Cinema L’Amour is located on Montreal’s St. Laurent Boulevard, bold and unabashed in its local visibility. In the century since the theatre’s opening, it has held down its title as the city’s only theatre exclusively devoted to screening pornography. With its neon-lit exterior and nonchalant placement on the Plateau’s most traveled street, the theatre can hardly be described as discreet: a flesh-dominated and big boob-abundant group of posters outside the entrance announce the latest in pornography from Big Rack Attack to Pretty Dirty Vol. 2. Living in the Plateau, I have passed the theatre on countless occasions on which I have given it little more than a shy, passing glance. For the pervasiveness of porn in the bedrooms of North Americans, the public screening and advertisement of it seems to ring as taboo, making a passer-by more likely to blush than lean in closer for a look. But on a wintry weekday, I do the latter and venture a look inside the venue named after the honorable human virtue of love.
Greeting me at the theatre is the manager Robert Casini, the theatre’s resident historian, who readily narrates the history of the theatre from its origins in 1914. It’s a Thursday night and the theatre is screening vintage porn from the 1970s. In the screening room where we talk, Robert skillfully wrestles with a stack of old film footage and equipment before sitting down for the interview. “So,” I start by asking, “Why Cinema L’amour?” In other words, what’s love got to do with it? “Well, it’s the French word for love,” Robert replies simply. As I listen to him talk, I come to realize that managing a 100-year-old porn theatre is a labor of love: a process of care coupled with a steady commitment to upkeep. Robert and his staff are committed to maintaining the original finishing of the theatre from 1914: the big screen is framed by a grandiose, theatrical arch and the royalty-worthy red floor seats are circled by the gold-embellished balconies above, famously reserved for couples. Robert says that “the building has never been altered, changed…Nothing’s been removed or added”, harkening back to a time when going to see a film was not only a social outing but a full-on affair.
For its current status as a porn theatre, Cinema L’Amour has held down a host of identities throughout its history. The theatre opened on October 15th, 1914, under the name of The Globe Theatre, and was devoted to showing a combination of Yiddish cinema and live vaudeville shows, a theatrical genre of variety entertainment. In 1968, the theatre changed its agenda and became a porn theatre named The Orsay that was re-named The Pussycat and later, The Hollywood. The theatre became Cinema L’Amour in 1971 by which time it had successfully survived the public’s original scandalized reaction to its screening of pornography. Taking further issue with the theatre’s practice was the feminist movement in the 1960s and ‘70s when the theatre’s front windows were regularly smashed by protesters, prompting management to install a garage door. In the 1980s, the Canadian Censorship Board and public display laws similarly protested the theatre’s practices, often compelling the police – “a lot stiffer back then” – to make visits to evaluate the levels of decency shown by both the clientele and the films themselves. Robert says that the levels of strictness of the time were such that “You weren’t even allowed to look at yourself”. Since 2006, the laws on pornography have become more liberal, allowing the business to run on a smoother basis since. The rise of liberal attitudes on sex – “no longer a forbidden subject” – has done good to diminish the stigma of the theatre.
Cinema L’Amour can now be described as one part a porn theatre and one part a social scene for its regular and loyal clientele. With the rise of illegal downloading, the theatre is able to maintain its flow of clientele due to its communal character. “This place is a lot like going to your favourite bar,” Robert says. “It’s the same principle. We get people that come in here and don’t even look at the screen. They’re just talking to each other. We have people who come three or four times a week. It’s the same movie all week. They come anyways. They like to socialize and get out…Here, it’s [about] going to Cinema L’Amour to have a nice time.” From the retired people who attend the theatre during the day to the younger crowds and couples during the night, the theatre is an interactive site of sociality and sexuality.
In a site as open-minded to sexuality as Cinema L’Amour, the only code of ethics is “discreetness”. It is the couples, the theatre’s prized customers and recipients of free tickets on Monday and Tuesday, who define and determine what behaviour is “discreet”. Couples enjoy either a reserved section of the theatre or the upper balconies, which they can have to themselves for a handsome $35. Besides the couples, the theatre caters to regular exhibitionists, rounding its diverse clientele.
My last question concerns the story of the famous magician Harry Houdini, rumored to have been killed at Cinema L’Amour back in 1924. Confirming that Houdini indeed performed at the theatre in the 1920s, Robert continues to state that it was in fact The Princess Theatre on St. Catherine’s Street that was originally considered to be the site where Houdini was unexpectedly punched in the stomach by a spectator, exacerbating a case of appendicitis that killed him two weeks later. The twist: the owners of The Princess also owned The Hollywood (now Cinema L’Amour) and in the aftermath of the punching affair, it is said that the theatres switched names to avoid superstition from haunting the clientele’s experience of the venue. Such a detail suggests that it was indeed at Cinema L’Amour where Houdini was punched, marking the theatre with the magician’s legacy.
Cinema L’Amour invites its St. Laurent passer-bys and clientele alike to have a public look at what people otherwise look at in private. My look-around leaves me with the impression that the theatre caters in equal parts to desire and the community that it forms, freeing it of the taboo that has marked pornography’s fight for the right to look.
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