Skip to content
Join our Newsletter

Big Picture: Critics, movie fans remember colourful history of landmark Victoria cinema

The laughs come easy and linger long. I still cringe when I hear that line from my review of Ron Howard’s 1982 comedy Night Shift — one I’ve never been able to forget thanks to Darryl Dickens.
a1-0628-empire2-clr.jpg
Famous Players Theatres opened its flashy new $4-million geometric movie house with the glass-panelled domes in 1981 on the same spot where the venerable Capitol theatre had stood for 60 years.

The laughs come easy and linger long. I still cringe when I hear that line from my review of Ron Howard’s 1982 comedy Night Shift — one I’ve never been able to forget thanks to Darryl Dickens. Every time I showed up at the Capitol 6 Cinemas that decade, the playfully droll, bespectacled doorman in the polyester brown suit and bow-tie couldn’t resist greeting me by quoting it.

It could as easily describe much of what has happened there since the $4-million geometric brick-and-glass movie house opened in 1981.

Given some of the surreal goings-on — like the antics of a hair fetishist who covertly clipped the locks of unsuspecting moviegoers, or when discarded Golden Topping was blamed for damaging trees — a sense of humour would seem essential.

“Wow, have I been gone that long?” said Dickens, now the Singapore-based vice-president of Blue Coat Systems, Asia Pacific and Japan, when told Empire Co. was shutting down the theatre it bought in 2005.

“I learned late in my career I had learned a lot working at the Cap 6 — standing in front of big crowds; managing them, staying in control.”

Former staffers found themselves reflecting this week on the multiplex presided over in its glory days by the late Jack McRae — the legendary, squeaky-voiced theatre manager.

McRae, who drove around in a big white Cadillac, often had coffee in the former Dominion Hotel’s Lettuce Patch across the street with pal Bob Wright, the late developer, and would buy cocktails for hard-working staffers at the old Gaslight Lounge.

One of my favourite memories was watching this curmudgeonly but, deep down, soft-hearted character’s reaction to the automated curtains that would open repeatedly and close before the feature presentation back in the day. “We know it works,” he deadpanned, rolling his eyes.

“Jack was old-school,” recalled Rob Denison, the SilverCity general manager who assisted him for five years. “It was a different time. There were no computers. You were taking cash for tickets and popcorn. Maybe guest service wasn’t as good as we’ve taken it in the last 15 years. There was a time we weren’t cleaning auditoriums after the 7 o’clock show.”

Manuel Achadinha, president and CEO of B.C. Transit, worked there part time during the 1980s.

“It put me through grad school,” said the UVic economics graduate.

When new stock arrived, Achadinha would haul 25-pound bags of popcorn kernels and remembers lineups up to Quadra Street for blockbusters like Superman, James Bond movies and Raiders of the Lost Ark.

“Nobody knew what Raiders was,” recalled the former doorman, whose co-workers included current Reynolds secondary school vice-principal Dean Norris-Jones.

“We’d time it so we’d go into the theatres during the part where the guy pulls out the sword and Harrison Ford pulls out his gun and shoots him, to see the reaction of the crowd.”

Colourful memories include when a customer fainted shortly after butter was replaced with “Golden Topping.”

“I think she had the Golden Topping!” he and Dickens deadpanned in unison when paramedics asked what happened.

Achadinha, 50, also once caught an embarrassed patron sneaking his wife in the back door.

“Most people never realized the doors were alarmed,” said Achadinha, who gave the guy a chance to make amends.

He was also there for “the craziest incident” — when a weirdo gave a horrified, long-haired filmgoer seated in front of him a haircut mid-show.

“He must have cut two feet of her hair,” he said, recalling the razor line the hair fetishist left on her seatback.

Equally bizarre was when McRae gleefully caught the culprit behind a mysterious urine stench pervading theatres.

“He came out and was yelling at one of the regulars and I said, ‘I’ve got to go and do some guest recovery,’ ” Denison said, recalling how McRae literally caught a peculiar woman with her pants down, about to relieve herself against a wall.

For Achadinha, now a father of three, his Capitol gig had its privileges. He saw free movies, ate “way too much popcorn” for dinner during his lean years, and got a $40 bonus from an appreciative customer after returning a lost wallet containing $500.

Weathering economic turbulence in the industry with successful promotions like $2 Tuesdays, the Capitol has seen business both boom — as when Titanic opened and proved unsinkable — and wither.

“Ah, another Woody Allen movie. Lots of critics. No audience,” former manager Mark Smaal once quipped when Manhattan Murder Mystery opened.

The Capitol 6 has also attracted famous guests, like a “very pleasant” Bob Hope — who quietly showed up after the opening credits in 1985 and sat on the aisle to watch Cocoon — and John Travolta, who induced Saturday Night Fever among patrons in 1998.

Travolta, who gamely signed autographs for stunned theatregoers, showed up 30 minutes before showtime to watch The Truman Show after flying in on his jet with producer Jerry Bruckheimer and others.

The Capitol has also had dark days — notably a bitter, long-running labour dispute with unionized projectionists 15 years ago.

Despite an uncertain future, it inevitably upgraded to digital projection. An Empire spokesman said it was triggered in part by the opening of Hannah Montana & Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds in 2008, long before “twerking” became a verb.

Except for when Empire replaced its domed roof’s glass panels five years ago among other minor repairs, the aging multiplex has sadly been looking worse for wear since SilverCity, adding 3,000 seats and 10 screens, opened in 1999.

When Cineplex’s 1,300-seat, seven-screen Westshore Cinemas opened in 2011, the writing was clearly on the wall.