Bankers Hall Cinemas

Jason Whyte on March 29, 2014 at 3:10 pm

I remember going to this Famous Players location for a visit here on vacation in 1999 and loving it. It was my first visit to the city and I recall navigating through Calgary’s Plus 15 system and wound up here, eventually watching the silly Hugh Grant movie “Mickey Blue Eyes”.

The theater entrance was on the top floor of Bankers Hall, navigated through some escalators. It had a free-standing box office before you entered the cinema.

I watched “Mickey Blue Eyes” in screen #2 and as I walked in I was rather surprised to discover this traditional Famous Players theater featured stadium seating! Immediately this made me think this cinema was a bizarre halfway between a traditional FP build and a Silvercity, which were just becoming popular in Canada at the time.

Obviously due to the design of the place and being on the top floor of the Bankers Hall building gave them reason to have great sight lines between each row. This theater was also part of the late 80’s FP design where each theater had its own name (“Bijou”, “Rialto” etc) and there are still a few of these surviving in Canada.

This was a nice Famous Players location in downtown Calgary and shame to see that it barely survived over a decade. Just wish there were actual pictures of this cinema somewhere.