Cinema Lumière

8 ½ is advertised on the marquee, but we had only about 6 1/2 in the cans. We didn’t call our theatre manager the Snow Plough for nothing. As the audience was seated, the guys in the delivery van were holding back the rest of the film because the Plough couldn't pay for it. The money had disappeared up his nose. The full house was munching on snacks, unaware of the tap dance going on out by the van - a tap dance like no one had ever seen in any Astaire flick.

Lights dimmed, curtains parted and the projectionist rolled the first reel. We staffers watched through the lobby windows as the Tap Dancer convinced the guy with the cans to hand them over without payment.

We called him the Snow Plough then, but I won't call him that now. Because he introduced a whole population to foreign films and art films - wonderful films that we couldn't see anywhere else at the time.

Cinema Lumière was an old theatre on College Street, right across from Kensington Market in Toronto. It began as a vaudeville house called the Garden Theatre in 1910, then was converted to show motion pictures in '37. In '67 it was a billiard hall. It became the Lumière as the 70s dawned, and it went out with the same decade. In the 80s it was Chang's Theatre, featuring "Taiwanese porn with religious overtones".

By the time I sat in the glass booth out front to sell tickets, the rooftop patio (seen above) - a place where folks could eat and drink before or after a movie - was long gone.

I sold tickets from the glass booth, which you can kind of see in the above pic - left of the front doors. As mentioned, I was often selling tickets for films that weren’t there, like the aforementioned 81/2, which by the way we were able to show in its entirety on the night in question. The Manager always managed to come through.

Thanks to his tap skills and charm I, along with others, saw many good films. In my case I saw them many times over, for free. A favourite was Violette Nozière (1978), also titled Violette, directed by Claude Chabrol and starring the always enchanting Isabelle Huppert. Based on a true story, this is a gorgeous retelling of a sordid tale. Isabelle is Violette; her charming sidekick is played by Lisa Langlois, a fellow Canadian; also starring is Jean-François Garreaude.

I loved Amarcord, a Fellini flick that's a bildungsroman (coming of age) movie. When I saw it at the Lumière I had a few years prior been going through my own bildungsroman and was now firmly rooted in my kunstleroman (development of an artist).

In keeping with my kunstleroman, after the show each night I skipped across the road to the tobacconist's shop to buy expensive cigarettes: hot pink Chaliapines with shiny gold filters. One thing about the Manager, he always paid his staff.

Then I'd hop on the 506 streetcar to the Morrissey Tavern for a beer with the regulars. The Morrissey was a great old tavern on Yonge Street. It was more like a beer hall, cavernous and delightfully retro with its black and white tiled floor and long, long bar. At a corner table by the front window I sat listening to my old war vet pals with their medals and their jowls as they told stories over glasses of affordable brew. They were very much amused by my pink smokes.

The Morrissey is gone. And Cinema Lumiere is gone. Little tells us that it was ever there. The marquee is a hint if you look past its garish signage. Inside, on a concrete floor covering the once raked theatre floor with its velvet seats, are hammers, nails, mops, paint for your patio, varnish for your whatever.

The projectionist door is still there: that's it on the left, painted pink with graffiti artlessly covering it. It led up to the small projection booth with its 35mm projectors that awaited the reels that the Manager was dancing for.

RIP Cinema Lumiere. We had some good times in the dark.

Thanks for reading!