Hyland Cinema

190 King Street E,
Hamilton, ON L8N 1B4

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Additional Info

Previously operated by: Odeon Theatres (Canada) Ltd.

Architects: Aaron Austin

Functions: Retail

Previous Names: Roxy Theatre, Hyland Theatre

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Originally opened as the Roxy Theatre on June 11, 1952 with Robert Cummings in “The First Time” & John Ireland in “The Basketball Fix”. It reopened as the Hyland Theatre on November 11, 1955 with John Mills in “Above Us the Waves”. It was closed September 25, 1986 with “Dead End Drive-In”.

It reopened as the Hyland Cinema on December 26, 1986. It was operated by the owners of the Broadway Cinema. It had a great sound system with THX certification. The Hyland Theatre was closed October 6, 1987 with “A Man in Love” and “La Bamba”. It reopened, but closed again on May 3, 1988.

Contributed by Chad Irish, Chief_Brody

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Recent comments (view all 18 comments)

Lovesickphoto on February 28, 2007 at 2:18 pm

I was at this pawn shop yesturday trying to aquire some information on the theater. The guy I talked to was a young guy, he said that the theater was before his time. But, at the current time the theater is a pawn shop on the main floor but the upstairs is just storage for the pawn shop. The guy said that there is still a balcony, but due to it being a jewlery store as well, there are certain security measures that are causing them to not be able to tell me more about this theater.

hamiltonmark on March 1, 2007 at 1:30 am

Mike. Is the lobby of the Hyland the pawn shop with the auditorium and balcony seating area closed off to the public? From what I can remember, the upstairs leading the the balcony had its own lobby area with washrooms and refreshment stands. This is probably the storage area the young gentlemen was talking about. Mark.

ButchMcLarty on June 27, 2008 at 12:18 am

I worked as an assistant manager at the Odeon-Hyland in Hamilton, Ontario from October 1974 to about July of 1975, after I was transferred in from Odeon Kitchener and before that, Odeon London.

At the time, Odeon Theatres (Canada) Ltd. transferred their assistant managers and manager trainees around the province so they could learn from different theatre managers.

When I worked at the Odeon-Hyland Theatre in 1974 and 1975, the longtime manager was a gentleman by the name of Gordon Gotts who lived in Stoneybrook. He was an ardent Hamilton Tiger-Cats' fan. Nice man.

When I first arrived at the Odeon-Hyland in October of 1974, the theatre was showing soft-porn movies, starting at 12 noon and running until about 11:30 pm.

That all changed in early 1975 or so when we premiered the blockbuster movie, Earthquake (with “Sensuround”), which subequently broke all house records and ran for about 20 weeks.

I remember the “Sensuround” cracked the retail store’s front plate-glass window next door (attached to the theatre). The entire theatre vibrated when this earthquake-replicating sound came on. It was produced by about 12 large speakers placed on the main floor of the theatre and the balcony.

TivFan on May 1, 2012 at 8:11 pm

See a vintage photo of the Hyland as part of John Sebert’s “Glamorous Ghosts” at: www.hamiltonmagazine.com/sitepages/?aid.
The building still looks the same as the Google street view above. The same business is still there. There is a window display, in the building to the right, offering vintage 1940’s theater seats from the Roxy/Hyland (for $100.). The street-level facade is the original Roxy design. The terrazzo in the entrance has the letter “R” for Roxy. The vent below the display windows has a metal grill that has an “R” (for you-know-what), as well. The tiles on the facade are off-white, with a burgandy ‘veining’. This same tiling was on the State/Towne and the Playhouse. It has been removed from the latter two theaters, within the last year or so. I believe the Towne had grey ‘veining’ (is this a woid?) instead of burgandy.

TivFan on May 1, 2012 at 8:45 pm

When I a kid, I remember my brother and I saw “Munster, Go Home” and “Out of Sight” on a double. Kids everywhere and a lot of them sitting in the aisles. This theatre originally showed B-movies. When Odeon took over management, they showed lesser Universal films, usually on double bills. After, they showed second-run doubles of movies that had just played at the big houses (good stuff). Later, there were first-run movies like “Conan the Barbarian” and the two features in ‘Sensuround’, “Earthquake” and “Rollercoaster”. It was not a very good theater. The auditorium was not very deep (look at the side of the building on Google) and the projection room was very high. Because of the high angle, the image was distorted (the sides of the picture were angled and masked). An actor or object at either edge of the picture, were on an angle, but straightened out as they got closer to the center of the screen. I think I’ve read elsewhere, that this is called ‘keystoning’. The screen was high on the wall, so if you sat on the floor, in the rear rows, you saw the bottom edge of the balcony at the top of the screen.

Marcquey on November 11, 2012 at 3:52 am

I worked at the Hyland from 1973 to about 1976. I was only 16 and told not to watch the movies (because they were restricted! ) Used to sit next to the popcorn machine munching on popcorn. The assistant manager made me walk up and down the aisles with pop and popcorn (like at a ball game)… very embarassing.

Gord Gotts was a really nice man. He used to be manager at the Palace theatre and had hoped he would get the Odeon theatre, but unfortunatley he and his staff were moved over to the Hyland while the manager of the Capital got the Odeon.

Whole pounds of real butter were melted in the butter machine for the popcorn.. none of this synthetic crap now.

Earthquake was amazing… humongous speakers placed all around. When they went off you couldn’t hear a thing, including the phone or someone standing 2 feet in front of you.

The projection booth was high – see the windows up high in the photo at http://americanclassicimages.com/Default.aspx?tabid=123&CategoryID=3281&Category2ID=3224&List=1&SortField=ProductName%2cProductName&Level=2&ProductID=36724 The dressing room and storage was way up there too… creepy.

Nice memories of my first job where I started working with Mrs. Tipper and Mrs. Edge and Jane.