Gala Premiere” of this kind, as the film had been out for a few months, and was already playing at The Palace and The Beach that week. The reason for this was that even though it was a movie-house of pure elegance, The Eglinton was a second-run theatre, which would play films after some of the larger movie houses like the Loews would run them. That didn’t really matter, because on an occasion like this, the movie was practically secondary. People were lined up to see this new theatre, with state of the art sound while sound films were still in its infancy, a much larger screen than those found in other neighborhood cinemas, and the plush comfort of the seats as you sink in and enjoy the show.

So what was The King of Burlesque all about? Warner Baxter plays Kerry Bolton, a burlesque producer who moves into legitimate theatre, scoring hit after hit and is dubbed the “Czar of Broadway”. After meeting the girl of his dreams, he casts her in the lead of a new show, which turns out to be a flop, and after a series of money-losers, Bolton is penniless and down and out, no thanks to his arrogance and lack of respect for others. Jack Oakie, who later lampooned Mussolini in The Great Dictator, plays Bolton’s General Manager, and Alice Faye is the leading lady. Like many films of the era, the film showcased a character’s rise through greed, and although this particular film ends on a happier note, unlike The Roaring Twenties a few years later, it serves as a moral lesson. The Depression-era audience needed a little bit of that. It was still a perfect spectacle film for the audience that night, as it featured some great musical numbers, and even had Fats Waller in the cast! The audience that night was treated to much more than a movie, as the ad suggested ‘Other Eglinton Features’. There was probably some live entertainment, perhaps a line of chorus girls and someone singing a Maurice Chevalier tune. Once the programme was under way, the audience probably got a sneak peak at some coming attractions to play at The Eglinton in the coming weeks, as well as a cartoon, a musical short, and perhaps a Robert Benchley film. The talkies may have been responsible for the downfall of Vaudeville, but they took from it and kept alive the spirit of an entire evening’s worth of entertainment. How times have changed!

As the years go by

Within a year, plenty of new shops had opened up along Eglinton Ave. A couple out on a date might have popped by the Esquire Shop at 402 Eglinton for a quick bite to eat before seeing the latest James Cagney film, and I’m sure the kids dropped by the Jenny Lind Candy Shop next door to the Esquire for some gum drops to eat during the Saturday matinee. Some shops in the area are still there today: Sid’s Cleaners at 526 Eglinton, and Young’s Market Fruits, although the latter has moved a few doors down.

With one cinema not sufficing for such a prosperous area, The Eglinton encountered some competition in the late 1930s when Waterloo Theatres opened up the 680 seat Avenue, at the corner of Eglinton and Braemar. According to John Sebert in his book The Nabes: Toronto’s Wonderful Neighborhood Movie Houses, The Avenue never reached its full potential in the area, and during the war years, it was purchased by Famous Players, eliminating the competition.

In the early 1960s, The Eglinton moved to a reserved-seating format which had proven quite popular at other theatres like the Imperial. In 1960, Famous Players introduced three-strip Cinerama at the Eglinton, with Windjammer, followed by the world premiere of Holiday in Spain in 1961. In has been said that the Cinerama at the Eglinton was in name only, as while the screen was quite large, it curved only slightly, negating many of the effects of the technology. By December of 1961, a new flat screen was installed. The reserved-seating format stuck around for a few more years, with films such as Doctor Dolittle, Hello Dolly, and The Sound of Music. The latter ran in this format for an astounding 146 weeks!

By the 1980s, The Eglinton had gone the way of many of the older neighborhood theatres and had definitely seen better days. “The Eglinton, particularly in her latter days, attracted a tawdry crew,” said former candy-girl Elizabeth Renzetti. In a April 2002 issue of Toronto Life, she recounts the time a metal-head threw a shoe through the screen during a screening of AC/DC: Let There Be Rock. Despite the grime from years of fingers and hands touching along the walls and the wear on the art deco pylon, the lights still shined brightly every night as the marquee announced the evening’s programme.

Its opulence did return for a brief moment, when in April of 1996, Famous Players celebrated the Eglinton’s 60th anniversary. On the bill throughout the month were some of the greatest classics ever shown at the theatre: The Wizard of Oz, An American in Paris, Sunset Boulevard, Witness for the Prosecution, and countless others. Newer classics weren’t neglected, either: Raiders of the Lost Ark, Gremlins and Blade Runner were also featured. Making it an even sweeter deal, admission to each film was only $2.50 – still closer to its original $0.35 admission than we pay today, and if you happened to turn 60 in 1996, you got in for free!

The Avenue Theatre is now long gone, as is the building that once housed it. In its place is now a building of retail outlets, one of them, a typical Eglinton West boutique selling overpriced shoes; the other, a restaurant, currently vacant, with everlasting “Opening Soon” signage. Near Bathurst, at 875 Eglinton West, once stood The Nortown Cinema, but like the plight of many neighborhood cinemas during the rise of the multiplexes, it is gone as well. The Eglinton has outlived them all.

Sources: Toronto Star, March 30, April 2, 1936; Palaces of the Night: Canada’s Grand Theatres, John Lindsay; Toronto Life, April 2002. Box Office, April 1961.

Interested in a little more information about the Eglinton? Check out the Eglinton’s entry at Parks Canada’s National Historic Sites of Toronto Urban Walks page.

32 Elvis Movies is hoping to inject a little classic horror into Toronto’s October film calendar, so we present our first-annual Halloween Film Event!

WHAT IS IT? A special 16mm screening of the Halperin Bros. classic White Zombie.

WHEN IS IT? Monday, October 27. Doors open at 7:30, and please arrive early – seating is limited! Admission is only $8.00! Show will start at 8:30!

WHERE IS IT? Cine-Cycle! Located down the lane behind 129 Spadina (near Richmond), Cine-Cycle is a bicycle repair shop by day and micro-cinema by night! A snack bar will be available, and owner Martin Heath will be on hand to serve his famous lattes from a 1950 La San Marco espresso machine.

THE EVENT!

Fans of Bela Lugosi, zombies and classic horror — join us on October 27 as we celebrate White Zombie — not only one of the greatest horror films ever made, but the first to feature zombies! Check out the trailer!

Plagued by cheap video and DVD copies derived from 2nd and 3rd generation sources, White Zombie is a real gem that has rarely been seen on Toronto’s screens since it premiered at the Loew’s theatre in August of 1932.

By celebrating the spirit of showmanship, admission grants you access to much more than a movie; throughout the evening you will be subject to a chilling programme of cartoons, shorts, and fantastic trailers — all on 16mm! As an added bonus, excerpts from your favorite Universal Monsters films will be projected on the screen as you arrive, so get there early, as seating will be limited!

And don’t forget to grab your raffle ticket at the door, because we’ve got some ghoulish prizes to give away!!

THE FILM!!

One of the first independent horror films of the sound era, White Zombie was released in 1932 to a public demanding more chills, thrills and more importantly — more Lugosi. Shot on the Universal lot in eleven days for a mere $62 000, the film showcases many props and sets used in Dracula. Joining Bela Lugosi are Madge Bellamy, John Harron, and Clarence Muse, the first actor to utter the word “zombie” in a sound film!

In one of his greatest screen performances, Lugosi plays Murder Legendre, a plantation owner and voodoo practitioner. When a young man enacts a Faustian bargain with Legendre to lure the woman he loves away from her fiance, Legendre instead turns her into a zombie slave.

SEE! Bela Lugosi in one of his most sinister roles!
HEAR! Xavier Cugat’s haunting score!

Want more info? Check out our Facebook Event Listing!

Presented by 32elvismovies.com, Ultra 8 Pictures and Vagrancy Films!

The Downtown Theatre

by Hal Kelly

“Going to the movies is my hobby. I go to other theatres, but the Downtown is my favorite. I like westerns, especially ones with Audie Murphy, but ANY good action or adventure picture usually gives me my money’s worth.”

- Irvine Exley, 55, war pensioner

The Downtown Theatre was located one short block south of Dundas at the north east corner of the largely vacant Yonge and Dundas Square right across from the Hard Rock Café. The closest thing to movie theatre in those parts now is that craptacular celluloid-free, all digital AMC 24 mausoleum.

According to a 1968 article in the old Toronto Telegram, the Downtown Theatre was built in 1948 for a then astronomical price tag of $750,000 and featured a marquee that blazed 4,000 electric lights. In it’s heyday, The Downtown had one of the busiest theatrical concession stands in the country. On an average week, the Downtown moved 7500 soft drinks, 1000 hot dogs, 5000 chocolate bars, 600 cups of coffee and 2000 bags of popcorn with none of that flavor power bull@#$% to stain fingers. Incredibly, one Christmas week the total number of sugary soda sold amounted to a staggering 10,650 units. Of course all that was long before I started going to the Downtown ‘cause even though I have grey hair and I know who Mamie Van Doren is I’m NOT THAT OLD. I swear.

I went there as a young teenager in the early seventies when the Downtown was burning its waning projector bulbs on primo double bills comprised of one new feature and a vintage second run crowd pleaser. What made me a repeat customer at the Downtown was its direct pipeline to the latest, greatest entertainment from A.I.P. and New World studios. I saw The Losers ( a psychotic biker gang – was there any other kind? – are sent to Vietnam), The Born Losers (introducing Tom Laughlin and his violent peacenik character Billy Jack), The Incredible Two Headed Transplant (ultra bigot Ray Milland’s head is spliced on to Rosie Grier’s shoulder by a doctor with one hell of a wicked sense of humour), Count Yorga (Dracula tricked out as a Charlie Manson like cult leader), Blacula (proving there was no place blaxploitation wouldn’t go although it wasn’t quite the far out fun of the classic 1975 flick Black Gestapo), Death Race 2000 and others too depraved or too lame to recall but are buried deep in my subconscious and still direct my taste in culture today.

One vivid memory I have, and certainly an early indicator of preoccupations to come was going to the Downtown with my public school best friend Bobby Widder to see The Christine Jorgensen Story, a pretty tame “ripped from the headlines” film from 1970 about the first well known sex change operation directed by Irving Rapper, the once great man behind Now, Voyager and The Glass Menagerie. I’m pretty sure neither Bob nor I had any idea who Christine Jorgensen was before we saw it but my Mom sure did when I innocently told her what movie we had seen. She was not happy and gave me her best patented “if-I-knew-you-were-going-to-see-that-garbage…” speech and probably knew the days when I could be guaranteed to spend a harmless Saturday afternoon at The Humber watching Planet of the Apes or the latest James Bond installment over and over again were probably over period.

As puberty reared my ugly little head, my cinematic interests shifted uptown. No I don’t mean Goddard and Rommer although I did see some of their films too, by accident I think. What I mean by that is that my nether regions slowly began to point me ( in a nice way ) towards what was playing a block north at Cinema 2000. Cinema 2000 specialized in adults only fare. I hesitate to say pornographic because while the films may have been pretty raunchy at some previous point, by the time they made it through the scissor happy do-gooders at the seventies era Ontario Censor Board they featured very little skin and were about a half an hour long. Still, I was young and they were enough to serve as gentle introductions to the advanced work of sexy thespians Uschi Digard ( A Touch Of Sweden indeed! ), Sharon Kelly, Rene Bond, Sandy Dempsey and Candy Samples.

Soon after the Downtown and I parted company, it closed and become just another headstone in the graveyard of dead Yonge Street movie houses. Off the top of my head there was The Elgin, the Imperial Six, the Biltmore, the Rio, the Coronet, the New Yorker, the Uptown, the Hyland, the Fairlawn and at least a couple of more I can’t recall the names of right now but I can picture in my head.

P.S — The last time I saw Bobby was about 10 years ago in the alley behind my Mother-in-Laws house. The autumn sun was fading and my kids and I were getting one last game of twilight ball hockey in before it was time to go in for dinner. As we were picking things up Bobby appeared moving up the alley. He was behaving, let’s say “peculiar” and leave it at that. Back in the day we had parted ways near the end of grade 8 in a bitter dispute over either a girl or a comic book or quite possibly ownership of an issue of Creem magazine with Spiderman on the cover. At the time they all still equaled approximately the same thing. I guess whenever you reconnect with someone who was your best friend in grade 6 in a down town alley it’s not a particularly good sign.

- Hal Kelly was the editor of the excellent ‘zine Trash Compactor.

With the construction of the city of Toronto’s latest and tallest skyscraper set to begin at the south-east side of Yonge and Bloor, it’s safe to say that intersection will never be the same. Not that it’s anything to write home about at the moment, either; when walking west on Bloor, you’re hit with vulgar imagery from Yorkville shops selling ridiculous designer wear and other overpriced junk.

I’d trade anything to return to the late 1940s, when the only thing people were lining up to see on that street was the city’s latest and possibly most luxurious movie house – The University. Dubbed “Famous Players Finest Post-War Theatre,” it was designed by Eric W. Hounsom, who in 1932 had designed the Circle Theatre at Yonge & Sherwood while working with architects Kaplan & Sprachman. The University took two years to build and finally opened its doors on March 25, 1949, with the premiere of the long-awaited Technicolor spectacle, Joan of Arc, starring Ingrid Bergman. Amused by the film, Toronto Daily Star columnist Jack Karr referred to the University as “one of the warmest and most luxurious we’ve examined yet.”

On opening night, those who still thought “the flickers” appealed to low-brow culture spent the evening listening to Arthur Rubinstein at Massey Hall.  But those low-class heathens — who knew a good time when they saw one — lined Bloor St. to get a glimpse of this new movie house. Not a movie palace in the strictest sense -– that distinction applied to theatres like the Pantages and the Loews — it offered something different to the people of Toronto, who were riding a wave of post-war optimism and economic prosperity. The wavy facade, slithering along the street-front the way a film spools through a projector, featured a three-story window where patrons on the inside could look down onto the passing show on Bloor St with its parked Packards and De Sotos. Wanting to attract patrons away from that boxed menace creeping its way into most households at the time, Famous Players spent extra attention on the lounge of the theatre. Wanting people to feel more comfortable there than they would at home, the lounge featured a television screen built right into the wall to view before the movie began. An ad for the next film to play at the University exclaimed: “On our Television: Boxing, Wrestling, and Perry Como!”

The auditorium of the University had contoured, backlit side walls, designed in waves of plaster, and taking a cue from the Atmospheric theatres of decades before, it allowed the house to periodically change colours to suit different moods. At 1350 seats, it wasn’t the largest house in the city, but one of the most spacious, which also allowed the inclusion of one of the city’s largest screens.

As the years passed, with the collapse of the studio system, and television making a successful intrusion into most homes, The University was the first theatre outfitted with a 70mm projector and a large Cinemascope screen to attract patrons. It was also the flagship location for the three-strip Cinerama process, which had been attempted earlier down the street at the Loews Yonge St. and ultimately abandoned in favour of the larger spaces at the University. Like the Eglinton, the University was also well-known for “reserved-seating”-style roadshows – The Ten Commandments ran in this format for several months.

The University was also applauded for celebrating the spirit of showmanship; patrons seeing the premiere of Apocalypse Now in 1979 were also handed an exclusive programme. Hal Kelly, the editor of the long-running magazine Trash Compactor, was there that night, and has kept the programme throughout the years. It turns out the opening credits to the film had not been completed on time, so the programme was printed in order to give movie-goers an idea of its cast and crew.

As the 1980s approached, movies were costing more and making more money than ever before. With multiplex theatres dominating the industry, the days of the single screen theatres were numbered. By 1985, the future of the University was in doubt. The scummy floors of the Elgin had recently closed down with the promise of seeing a re-birth. No such thing was promised for the University, as Toronto alderman Ron Kanter began appealing to city council to step in and prevent the closure of the theatre, but by September 30, it was lights out -– the land had become too valuable to run as a single movie theatre. Famous Players had planned a 9-screen theatre to be built on the current site of an upscale condominium building at Bloor and Bellair, but it never happened.

This is where the whole tale becomes sordid. Within a year of its closure, the building that less than a year before had housed The University was demolished. This was despite many attempts by citizens and Mayor Art Eggleton to fight for the preservation of the building, which the Ontario Historical Preservation Board denied, claiming the building was “not of significant historical interest.” Despite being demolished, the facade, strangely enough, remained intact, and served as a mirage of sorts for the next decade or so. Walking along Bloor St., you’d expect a grand theatre beyond its facade, but behind the wall was nothing more than a parking lot, the wall fastened to a steel scaffold on the opposite side. As the years went on, the wall faced serious neglect, and became quite an eyesore, with its once magnificent concrete wall corroding and the marquee barely hanging on, ready to snap at any minute. As Richard Rhodes wrote somewhat harshly in the Globe and Mail in 1995: “The result of this taxidermy is a moth-gnawed moose head on a once very notable wall of buildings. Regrettably, I find it hard to see the point in keeping a stuffed trophy of that dead culture looming over the sidewalk.” Ouch.

Some years later, the wall was finally restored, along with that entire block of Bloor St. The former University theatre, where Raiders of the Lost Ark had played endlessly less than twenty years before, had a new tenant: The Pottery Barn. The sad thing is that the flair and luxury of the University would actually blend within Yorkville, and could be a great venue for the Toronto International Film Festival, but no – today, all you’ve got is a facade, marquee intact, while people shopping inside spend their money on expensive kitchenware. And you know what? I bet you ten bucks they don’t even sell popcorn.

In our inaugural article, we take a look back at one of the grandest movie palaces of them all — the Loew’s Yonge St. theatre in Toronto.

In the early days of the movie palace, it didn’t take much to get people into the theatres. The seats were always filled with beaming eyes staring at the latest antics of Mary Pickford or Buster Keaton. Despite jam-packed attendance, theatre managers liked to spruce things up a bit, and give patrons a little more than just a film and a newsreel. How about offering up a prize for grabs?

A Saint-John, New Brunswick newspaper clipping I have from November of 1916, promoting Chaplin’s film Shanghaied, asks: “Boys and girls! Have You Sent Your Chaplin Essays in Yet? If not – Get busy!”

Closer to home, the fabled Loews & Winter Garden theatres at Yonge & Queen often advertised the same thing. Some smart kid won a brand-new train set for writing the best essay on Charles Dickens prior to a performance of “Our Mutual Friend”. Sometimes these contests would even get the whole community involved; Nearly 3000 votes were balloted over three weeks when they set out to find “the most popular shop girl in Toronto.” The winner: 70 year old Mrs. McMillan of New Method Laundry!

In July of 1928, the classrooms must have been buzzing because the Toronto Telegram was advertising that Hal Roach was on the search for the best Our Gang look-a-likes in North America. The lucky winners would be paid $25 and would get to appear in a new Our Gang film directed by Hal’s brother, Jack. Roach, who’d recently signed a distribution deal with the the Loew’s-owned Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, collaborated with the Telegram and held auditions at the Loews Theatre for the next Jean Darling, Farina, Joe Cobb, Mary-Ann Jackson, Harry Spear and Wheezer. It was one of 25 contests held across North America. Once the contest and movies would be complete, Hal Roach would award one of the kids from one of the films with a three month Hollywood contract worth $100 a week. In the pre-Coogan Bill days, I’m sure greedy parents were eager to get their mitts on that cash and got their kids in that lineup.Over the next week, an average of 800 kids per night, dressed as their favourite Our Gang character, would line up the stages of the Loew’s theatre with hopes of Hollywood stardom. On stage, the kids did all their best “look what I can do” routines, while the judges made their selections.

When eight year old Sybil White was announced as Toronto’s “Jean Darling”, she said: “I’m so glad. I’m a singer and a dancer and a reciter and I don’t know what else – and now I’m Jean Darling for Toronto!” The Telegram reported that all the runners-up took their defeat with integrity, although some of those disappointed faces on the first page of the entertainment section tell a different story. It wasn’t the end of the line for them, since the movie, Pie Eetin’ Champeens, would require plenty of extras.

Over the next week, all six winners would grace the stage in full costume prior to a silent Our Gang short entitled Dog Heaven, where a suicidal Pete The Pup wants to hang himself because Joe doesn’t seem to have much time for him anymore because he’s crazy for some gal.

Pie Eetin’ Champeens was filmed in Toronto in late August of 1928. I’m sure the kids all had a fun time, but in the end, nobody from the Toronto production was chosen for a shot at Hollywood stardom. Might be for the best, ’cause as we’ve learned from Kenneth Anger, Hollywood can be a dirty place.

There is something spectacular about these two theatres. Sitting on top of one another, the lower theatre opened on December 13, 1913. In attendance was producer Joseph Schenk, architect Thomas Lamb, and composer Irving Berlin, who introduced a new song. Rising seven stories up, the Winter Garden opened later that winter, on February 16, 1914. Showing “Quality Vaudeville and Select Photo-Plays,” it was indeed the most popular show and movie place in town until the Pantages and the Loews Uptown opened up to the north.

The Winter Garden, which was never outfitted for talking pictures, was closed in late 1928 due to the declining popularity of Vaudeville and for being in such close proximity to the Loew’s Uptown. It’s also been said that the towering seven-storey climb was becoming quite unpopular, and that one could easily see a show with less of a climb at the Pantages Theatre a block north. Once closed, its existence was practically wiped from the streets of Toronto, as the Winter Garden’s main entrance was replaced by small shops, the elevators hidden behind a tapestry, and the grand staircase hidden by a false wall.

Throughout the decades, it would remain untouched. Allan M. House, writing in the magazine Marquee in 1971, visited the interior of the Winter Garden in the late 1960s. What he saw was time having stood still for nearly fifty years. The seats were gone, but the stage had been covered in props and scenery from long-gone productions. One of the silent, hand-cranked projectors was found in the lobby –- the neglected victim of the talkie revolution.

The downstairs theatre remained open after the close of the Winter Garden and moved to an all-movie policy on October 3, 1930, showcasing Joan Crawford — whom Loew’s manager Jules Bernstein found “particularly loathsome”– in Our Blushing Brides, and a “Dogsville Barkie,” Who Killed Rover?. The Loew’s Yonge St. Theatre would reign as one Toronto’s best movie-houses throughout the thirties and forites, showing the premieres of Mutiny On The Bounty and City Lights, the latter proving so popular that the management had to authorize a morning screening on its opening day. However, critics received the film with mixed feelings. One young man would tell the Daily Star that “silent films are for the duds”; his sentiment wasn’t shared by everyone — It would be held over for two weeks.

After serving as a grimy theatre, showing trash-worthy material throughout most of the 60s and 70s, the Yonge St. theatre closed in 1981, when the Ontario Heritage Trust bought the building from Famous Players. Over the next few years, the twin theatres were restored by Mandel Sprachman, the son of noted theatre architect Abe Sprachman, whose firm Kaplan & Sprachman had once commissioned restoration drawings for the Winter Garden back in the mid-1940s. Sprachman’s designs also added 65 000 square feet of new space so that the live theatre that it would now house could open with modernized production facilities in mind. The restoration, without compromising Thomas Lamb’s Heritage-protected designs, also included two large rehearsal halls that also double as performance spaces. As for the Winter Garden, it had served as Toronto’s deserted theatre for long enough. The missing seats, which researchers think were sold to a Canadian Military base somewhere in Ontario, where replaced by restored seats from Chicago’s Biograph Theatre, the very theatre visited by John Dillinger before he was shot by the FBI. Who knows — if you ever see a show at the Winter Garden, you may be sharing the same seat Dillinger used when he saw Manhattan Melodrama back in 1934.

Hey kids. The new home of 32 Elvis Movies should be up and running in no time. Stay tuned!