Abstract
On the night of February 10, 1936, the opening of the Palace Theatre in Timmins, Ontario, attracted 1300 patrons, which was reported to be the largest single gathering in the region. The Palace Theatre was an impressive structure with 1248 seats and an elaborate design that rivalled movie palaces in major Canadian cities. This movie palace was one of many theatres built by Leo Mascioli, who had theatres throughout the resource communities of Northeastern Ontario. Mascioli’s theatres brought what was considered wholesome entertainment to the remote communities of the region. In Timmins, starting in the 1920s, film exhibition transformed the leisure culture in the town from a male-dominated homosocial culture to one that included women and children (Forestell, Bachelors, Boarding Houses and Blind Pigs: Gender Construction in a Multiethnic Mining Camp, 1909–1920. In F. Iacovetta, P. Draper, & R. Ventresca (Eds.), A Nation of Immigrants, Women, Workers and Communities in Canadian History, 1840s–1960s. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press, 1998). The entertainment options in Timmins originally revolved around illegal drinking establishments known as ‘blind pigs’, billiard halls, and brothels. By the 1930s, theatres replaced these other forms of amusement, and Timmins joined the modern entertainment industry with vertically integrated theatres that played the latest films from Hollywood. Shortly after the opening of the Palace Theatre, Mascioli signed a deal with the national chain in Canada, Paramount-controlled Famous Players Canadian Corporation. This chapter explores the evolution of movie-going in Timmins through an analysis of the theatres’ financial and programming records, newspaper reports, and interviews with the local population.
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Notes
- 1.
For a discussion of movie palaces in Canada’s three largest cities, see Moore (2004).
- 2.
- 3.
Greig Dymond donated the ledger books for this project. Greig’s brother, David Dymond, salvaged these books from the Victory Theatre in Timmins in the 1980s when he was the manager of the theatre. This author would like to thank David Dymond for his dedication to the history of film exhibition in Canada.
- 4.
In the summer of 2015, I conducted 35 interviews with the Timmins population including former employees of the theatres and members of the Mascioli family. Interview subjects were given anonymity.
- 5.
I am relying on population figures published in the Porcupine Advance. For these figures, see ‘Timmins Population 3,839’, The Porcupine Advance, (16 January1922), p. 7. ‘Timmins Population Down Over 4,000 From Last Year’, The Porcupine Advance, (21 October 1943), second section p. 1. The population in Timmins hit a peak in 1941 and in the following years began to decline.
- 6.
The original theatre plan for the Bay Theatre Plan from November 1936 can be found at the Ontario Archives in the RG series 56–10 container B308194.
- 7.
Famous Players had theatres in the larger communities of Sudbury and North Bay but none in the cluster of resource towns around Timmins.
- 8.
Records demonstrate that Famous Players Canadian Corporation (FPCC ) filed plans to build a theatre in Timmins in October 1936, six months after the Palace Theatre opened.
- 9.
This assertion by the interview subject is backed up by analysis of the theatre books from the 1930s, which demonstrate that feature films were shown well past the original release dates in Timmins.
- 10.
The original theatre plans for the Granada Theatre from October 1936, can be found at the Ontario archives RG series 56–10 container B308194.
- 11.
I am referencing a Contract agreement between Famous Players, Hanson Theatres, and Timmins Theatres dated January 30, 1937, from the Leo and Antonio Mascioli file, pages 536–546, RG series 117–A-3. Volume/box number : 642. File number : 2835, located at Library and Archives Canada.
- 12.
In 1930, a commission was appointed by the prime minister of Canada to investigate the film exhibition industry in Canada, led by Peter White. White concluded in his report that a combine did exist in Canada between the American distributors, regal films, and Famous Players since 1926. In 1932, a case regarding the combine was brought in front of the Ontario Supreme Court, which exonerated the companies as the business practices were not illegal under Canadian law and they did not have a negative effect on consumers as ticket prices did not increase during the years of the combine. See Seiler, 2016 for more details.
- 13.
I am referencing a letter from Timmins Theatres from 1938, from the Palace Theatre File, RG series 56–9 container B247531, located at the Ontario Archives.
- 14.
I am referencing an Accountant Report dated July 18, 1940, from the Leo and Antonio Mascioli file, pages 256–257, RG series 117–A-3. Volume/box number : 642. File number : 2835, located at Library and Archives Canada.
- 15.
These figures represent a list of all the distributors for each feature film from the two original booking ledgers. Also, note that the name Lasky disappears from the record book in March 1932, and Paramount was first listed in January 1932. The disappearance of Lasky and appearance of Paramount seems to reflect the 1930 name change of Paramount Famous Lasky Corp. to Paramount Publix Corp. See ‘Visits to the Great Studios: A Personally Conducted Tour of the Paramount Lot’ (1930), The New Movie Magazine, vol. 2. no. 4, October, pp. 86–89.
- 16.
For more information on film censorship laws in Ontario, see Véronneau (2013).
- 17.
Nancy Forestell (1998: 267) notes that in the early days of the town the first Empire Theatre would have late-night programming on Saturday nights because miners did not usually work on Sundays.
- 18.
For more information on the legality of burlesque shows in Ontario, see Campbell (2000).
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Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the people of Timmins and the members of the Mascioli family who spoke with me for this project. I would also like to thank Karina Douglas from the Timmins Library and Karen Bachmann from the Timmins Museum, who both provided invaluable research assistance. Most importantly, I would like to thank Greig Dymond for allowing me to use his brother David’s collection. This research was made possible through the Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarships (CGS) Doctoral Scholarship Award from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada as well as Research and Travel Awards from the Faculty of Graduate studies at York University.
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Whitehead, J.L. (2018). The Business of ‘Wholesome Entertainment’: The Mascioli Film Circuit of Northeastern Ontario. In: Treveri Gennari, D., Hipkins, D., O'Rawe, C. (eds) Rural Cinema Exhibition and Audiences in a Global Context. Global Cinema. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-66344-9_4
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