Capitol Theatre
560 Talbot Street,
St. Thomas,
ON
N5P 1C3
560 Talbot Street,
St. Thomas,
ON
N5P 1C3
2 people
favorited this theater
Showing 11 comments
Ronald Dalziel, who had purchased the St. Thomas Drive-In the year before, leased the Capitol from Famous Players in January 1977, according to an article in the March 28, 1977 issue of Boxoffice.
I was here only once, roughly around 2000, though I can’t remember the film. Sticky floors, poor sound quality. I’m glad the Galaxy was built, though it should probably be a standalone closer to Talbot St as opposed to integrated into Elgin Centre.
The arch was brought back to original. It won an award.
Near the bottom of this web page is a photo of Antoine’s Home Furnishings as it looks now. The arch is still there, but the decorative detail has been painted over.
Status should be changed to closed. This theater has been converted to a furniture store; the current Google Street View shows the faded painted arch that was above the marquee, but it looks like this will soon be covered over.
This article from the St. Thomas Times Journal of December 22, 2008, about the closing of the Capitol Theatre, says that the house first opened in 1931. That conforms to the page for architect Herbert George Duerr at the Biographical Dictionary of Architects in Canada, which lists a theater for Famous Players on Talbot Street in St. Thomas as a 1931 Duerr project.
This theatre was built for N. L. Nathanson founder of Famous Players Canadian Corporation. Famous Players sold this theatre off to Ron Dalziel in about 1974. Later he sold this theatre to June and Ken Tarrant, who operated this theatre for a while and tripled this theatre in the 70’s!! In the small theatres Ken didn’t use regular theatrical screens, he used dry-wall painted white and sat the speakers down on the floor in front of the screen. The main was good as it used the existing proscenium arch with a large large screen. Cineplex Galaxy built a theatre in St. Thomas which ended this theatre’s life as a commercial movie theatre. This situation was always tough because the St. Thomas people could go down the road just 20 miles to LONDON, Ontario to see a movie!!
Nice pictures!I have an auditorium shot which shows it is identical to the Palace[Park]in London.
Here are direct links to the pictures of this theatre on the Onario Archives site:
http://ao.minisisinc.com/Webimages/I0012833.jpg
http://ao.minisisinc.com/Webimages/I0012834.jpg
http://ao.minisisinc.com/Webimages/I0012845.jpg
I am grateful to Mark Cosens for saving this gem,as i had the honor of projecting on and off during the 90s!I cant wait to see more input on this theatre page.
My name is Mark Cosens and I am now the current owner of the Capitol Theatre in St. Thomas. Currently it is in the final stages of renovation/restoration. When finished we will be offering the Old Classic Movies as well as some Community Theatre. Although the original seating capacity was 650, our capacity will only be 250 seats due to the existing partition walls of the dormant theatres 2 and 3.
I would like to offer much more for your website on this theatre if someone would contact me.
Sincerely,
Mark Cosens