Fox Cabaret
2321 Main Street,
Vancouver,
BC
V5T 3C9
2321 Main Street,
Vancouver,
BC
V5T 3C9
3 people
favorited this theater
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Reopened as Fox on August 10th, 1983.
On the subject of Vancouver porn…for many years the Venus on Main Street and Golden Kitten on Granville ran all-day X-rated fare in the smelliest, funkiest cinemas on the West Coast. A very freaky situation if you didn’t know how badly those two places reeked. Towards the end, the Venus essentially became a crackhouse in which the dirty movies still ran but the customers' main concern was having a safe, dry place in which to smoke their rocks.
The Fox/Savoy ran porn films back in the 1980s and midnight cult films. Only thing was, the porn movies were all from the USA, so they had to delete the really explicit footage before they ran it, then splice the deleted footage back before putting it back into the can and sending it away. Of course, that was when they actually shot adult movies on film rather than video. Do you hear those news reports about “adult film actress Stormy Daniels”? As I said, the adult industry stopped using film years ago, and I can’t remember the last time anyone called a porn performer an “actress.”
Website: http://www.foxcabaret.com/
The old projection room has been fitted out as a cocktail and snack bar.
Also, if anyone is interested in reading about the pre-history of the Fox theater, when it was the Savoy theater — I’ve written an 8 page essay about it, which appeared in the 27th issue of Cinema Sewer magazine.
Yes, I do know what happened to the prints at the FOX, Markus99. Under the cover of darkness, they were illegally disposed of over a series of evenings in late 2013, the film canisters loaded into the back of a hatchback and dumped in garbage bins in alleyways behind Main street, Cambie street, and a couple of other streets as well. The next morning, I began to get reports from people on social media who were finding canisters here and there, but I would estimate that 90% of the 115 35mm adult films in the Fox’s collection were thrown away before they could be rescued. A few of them ended up in They Live Video, a local video store near 28th and Main. In fact, the sandwich board from the fox (which was also thrown away as well) is there at this time. The surviving prints were sold off to various collectors as of this writing, but it really pains me to know that 115 films, some of which were some of the few remaining prints left in the entire world, were chucked out so callously, especially when friends of mine had made an offer for them in the months leading up to the Fox’s closure. Just disgusting (and confounding) behavior by this one individual. We can only speculate why, but I’m pretty sure it was a mixture of “I’m insulted by your lowball offer” and “If I can’t have them, no one can”. Really disgusting.
Also, it’s worth mentioning that the new owners of THE FOX have retained its name, have done a wonderful job cleaning up and refurbishing the space, and have opened an excellent and vital live music/performance space for the community that has really been thriving since its opening this year. It’s really the best possible outcome for the theater if it can’t still be a theater. When I heard it was being closed, I instantly had visions of a Starbucks opening in there, so it was a relief to see how much care and respect for the heritage of the Fox has been displayed by the new owners, even if the old ones had absolutely none.
Does anyone know what happened to all the 35mm prints at this theatre ? Does the previous owner still have them ? I am a collector .
Here’s a link with photos before they started tearing the insides apart.
NSFW
http://www.whatsupmann.com/2013/07/the-fox-theatre-before-the-renovation/
Most surprising thing I saw was probably the projector.
The reddit link: http://www.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/1ulq2z/fox_theater_a_recently_shut_down_adult_theater/
Also, NSFW.
I think the related site is defunct. Here is another photo:
http://tinyurl.com/yctnw8e
I think the Forum on Market Street in Philly is still showing adult films. Don’t know about 35 mm, though. There’s a hole in the wall in Los Angeles called the Tiki that shows porn as well. I would guess the number of full time adult theaters in North America is under 50 at present.
Yes, the Fox Theatre has been around for 25 years under various
owners but always showing the porno/erotica films. As most people interested in this genre can view these films from there own dvd players it seems logical that the Fox serves other purposes.
In the spring of 1991 there was an attempt to screen cult films.
I remember when it was the Savoy Theatre. If it is closed I would very much like it to remain a multi-purpose entertainment venue -
such as independent, cult, repertory, etc. as well as live theatre and musical performances.
Main St. in Mount Pleasant with it’s changing culture would be well served by keeping this theatre open.
It would be unfortunate to see it torn down or converted to another commercial business.
culture would be great place for this.
There is a balcony of sorts upstairs but it is not really public-access – the same stairway leads to the projection room and office. It also had no seats and was right in front of the film projector path. So I don’t really know what it was intended for. More interesting was a faux-balcony at the back left side of the main auditorium, a sharply steeped section that had been cheaply built from 2x4’s at some later date and had approx. 15 seats (same type of seats as in rest of auditorium so it was probably built when new seats had been put in some time in the past). This section had turned into a sordid den of depravity in the waning days of Fox’s old school porn movie days. When the rep. cinema people (Criminal Cinema) came in with their weekend arrangment they took out the faux-balcony, painted the lobby, put a Scott Baio painting in the Ladies' Room, and generally cleaned up the place. It was never the same after that.
In its later period as the Savoy, it was a repetory house showing classics like ‘All About Eve’, ‘North By Northwest’ and was the first place I ever received an overdose of stoogemania with what seemed to be a theater-saving ‘Three Stooges Film Festival.’ The operators in ‘84 started up a membership drive, but within a few months the theatre suddenly went porn. They did offer to honour the memberships, but I’m certain many, like me, declined. A couple years back ('02 maybe?) a group of young film fans tried to set up a weekend-only membership driven film society, with showings of 'Airport’ and Peter Jackson’s ‘Meet the Feebles’. I attended one showing — can’t remember what it was — and could see they were going to have trouble shaking the porn-house feel. It only lasted a couple of months. A real shame, although it’s never been known as an architectural gem.
Am I remise, but does it not have a balcony too?
According to Robin Bougie of www.cinemasewer.com, this converted to video porn about a year ago. It did show prints of XXX films from the 1970’s and the 1980’s, most not in the greatest of shape, but it did attract an audience.