Parliament Cinema
309 Parliament Street,
Toronto,
ON
M5A 2A8
309 Parliament Street,
Toronto,
ON
M5A 2A8
2 people
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1981 photo added credit Don Dickinson.
Actually… THIS Parliament Cinema never closed in 1979. The fact of the matter was that it became a hugely popular Indian & Pakistani movie house from 1973 that was owned by South Asian Media architect & patriarch, SGP Jafry (on the cusp of celebrating our industry’s 50th year) where major films of the time were with names like Amitabh Bachchan (yep, Aishwariya Rai’s F-In Law). This theatre did in fact continue to go until something like… 1983 or 1984 when our Indian & Pakistani films, then on videotapes essentially killed the businesses of all our movie houses.
Here is a picture of this theatre in its final incarnation as the Parliament Cinema. As such, it should not be confused with an earlier and much larger Parliament Theatre which was once a few blocks away.
This webpage includes a reminiscence of Cabbagetown resident who attended the theatre as a youth when it was the Gay Theatre.
The Bluebell was in operation at least as early as 1925, and probably earlier. “The Storms Below,” a biography of Canadian writer Hugh Garner, quotes a letter from a former childhood neighbor of Garner, who lived in the area in the 1920s, which mentions the matinees at the Bluebell Theatre. Google Books preview.
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.
It was used as a booze can from about ‘86 to '87.
I have a photo I took in 1987 that I will upload when the photo function returns.