Cineplex Odeon Victoria

I *almost* went to a movie here in October 2004, but the timing was off. The theatre has a wonderful vertical marquee with the Odeon name in lights, making it quite visible from a distance. The only other movie theatre we spotted was almost indistinguishable from the office building in whose basement it was located. The Odeon is very much the art deco 1940s flavor of theatre with a separate box office for issuing tickets. Wish I took a photo of this.

A fine theater in downtown Victoria, BC, that is still going along strong thanks to good programming and a good fanbase, and is surviving despite yet another moronic Famous Players Silvercity out of town.

I never saw a film in the theater's original glory, having grown up in the 80's and therefore having no choice but to see films in the triplexed theater (although if memory serves, I've been told that the theater was duplexed in the 70's before the downstairs cinema was divided). The upstairs theater was still a fine place to see film, with Dolby SR and a large common height wide-screen. Sadly, the downstairs cinemas were a victim of the time and were given smaller top-masking screens and mono sound (although there were surround speakers there, which never were used). DTS was installed into the upstairs #1 around 1994. Also, the whole theater ran on 6000ft changeover reels prior to the 1997 renovation, so it required a unioned projectionist on duty who needed timing and precision to change every reel on cue. (I also remember the theater used automation so just in case the projectionist missed the changeover, the film would just stop instead of the audience watching the film tail out.) Surprisingly, the new platter-deck systems were put into operation in early 1996 even while the older three screens ran.

The 7-screen renovation was finally complete around March, 1997. "Sling Blade", "Ridicule", "Lost Highway" and "Dante's Peak" were the first films to show on the newer theaters, each seating around 240. DTS and Dolby SR were installed into all four new theaters, each also boasting large, curved wide-screens. Projection on these newer theaters are razor-sharp, even to this day. The old triplex still ran as it was before, old curtains and seats and all, but was upgraded with new seats and curtains around fall, 1997 (they closed those theaters while the newer four screens were still open). The old upstairs theater is now cinema #5 and has a seat count just over 400. Ironically, theater #2 has more seats than the newer theaters with about 280, so you'll sometimes see a newer film open on there first if cinema #5 is busy. And most of the older films get to cinema #1 (210 seats), which is small and cramped, although around 1999 DTS systems were also installed into these smaller old cinemas.

The Odeon 7 frequently picks up more foreign and independent films than its competitor, Famous Players Capitol 6, across the street. The Odeon normally books films from 20th Century Fox, Columbia, Universal and Alliance Atlantis (because of that, the Capitol normally gets all Disney, Warner and Paramount product), but since the largest cinema at Capitol (#2) has more seats (530), sometimes they get booking first.

As of 2004, The Odeon is the closest anyone is going to get to the grandeur of old-fashioned moviegoing in Victoria.

Jason Whyte, efilmcritic.com

Here is the website for this theater.

This is a recent photo of the Cineplex Odeon Victoria.

Here is a nice photostream on Cinematour. I also have some photos of the Odeon, my favorite cinema in Victoria, to add to this site soon.

A night view of the Odeon is here.

1984 Photo

The Canadian Odeon duplex theatre was converted to a triplex in fall 1980 when the balconies of the two theatres were converted into a theatre. Two new projection booths were built downstairs (at the expense of several seats) and state of the art projection and Dolby sound was installed in all 3 theatres. I was working there at the time.