The Capitol Theatre’s legacy wall of movie memories

By Kenneth Pastushyn

The silver palace. The movie house. The picture show.

These are some of the superlatives Windsor’s poet laureate emeritus Marty Gervais used when he read aloud his ode, “The Best of Times at Capitol Theatre” during the 100th anniversary legacy celebration.

The original 100th anniversary was Dec. 30, 2020, and was postponed due to the pandemic until Feb. 18, 2023, for Family Day weekend.

One of the events was the unveiling of a digital wall which included photos of the façade of the Capitol Theatre during its 100-year history as well as Windsor Star newspaper ads of the movies shown there. Moviegoers from the past were encouraged to share their memories online or on the back of postcards to be used for the Capitol Theatre’s “Project Memories” promotion.

“There were moments when I was working in the newsroom and slipping out playing hooky at the Capitol Theatre,” Gervais confessed during the unveiling. He would walk from The Star’s downtown offices on Ferry Street a few blocks to the Capitol on University Avenue. “I came in to watch the matinee and I’d find other reporters here.”

Gervais’ memories were about sitting in a dark auditorium with empty seats all around him as he enjoyed hot dogs slathered in mustard, Coca-Cola and bags of hot, buttered popcorn while relaxing for a couple of hours after a hectic news day.

Maureen Gaunt also had memories of how she popped the popcorn backstage, ran it up the aisles during intermission and buttered it at the “candy bar” where one or two adults sold the goodies. “The rest of us were teenagers and we thoroughly enjoyed our jobs,” wrote Gaunt, whose memories were included in scrapbook-form and on display in the lobby. “After all, we were making $1.10 an hour.”

That’s more than what minimum wage was in Ontario when Gaunt started her job at the Capitol in 1967, a time when Neil Simon’s record-breaking romantic comedy Barefoot in the Park starring Robert Redford and Jane Fonda was being shown there.

A year later, The Planet of the Apes starring Charlton Heston was shown at the Capitol and Rob Lamoureux wrote about his memories standing in line for tickets as he did for another Charlton Heston movie, The Ten Commandments.

“It’s 1957 and the movie theatre is the best place to go – and the Capitol Theatre was the best place in town with pillars on both sides of the auditorium that seemed to reach the sky,” wrote Lamoureux of his memories as a five-year-old boy. His dad also worked there, and his uncle was the manager. “So here I was in this, what seemed like a Colosseum to me, with everything except the hungry lions.”

That along with Charlton Heston and Stephen Boyd’s chariots from the 1959 epic Ben-Hur, which was billed as one of the greatest movies of all time when it came back to Windsor in 1961.

Other well-known classics shown at the Capitol were Gone with The Wind, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, The Longest Day, The Exorcist, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Singin’ in The Rain.

“Going to musical matinees with sister, brother and parents…these family outings were so much fun and very special memories,” wrote Julia Lewis Greer, another moviegoer.

Date nights were also fun, and Clifford Armstrong wrote about marrying his wife in 1958 and about how many of their evenings were spent watching movies together at the Capitol.

Armstrong started dating his “gal” in 1949, a time when the musical Give My Regards to Broadway starring Dan Dailey and Nancy Guild was showing at the Capitol as was The Sand of Iwo Jima starring John Wayne.

“While growing up in the 1940s, Saturday afternoons were spent going downtown to the movie theatres,” wrote Armstrong, when admission was 25 to 50 cents. “Most afternoons were at the Capitol Theatre, three to three-and-a-half hours at a double feature along with a news clip and a cartoon.”