(This is a video capture from an unfinished movie I worked on in the early 1990s.)
In my teenaged years, when I first really became interested in cinema, I would go to our town’s library on Friday afternoons to read the Entertainment section of that day’s Toronto Star. In between the reviews of new films, there would be listings of films shown around the city. Every week I would be struck by the lineup of classic movies being offered at this venue, tantalizingly called The Nostalgic Cinema. I had vowed that whenever I moved to Toronto, this would be on the list of things to explore. A few years later, once I had realized my ambitions to move to Toronto for film school, I fulfilled that dream.
I had traveled a labourious but rewarding path to get into school: chiefly, by going back to high school as a young adult to upgrade, where I had one of my most trailblazing years, followed by the melancholy feeling of having to cut loose all or most of the new life I had made- a fact I never truly got over for some time. Just after Labour Day, I had moved into my residence on campus, but for whatever reason had gone back to my birthplace for the weekend. However, Sunday morning I was on the 403 back to Toronto. Despite the bittersweet emotions that pervaded the times, that drive to Toronto saw me filled with sudden vigour, euphoria, and excitement for my new chapter in life. On this day, I decided to give a little present to myself by finally checking out The Nostalgic Cinema in person, rather than just living vicariously through their Friday listings. You could say that within the span of a few days, I was realizing more than one dream.
Three days earlier, I had read in the listings of Now Magazine (found on campus) that they were showing five films on the Sunday, and decided that this would be a better introduction than any. (I should add, this was back in the days when I could see more than one or two films in one day without guilt, or thoughts that I should be doing something else.)
I arrived in the big city at lunch hour, just time enough to drop off whatever stuff I had brought to residence and to make it back down to the first film at The Nostalgic. It was a tiny cinema in the second floor of The Kingsway Cinema at Bloor and Royal York, which had its own entrance to the left of the building. On that very first day I bought a membership card, which still saved me money if I had paid regular admission prices for the five films.
The afternoon opened with The Penalty, a 1920 crime melodrama starring Lon Chaney Sr. playing a gangster without legs, followed by a nifty, forgotten supernatural crime thriller, Hole in the Wall (1929), starring pre-Little Caesar Edward G. Robinson. Then came the 1929 version of Mysterious Island, with scenes both silent and with sound. Apparently unseen in Toronto for decades, this ancestor of Close Encounters and The Abyss was great fun. (I would soon write an essay on the film for my production class.) Then the evening came with Murders in the Zoo (1933) and Dr. X (1932), both with Lionel Atwill.
In between the day’s screenings, one could mosey from the 100-seat screening room across the hall to the library room and pore over vintage literature on cinema (although with the brevity of breaks, I don’t know how one could have perused any of it). Or, anyone in for the long haul might have had just enough time to get a microwaved sub from Becker’s across the street, or to go grab a cigarette. A cute little brunette in a fedora brought up some soda and popcorn for sale from The Kingsway (at prices curiously lower than what they were selling for downstairs). A guy in a LOUD plaid suit jacket (who I swear was there every time I was) would look over the old lobby cards in the hall. Being in this place felt like a scene torn from a Woody Allen screenplay- it was its own world separated from the outside. In this little dwelling, the literature of the 20th century was being upheld. I knew I had found my people. Seldom have I seen a more eclectic crowd of moviegoers than during any night here: real people, strangers all, united by a shared love of celluloid from the past.
One must remember that this was back in the day when there were still glaring absences of classic film titles on home video, and much of what The Nostalgic offered wasn’t readily available to see on VHS or the late show. Each eight-week schedule was a treasure trove of little gems from cinema’s golden age: Universal horror films, vehicles with your favourite comedy teams, silent classics you could only read about, film noir, westerns, romance, you name it. They would show two films a night, and also ran a Sunday afternoon program. (On Thursday nights you could stay to see the second film for free.)
Sadly, after too many moves, I had lost whatever schedules I had acquired from them (a four-page flyer on newsprint, with a screening grid on one page, and write-ups on each film in the center spread), and they were always a joy to read. (For instance, in a capsule review, the editor would elaborate on a bit player who makes a token appearance in that particular film.)
After those movies ended that Sunday night, I chatted briefly with The Nostalgic’s owner and projectionist, Dave Eustace, who also recommended the Louise Brooks film, Beggars of Life, coming up on that Tuesday, as I had enquired about it. Here is more evidence of how much The Nostalgic meant to cinephiles- it provided the chance to see films that one could only read about. Indeed, until then, my only familiarity with the legendary Louise Brooks was through print. True to form, I trucked down there that Tuesday night to see it. (To date, it remains my favourite of her films, and my bias is likely influenced by having seen it first… and in a cinema.)
For the rest of the school year, I would make my treks to the west end to see films: Laurel and Hardy movies, The Old Dark House (on Halloween night!), Buster Keaton and Harry Langdon silents (among their stellar program of comedy films just before Christmas), and Freaks, just to name a few. Typically, I would misplace my dog-eared membership card, yet thankfully they would remember me as enough of a regular to let me in with a member’s admission price. And as far as I can remember, the magical evenings would end with a vintage slide saying “Good night” being projected, as big band music purred from the speakers. My final screening at The Nostalgic was in the following spring – the 1923 version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame. (Lon Chaney Sr. bookended my viewings at the cinema!)
A typical night at The Nostalgic was one of joy. The cinema was a little time capsule from which one could sequester themselves from the modern world for a couple of hours to revel in a piece of history that one could share with surrogate companions in a screening room. After being out of the city for a few years, I moved back to Toronto in the 1993-94 school year for college, and would resume attending the repertory cinemas, only to find out that The Nostalgic had closed in the spring of 1994. Sadly, its owner, Dave Eustace, had to turn off the projector permanently due to health reasons. (He passed away in 2003.) For years after, when I came out from a movie at The Kingsway, I would sit with a coffee on the Second Cup on the corner and reminisce about the little cinema above it.
I was at a screening at The Kingsway shortly after The Nostalgic had closed. I went upstairs to the washroom (shared by both venues) and sauntered up to the doorway that led to the former palace of wisdom. Peering through the window, I could see across the hall into a former darkened room which now had glaring light resonating from Bloor Street. The walls were stripped of memorabilia and the projection system was half-destroyed. However, on the window in the Bloor St. entrance to the former cinema, something rather eerily remained for a few years. It was a laminated paper with a clock design printed on it, with two plastic hands that one manipulated to show a designated time. The writing above the clock said, “The next screening will be at”
A rather fitting last shot, really.
Seeing that clock face for years later invited the idea that maybe they would be back some day, but as we know, sequels only happen in the movies, and even then, they’re often haphazard in reliving a magic moment. Perhaps The Nostalgic Story is emblematic of life in the ensuing years, as I’ve experienced death, disappointment, regrets… all aspects of the life cycle, but of an epic that doesn’t necessary end on a crescendo like the larger-than-life stories we flock to see on a big screen.
But more to the point, the Webster’s definition of nostalgia is a longing for the past, and that too plays into my life, as I’ve spent many of my years foolishly trying to recreate past glories until I was finally able to accept that the past is gone and move on. But The Nostalgic wasn’t so much longing, as preserving and celebrating pieces of our past. It too has became part of our collective past. Like the films it celebrated every night, The Nostalgic Cinema is a piece of culture that would have an even greater uphill battle trying to sustain itself in today’s climate (for reasons better left to another post), but rather than lament that sorry reality, we can rejoice in what it stood for. Isn’t that why we see old movies, anyway?
Updated from an article originally published in ESR #3, Fall 2001.