Coronet Theatre

After Odeon dropped it as a porn cinema it went through several changes in ownership. It was real bad by the late 70’s, entire rows of seats were missing or just laying willy-nilly on the ground. Soon after it closed for a short period and someone dumped some money into it. They actually had Polaroid photos taped up in the box office showing how nice it was inside now (photos of the repaired/refurbished seats, new screen, carpets, curtains with nice lighting, snack bar etc.). It was tacky but I guess it had developed a bad reputation & they wanted to break it. I was in a few times after the reno. (i.e. Frankenstein) and I noticed that there were no seats left in the balcony. Presumably they took what they needed from up there to fix the seats on the main level, maybe sold the rest off but the balcony was closed off and never used again.

I saw Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein in 3D at the Coronet too, about 1981! It was on a triple bill with Slap Shot and The Fog. The picture on the screen for Frankenstein was pretty small compared to The Fog & Slap Shot but the 3D sure did work good! The Coronet was my favorate grindhouse cinema in the late 70’s/early 80’s after they dropped their porn programme around ‘77 or '78. The Rio was a smelly, moldy smelling dump but the Biltmore was OK except it had some pretty dodgy charactors in there sometimes.
Good memories as a stupid, fearless teenager who loved movies.

Rock ‘n’ roll and cult film double bills on Saturday nights are what I recall seeing at the Coronet in the late ‘70s/early '80s. They seemed to have a devil may care attitude about the Ontario Film Censor Board, bringing in prints of excessive films that CLEARLY could not have undergone the scrutiny of the Ontario Film Censor Board. I vividly recall watching the betry gory 'Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein’ in 3-D while tripping….

The latest article at 32 Elvis Movies takes a look back at some of the cinemas like the Coronet that lined the south end of Yonge St. in the 1970s.

I should have said late 1950s.
I have been told that “The Savoy” changed name to “Coronet” in 1963

Another photo from the front.

This is the Cinema I saw “Smokey and the Bandit” in.

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