A list of Peterborough movie theatres, 1897 to present.
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A profile of the economic, cultural, and social makeup of Peterborough around 1907, when the very first local motion picture theatres were launched. The city in those days was a flourishing and prosperous place: a newly industrialized, middle-sized commercial and agricultural centre, thoroughly white and homogeneous, not completely welcoming to “foreigners” – and with a mixed and complicated relationship to the territory’s original inhabitants.
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Peterborough’s first major showplace, Bradburn’s Opera House, was a community gathering hub and hotpoint for famous visitors and events for almost thirty years. The building that housed it was demolished, along with others, in the 1970s.
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The busy life of Peterborough’s most prestigious theatre, from its beginnings in 1905 to the thriving period of the mid-1920s.
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This one is a theatre outdoors, under the pines of Jackson Park: concert band music, the earliest of motion pictures, and throngs of listeners and watchers, with a few of them, sometimes, getting into trouble.
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From a penny arcade (November 1906) to a low-cost storefront cinema (January 1907): the advent of the motion picture theatre.
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The second of Peterborough’s early storefront motion picture theatres was called Wonderland, and it was said to be a cozy place indeed.
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“That the public of Peterborough is generally interested in and amused by motion pictures,” said the Review in September 1909, “is beyond dispute.”
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The birth and early years of Peterborough’s first non-storefront theatre — established by the Greek cigar-store merchant Mike Pappas.
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How the Princess Theatre, est. 1909, became “the People’s Amusement House” — and eventually the Tiz-It.
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The new Empire Theatre, established 1914, the brainchild of a veterinary surgeon and livery business operator, Dr. Fred Robinson.
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The Allen Theatre, 344–346 George St. N., part of a national theatre chain, briefly supplanted the Royal.
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The “cozy little theatre around the corner” — from Ken Maynard and Tom Mix to Gene Autry and Roy Rogers, from the great silent film Sunrise to countless comedies and romances, and plenty of Foto Nites.
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The Capitol Theatre – the closest thing Peterborough ever had to a “movie palace” –would turn out to be one of the city’s longest-running movie theatres – and also the city’s first theatre (but not the last) under foreign control.
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The return of the Royal – with Mike Pappas coming and going – and its few precious years of thriving cultural life and all too sudden death.
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How the once flourishing Grand Opera House shifted ownership, screened its last movie, went into a long, slow decline – and almost became the Granada.
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How the Centre Theatre – in its day, Peterborough’s only independent movie house and a community-oriented family haven – had its time of importance and brilliance on Theatre Row before coming to a dismal end in 1956.
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The first of Peterborough’s postwar theatres, the Odeon (opened December 1947) had a British connection (at first), a popular “Kids Club” on Saturday mornings, and the first movie theatre snack bar.
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From its gala opening in December 1948 to its abrupt closing in 1986, Famous Players Canada’s Paramount Theatre was Peterborough’s highest-quality movie theatre – the “grand dame of Peterborough cinemas.”
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