Cambridge Twin Cinema

dallasmovietheaters on June 26, 2024 at 3:29 pm

Lad Medve and Larry LeBlanc were the first to open a Jerry Lewis Cinema in Canada doing so on April Fool’s weekend of 1972. Sadly, the joke was on the franchisees as Jerry Lewis and Network Cinema Corporation were already well on their way to imploding. With franchise fees of just $17,500 for a single screen and $30,000 for a double, Medve and LeBlanc committed to 19 more Ontario Jerry Lewis locations and would not have been surprised to see that number rise to 100.

In all of Canada, the actual number of opened Jerry Lewis Cinemas peaked at three - here, Mississauga, and Peace River. A fourth in Montreal was constructed but failed to open under the Lewis nameplate. The Cambridge Lewis Twin location launched in the Parkway Shopping Center that began with a Zehr’s Supermarket opening early in 1970 and joined by a short-lived Sayvette Store later that year.

In 1971/2, the Parkway Mall concept was added between those anchors. Multiple Automated Cinemas of Ottawa was the Network Cinema Corp. subsidiary in charge adding some $20,000 of automation equipment for the theaters that could be run with a single push of a button, at least in concept. Two identical 350 seat auditoriums were built here for 700 total sats. The theater opened on March 31, 1972 with “Skin Game” and a double-feature of “With Six, You Get An Egg Roll” and “Big Jake.”

Within months of the Parkway Mall’s launch, both it and the cinema were in for renaming. The Lewis franchise closed briskly in summer and was renamed as the Cambridge Twin Cinemas at its reopening on November 10, 1972. It officially opened at the renamed Cambridge Shoppers Mall which was in use as of October 26, 1972. With both the Parkway Mall and Jerry Lewis signage chiseled off, the theatre ran to the end of its 15-year lease with Premier Theatres leaving it behind on February 22, 1987. On February 27, 1987, Cineplex Odeon took on the venues operating it until the December 12, 1996 showings of “Jingle All the Way” and “Space Jam.” It launched the Cambridge Cinemas 7 the next day.