Cambridge Twin Cinema
355 Hespeler Road,
Cambridge,
ON
N1R 6B3
355 Hespeler Road,
Cambridge,
ON
N1R 6B3
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Additional Info
Previously operated by: Cineplex Odeon, Jerry Lewis Cinemas, Premier Theaters
Previous Names: Jerry Lewis Twin Cinema
Nearby Theaters
Located in the Cambridge Shoppers Mall (aka Parkway Mall). The Jerry Lewis Twin Cinema was opened by Jerry Lewis Cinemas on March 31, 1972 with Doris Day in “With Six You Get Eggroll” & John Wayne in “Big Jake” in Cinema 1 and James Garner in “Skin Game” in Cinema 2. Each screen had 350-seats. It was closed in June 1972.
It was taken over by Premier Theaters, reopening on November 10, 1972 and renamed Cambridge Twin Cinema. They leased it to Cineplex on February 27, 1987 and it was closed on December 12, 1996 with Arnold Schwarzenegger in “Jingle All the Way” & Michael Jordan in “Space Jam”. The new Cineplex Odeon Cambridge 7 opened the following day.
Contributed by
MIKE RIVEST
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Recent comments (view all 2 comments)
Correction: This opened as the Jerry Lewis Cinema on March 31st, 1972 and closed or stopped placing ads in the Record in June.
Lad Medve and Larry LeBlanc were the first to open a Jerry Lewis Cinema in Canada doing so on April Fool’s weekend of 1972. Sadly, the joke was on the franchisees as Jerry Lewis and Network Cinema Corporation were already well on their way to imploding. With franchise fees of just $17,500 for a single screen and $30,000 for a double, Medve and LeBlanc committed to 19 more Ontario Jerry Lewis locations and would not have been surprised to see that number rise to 100.
In all of Canada, the actual number of opened Jerry Lewis Cinemas peaked at three - here, Mississauga, and Peace River. A fourth in Montreal was constructed but failed to open under the Lewis nameplate. The Cambridge Lewis Twin location launched in the Parkway Shopping Center that began with a Zehr’s Supermarket opening early in 1970 and joined by a short-lived Sayvette Store later that year.
In 1971/2, the Parkway Mall concept was added between those anchors. Multiple Automated Cinemas of Ottawa was the Network Cinema Corp. subsidiary in charge adding some $20,000 of automation equipment for the theaters that could be run with a single push of a button, at least in concept. Two identical 350 seat auditoriums were built here for 700 total sats. The theater opened on March 31, 1972 with “Skin Game” and a double-feature of “With Six, You Get An Egg Roll” and “Big Jake.”
Within months of the Parkway Mall’s launch, both it and the cinema were in for renaming. The Lewis franchise closed briskly in summer and was renamed as the Cambridge Twin Cinemas at its reopening on November 10, 1972. It officially opened at the renamed Cambridge Shoppers Mall which was in use as of October 26, 1972. With both the Parkway Mall and Jerry Lewis signage chiseled off, the theatre ran to the end of its 15-year lease with Premier Theatres leaving it behind on February 22, 1987. On February 27, 1987, Cineplex Odeon took on the venues operating it until the December 12, 1996 showings of “Jingle All the Way” and “Space Jam.” It launched the Cambridge Cinemas 7 the next day.