The Odeon closed in February of 1990, a few months after a five screen Cineplex-Odeon multiplex opened in Stone Road Mall. A ten screen Galaxy multiplex opened in 2004 and the Stone Road mall cinemas closed in 2005. As of this writing (Sept. 2012), a second eight screen Galaxy theatre is currently under construction.
So bizarre. The older Facebook page had this posted today (July 17th):
“The Humber Cinema is no longer operated by the Kingsway Theatre – the owner(landlord) – Claude Bitton – of the Humber has hijacked our business and locked us out of the building.The Humber Cinema was renovated by the Kingsway Theatre and paid for by our corporation.”
That closure date is incorrect. I recently ran across an ad for a double bill of THE PROUD RIDER and OUTLAW RIDERS from 1972, so the closure was sometime after that.
The closure date is incorrect. The Rio shuttered sometime during the spring of 1991. The last time I walked by the theatre when it was in operation, they were showing THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS and DANCES WITH WOLVES, the only time I had ever known the Rio to run less than four movies at once.
You drive east out of Guelph along Highway 7, then south on the Jones Baseline to get to the Mustang Drive-In Theatre, a big outdoor screen in the Township of Guelph-Eramosa that has been entertaining area residents for decades.
But it wasn’t always called the Mustang.
Last week’s mystery photo, an old Guelph Mercury image, was snapped in 1962 when it was still known as the JEM Drive-In. There’s a newer fence today and the sign, of course, is different, but the view from the entrance really hasn’t changed a lot.
Glen Brydges wrote to say he remembers going to the JEM as a boy.
“Back in the early ’60s my mother worked in the confectionary stand for the Jem Drive-In. My father would take us there to wait for her at times.
“We would receive a colouring book and crayons from the booth at the entrance to keep us entertained while waiting for the movie to start. We spent time also playing on the swings in front of the giant screen. The only movie I can remember watching was Jason and the Argonauts. Simpler times.â€
John Tonin also went to the JEM as a young boy â€" and now enjoys taking his own children to the Mustang.
“When I’d go with my parents, I’d always fall asleep in the back seat,†he writes.
When he was a teenager, things changed.
“In the late ’60s and early ’70s a whole gang us used to go to the all-nighters on summer long weekends. We weren’t old enough to drive, so we’d walk from the Victoria/Grange area. When we finally got there, we’d sneak in through a small field just past the JEM sign.
“That changed once we got our driver’s licences. There were too many of us in the car so, inevitably, someone always ended up in the trunk and got in for free. (Back in the days when trunks could hold half your belongings!)â€
The name JEM, it turns out, comes from the family name of Charles (Chuck) Jemmett, who had the drive-in built in 1959, about the same time that the old Guelph Drive-In at Speedvale Avenue and Stevenson Street was torn down.
Jemmett’s son Cliff, says his father was previously a CN express agent based in New Liskeard, Ont., but moved his family to Guelph to launch the JEM Drive-In. He had no movie theatre experience, but got some advice from a drive-in operator he knew in New Liskeard.
As teenagers, Cliff and his brothers helped out at the drive-in.
“We were the guys who got to clean up the papers and the mess after the show and keep people from sneaking in,†recalls Cliff, who operates The Pet Pantry at 485 Silvercreek Parkway N., Guelph.
Sometime in the late 1960s, Charles Jemmett sold the JEM Drive-In to Premier Operating Corp. of Toronto and retired. Premier renamed it the Mustang and later sold it to Sunset Cinema Inc., which continues to operate it today.
The Jones Baseline â€" the road on which the Mustang is located â€" is of historical interest. It follows a line surveyor Augustus Jones mapped in 1792 while hiking through the wilderness from Burlington Bay at the west end of Lake Ontario to the Conestogo River near today’s village of Arthur.
Jones was a fascinating character who also had the job of surveying the land granted by the British Government to the Six Nations, six miles on either side of the Grand River, following the American War of Independence. A summary of his life appears in the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, available online at www.biographi.ca It’s also told in an article, Augustus Jones and the Jones Baseline, by Steve Thorning, which appears in Volume 8 of the annual reports of the Wellington County Historical Society.
For the last years of its life, this theatre operated as a Cantonese language venue under different names. It was known as The Mandarin when it finally closed in the fall of 1994, a victim of disinterested local audiences and rampant video piracy in Chinatown stores (The Far East Theatre, located almost diagonally across the street similarly faltered and closed up for good in 1999). Double features were the order of the day (the Jet Li vehicle THE BODYGUARD FROM BEIJING and A TASTE OF KILLING AND ROMANCE were the final program, and the posters for the movies stayed up for over a year after the theatre was shuttered).
The auditorium was located on the second floor of the building and was designed in a steep, stadium seat style with a balcony. The theatre was in somewhat of a state of disrepair (I attended a double feature there in the spring of 1994 during a downpour and there was a pronounced leak in the roof in the balcony section), but was pleasantly retro. The lobby was on the main floor and that is the only section of the building still currently in use (by a low grade Chinese retail store). It is not operating as a bank, as stated at the top. In the picture Brian Morton linked to, The Mandarin can be seen next door to the bank, with the Mandarin marquee visible on the left side of the picture. What Brian stated about the division of the building happened before my time, though I don’t remember there being anything more than the snack bar on the main floor when I patronized the place in 1993/94.
That closure date is incorrect. The Esquire closed its doors in 1974. For the last few years of its existence, it ran third run double features and was only open during the summer. The building now houses a restaurant.
Here is an entry about the theatre from the Archives of Ontario: View link
Article on the behind-the-scenes financial issues that brought about the theatre’s demise:
http://www.thegridto.com/culture/film/why-the-toronto-underground-cinema-really-closed/
Address: 166 High St, Southampton, Ontario N0H 2L0, Canada
There were only two screens at the Odeon (it was twinned in 1978), not three as listed above.
The re-opening as the Credit Cinema took place on June 10th, 1971 with a double feature of HOW TO SUCCEED WITH SEX and NAKED AND FREE.
The above listing should be adjusted to reflect that there are now four screens operating at the Humber.
The theatre’s website is here: http://www.humbercinemas.com/
The Odeon closed in February of 1990, a few months after a five screen Cineplex-Odeon multiplex opened in Stone Road Mall. A ten screen Galaxy multiplex opened in 2004 and the Stone Road mall cinemas closed in 2005. As of this writing (Sept. 2012), a second eight screen Galaxy theatre is currently under construction.
Article on the theatre’s forthcoming closure in September: http://tinyurl.com/8e4sjn9
Another article on the revamped theatre, which is now scheduled to re-open on Aug. 24/12: http://tinyurl.com/crqscjd
The website for the new incarnation of the theatre is located here: http://www.projectionbooth.ca/#!PB%20Metro%20Home/cee5
Renovations and a format change are underway with the theatre re-opening on Aug. 17th, 2012:
http://tinyurl.com/bshcwxd
More info at bottom of page. Sounds ugly: http://www.blogto.com/deadpool/2012/07/humber_cinema_likely_back_in_the_deadpool/
So bizarre. The older Facebook page had this posted today (July 17th): “The Humber Cinema is no longer operated by the Kingsway Theatre – the owner(landlord) – Claude Bitton – of the Humber has hijacked our business and locked us out of the building.The Humber Cinema was renovated by the Kingsway Theatre and paid for by our corporation.”
As of July 14th. 2012, the Humber is now closed again. No details yet as to why.
A 2009 article on the Gerrard:
View link
And a 2011 one:
View link
A two part 2006 documentary on the history of the Bloor —
Part 1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-tL7P2pHDQ
Part 2:
View link
That closure date is incorrect. I recently ran across an ad for a double bill of THE PROUD RIDER and OUTLAW RIDERS from 1972, so the closure was sometime after that.
The closure date is incorrect. The Rio shuttered sometime during the spring of 1991. The last time I walked by the theatre when it was in operation, they were showing THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS and DANCES WITH WOLVES, the only time I had ever known the Rio to run less than four movies at once.
An article on the history of the Mustang, which started life as the JEM Drive-In, from the Kitchener Waterloo Record, March 12, 2010
http://news.therecord.com/article/683433
Mustang got started as the JEM Drive-In
By Jon Fear, Record staff
You drive east out of Guelph along Highway 7, then south on the Jones Baseline to get to the Mustang Drive-In Theatre, a big outdoor screen in the Township of Guelph-Eramosa that has been entertaining area residents for decades.
But it wasn’t always called the Mustang.
Last week’s mystery photo, an old Guelph Mercury image, was snapped in 1962 when it was still known as the JEM Drive-In. There’s a newer fence today and the sign, of course, is different, but the view from the entrance really hasn’t changed a lot.
Glen Brydges wrote to say he remembers going to the JEM as a boy.
“Back in the early ’60s my mother worked in the confectionary stand for the Jem Drive-In. My father would take us there to wait for her at times.
“We would receive a colouring book and crayons from the booth at the entrance to keep us entertained while waiting for the movie to start. We spent time also playing on the swings in front of the giant screen. The only movie I can remember watching was Jason and the Argonauts. Simpler times.â€
John Tonin also went to the JEM as a young boy â€" and now enjoys taking his own children to the Mustang.
“When I’d go with my parents, I’d always fall asleep in the back seat,†he writes.
When he was a teenager, things changed.
“In the late ’60s and early ’70s a whole gang us used to go to the all-nighters on summer long weekends. We weren’t old enough to drive, so we’d walk from the Victoria/Grange area. When we finally got there, we’d sneak in through a small field just past the JEM sign.
“That changed once we got our driver’s licences. There were too many of us in the car so, inevitably, someone always ended up in the trunk and got in for free. (Back in the days when trunks could hold half your belongings!)â€
The name JEM, it turns out, comes from the family name of Charles (Chuck) Jemmett, who had the drive-in built in 1959, about the same time that the old Guelph Drive-In at Speedvale Avenue and Stevenson Street was torn down.
Jemmett’s son Cliff, says his father was previously a CN express agent based in New Liskeard, Ont., but moved his family to Guelph to launch the JEM Drive-In. He had no movie theatre experience, but got some advice from a drive-in operator he knew in New Liskeard.
As teenagers, Cliff and his brothers helped out at the drive-in.
“We were the guys who got to clean up the papers and the mess after the show and keep people from sneaking in,†recalls Cliff, who operates The Pet Pantry at 485 Silvercreek Parkway N., Guelph.
Sometime in the late 1960s, Charles Jemmett sold the JEM Drive-In to Premier Operating Corp. of Toronto and retired. Premier renamed it the Mustang and later sold it to Sunset Cinema Inc., which continues to operate it today.
The Jones Baseline â€" the road on which the Mustang is located â€" is of historical interest. It follows a line surveyor Augustus Jones mapped in 1792 while hiking through the wilderness from Burlington Bay at the west end of Lake Ontario to the Conestogo River near today’s village of Arthur.
Jones was a fascinating character who also had the job of surveying the land granted by the British Government to the Six Nations, six miles on either side of the Grand River, following the American War of Independence. A summary of his life appears in the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, available online at www.biographi.ca It’s also told in an article, Augustus Jones and the Jones Baseline, by Steve Thorning, which appears in Volume 8 of the annual reports of the Wellington County Historical Society.
This drive-in can be seen in the horror film BLOOD RAGE (aka NIGHTMARE AT SHADOW WOODS), produced in 1983.
For the last years of its life, this theatre operated as a Cantonese language venue under different names. It was known as The Mandarin when it finally closed in the fall of 1994, a victim of disinterested local audiences and rampant video piracy in Chinatown stores (The Far East Theatre, located almost diagonally across the street similarly faltered and closed up for good in 1999). Double features were the order of the day (the Jet Li vehicle THE BODYGUARD FROM BEIJING and A TASTE OF KILLING AND ROMANCE were the final program, and the posters for the movies stayed up for over a year after the theatre was shuttered).
The auditorium was located on the second floor of the building and was designed in a steep, stadium seat style with a balcony. The theatre was in somewhat of a state of disrepair (I attended a double feature there in the spring of 1994 during a downpour and there was a pronounced leak in the roof in the balcony section), but was pleasantly retro. The lobby was on the main floor and that is the only section of the building still currently in use (by a low grade Chinese retail store). It is not operating as a bank, as stated at the top. In the picture Brian Morton linked to, The Mandarin can be seen next door to the bank, with the Mandarin marquee visible on the left side of the picture. What Brian stated about the division of the building happened before my time, though I don’t remember there being anything more than the snack bar on the main floor when I patronized the place in 1993/94.
That closure date is incorrect. The Esquire closed its doors in 1974. For the last few years of its existence, it ran third run double features and was only open during the summer. The building now houses a restaurant.
Here is an entry about the theatre from the Archives of Ontario:
View link