Film – Visit Kingston

On this tour, we’ll explore downtown sites of contemporary film shoots as well as learn about the history of cinemas in the city and the evolution of Kingston’s two film festivals.

Springer Market Square

Make your way to Springer Market Square, behind City Hall, near King St. East and Brock St.

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Springer Market Square transforms into scenes from Crimson Peak.

Locke & Key filming in Springer Market Square. Photo: Garrett Elliott.

Ari Magder, First Assistant Camera (left) and Dennis Chapman, Production Manager. Photo: Garrett Elliott.

Locke & Key filming in Springer Market Square. Photo: Garrett Elliott.

The area in and around Kingston City Hall, with its historic buildings, heritage architecture, and secret limestone alleyways, offers directors and location managers what many other more modern cities cannot: the look and feel of Europe and turn-of-the-century (1900s) America.

Fantasy and time-travel drama Locke & Key features three siblings who move to their father’s ancestral estate after his murder – and that estate is in a fictional Matheson, Massachusetts, filmed for the most part in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. But the three-season television series was filmed in several other locations and brought the crew to Kingston for a one-day shoot (here for nearly a week in total) in Springer Market Square, transformed to look like Bath, England, a romantic getaway spot for characters Tyler Locke and Jackie Veda.

Production manager Dennis Chapman, who studied film at Queen’s, tells us how the production landed in Kingston.

“We showed the pictures [of Kingston] to the showrunners in Los Angeles; the director loved it. So, we did a scout here to see how it would all work out. Then the location manager took over and dealt with all the logistics. We brought in the key grip, the key gaffer, his riggers, the art department, the set decorators, and everyone figured out – in one day – how we are going to make this block of Kingston look like Bath. Then we went back to Toronto and got on with the rest of the shoot.”

For the November 2020 shoot, the lower half of the square was cordoned off to foot traffic. Ontario Street was lined with mobile units, cranes, and lighting equipment. The sunken basin directly behind Kingston City Hall was turned into a modern, unmistakably British, outdoor market, with booths featuring Union Jack flags and souvenir T-shirts promoting the English city of Bath. But for several hours that day, all attention was focused just across the street, just next to the Tir Nan Og bar. Dozens of film crew worked among the cameras and lighting equipment focused on one doorway. Two actors, dressed in contemporary clothes, moved in and out of the doorway, doing take after take, while just out of frame, extras dressed in Georgian period costume stood patiently, waiting for their cues.

Guillermo de Toro’s Crimson Peak was also partially shot in Kingston’s downtown streets, in Market Square, and along King Street to Earl. The shoot, which took about a month, converted the downtown into the early 1900s and brought in hundreds of local extras.

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The Screening Room

Walk east 1 block along King St. East to Princess St. turn left and walk north on Princess St. for 1.5 blocks.

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The Screening Room during the Kingston Canadian Film Festival. Courtesy of KCFF.

The Screening Room lobby. Courtesy of KCFF.

The Screening Room during the Kingston Canadian Film Festival. Courtesy of KCFF.

Steacy's Department Store. Courtesy of The Screening Room.

For many years before taking ownership of The Screening Room – Kingston’s independent cinema – Wendy Huot ran a cameo cinema at The Artel, a do-it-yourself alternative art space on Sydenham Street, using a digital projector. Kingstonians would come and choose a film they loved, and share in the experience together. It was a passion project for Huot that gave her the confidence to take over The Screening Room in 2011.

“At the time, I knew I would love to run a movie theatre, but it never occurred to me that The Screening Room would go up for sale. It felt like a very fateful thing, that this is my destiny.”

The Screening Room features Hollywood blockbusters, but specializes in art-house, indie, foreign, classic cinema, and event programming. The three-screen theatre is a key venue for Kingston’s two film festivals (Kingston Canadian Film Festival, Reelout Queer Film Fest) as well as the Juvenis Festival, which includes film, dance, and other creative arts.

Dan Wannemacher who also ran Kingston Family Funworld, a beloved three-screen drive-in movie theatre just outside the city – founded Super Flicks & Food in the mid-1990s, offering discount rates for second-run mainstream films and submarine sandwiches (dinner and a movie!). After finding some success after screening Life is Beautiful, Wannemacher changed the name to The Screening Room, and took over the specialty/art-house niche after the Princess Court Theatre (located at 394 Princess St. in the Oddfellows Lounge) closed.

Before it was Super Flicks & Food or The Screening Room, this building was Steacy’s Department Store, which was founded in 1881 and operated at this location from 1903 to 1983.

Since becoming owner, Huot has had plenty of exciting times, including renting the cinema for special engagement screenings, wedding celebrations (a bridal party watched The Exorcist for a Halloween night wedding), and a visit from actor Viggo Mortensen, who watched the 2009 The Road, in which he starred, with his parents, who live in upstate New York.

“Film in general is on the up and up in Kingston,” says Marc Garniss, Executive Director for the Kingston Canadian Film Festival. Founded in 2001 by Alex Jansen – an alumnus of Queen’s Film and Media, and now an adjunct professor in the department – the Kingston festival is the largest focused solely on Canadian productions. It loops in local films and filmmakers as much as possible. “We are very different from other festivals and I think we’ll stand the test of time because of our mission to only screen Canadian films.”

The Kingston Canadian Film Festival (KCFF) began in 2001 as a three-day event exclusively at The Screening Room. Nearly 25 years later, The Screening Room is still a big part of KCFF, which has also expanded its programming to workshops and networking events at other locations in the downtown area, including the Kingston Grand Theatre and The Broom Factory.

KCFF’s programming includes not only world premieres of Canadian feature films and documentaries, but also special events with directors and actors, networking events and workshops for people interested in careers in film and media, and screening of local student films. In 2007, KCFF organizers began a retrospective series, to celebrate the work of Allan King, a filmmaker known for such documentaries as Warrendale (1967) and Dying at Grace (2003). Since then, screening archival productions, from silent films to long-lost productions, has been a highlight of the festival every year, in addition to the slate of new films. KCFF also partners with the Film and Media team at Tourism Kingston on a Kingston music video initiative, pairing selected local musicians with local production companies to create music videos. These videos, once completed, are screened at the next festival.

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Club 477

Walk north on Princess St. for 7 blocks.

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Blaine Allan discusses Kingston’s Historic Theatres and Cinemas

Reelout Queer Film Festival flyer, 1999. Courtesy of Reelout.

Reelout Queer Film Festival advertisement, 1999. Courtesy of Reelout.

As you stand outside 477 Princess St., now home to Trek bike shop, picture this: a crowded dance floor, with music blaring and lights pulsing well into the early morning hours – the home of one of Kingston’s early queer bars and dance clubs.

But for the LGBTQIA2S+ community in Kingston, Club 477 – previously known as Robert’s Club Vogue – was more than a dance club. Open during the ’90s and early 2000s, Club 477 was an important focal point for the community, and the dance floor was a catalyst for future initiatives in the city, including Reelout Queer Film Festival, started in 1999.

“It was a pretty vibrant space in its early days. And it was really the only place in town,” says Marney McDiarmid, who was often there on weekends as a graduate student at Queen’s, and later initiated the first steps toward a queer film festival. “The merits [of it being the only place in town] were that a lot of people worked really hard to make it feel like their own.”

McDiarmid began holding test market screenings in the back room of the club, where the dance floor was located, to see if there was enough local interest to sustain a weekend-long film festival. A friend who was involved in the Inside Out Festival in Toronto encouraged McDiarmid and helped her to curate a series of short films. “The space was packed – people were sitting on each other’s laps,” she says. “Most of us were used to seeing images of ourselves on screen that were super tragic. This was the first time we were seeing stories that weren’t sensational.”

McDiarmid says the project was energizing and a lot of fun. “It also felt like a political act for the community – we were pushing back against that sense that there weren’t gay people here, challenging Kingston’s straight white façade.”

Club 477 became the early headquarters for the collective running the festival, and as the annual event blossomed, films were screened on Queen’s campus, at Ellis and Etherington halls, and at The Screening Room.

Matt Salton, Reelout’s Executive Director, remembers in 2004 the festival featured Tipping the Velvet at its opening gala on Queen’s campus, and afterward the group drifted toward the Grad Club for an after-party.

“There is an urban legend that the windows in the Grad Club didn’t close properly after that night, because there were so many people in there. It was packed, not just with young people but many of them middle-aged and older, which speaks to the need and scope of the community in Kingston.”

Beyond Division Street, on the west side you’ll soon see Stages Nightclub, which was once the Hyland Theatre (opened in 1965) and the Biltmore before that (opened in 1941). The theatre, a key spot for filmgoers, closed in 1986 and later converted into the nightclub.

Across the street from Stages, you’ll see the Ale House, now a popular music destination, but once called The Odeon, opened in 1941. The Odeon, with plush décor in a “modern Baroque” style, had capacity for about 280 people and remained a key location for the film scene in Kingston until it closed in 1990.

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The Mansion

Walk north to University Ave. Cross the street, turn right, and walk 1 block.

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Bill Murray (left in white shirt) and Dan Aykroyd (far right in black shirt and sunglasses) jam with local musicians at Aykroyd’s Ghetto House Café. Courtesy of Dan Curtis.

Exterior of Aykroyd’s Ghetto House Café. Courtesy of Vintage Kingston.

The building now known as The Mansion is steeped in Kingston music history. It also holds significance for film buffs who remember Dan Aykroyd’s presence on this section of Princess Street in the mid-1990s. A multi-genre entertainer and businessman (comedian, actor, director, producer, musician, restaurateur, vintner, distiller), Aykroyd and his family have been long connected with the Kingston area and the cultural scene.

Dan Aykroyd got the idea for Ghostbusters, originally titled GhostSmashers, from information about his great-grandfather, Samuel Aykroyd. In the 1920s, Samuel, a local dentist, hosted séances at his home north of Kingston with a local medium. It is said that his great-grandson, struck by inspiration one evening in Kingston, typed out the first draft of his script in Kingston’s Prince George Hotel, borrowing the hotel manager’s typewriter for the task.

In 1994, Aykroyd opened Aykroyd’s Ghetto House Café at this location, with a vintage police car protruding from the second level. The car was rumoured to be one used in Aykroyd’s Blues Brothers movies, although that has since been debunked. Aykroyd removed his name from the café in 1995 and it closed the following year.

Aykroyd filmed a scene for his 1998 movie Blues Brothers 2000 just west of his Kingston stomping grounds. The opening scene shows his character, Elwood Blues, being released from an Illinois prison: the scene was actually shot at Millhaven Institution near Bath, Ontario.

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Kingston Grand Theatre

Walk south on Princess St. for 5 blocks.

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Blaine Allan discusses historic cinemas located near Kingston Grand Theatre.

Still from Carry on Sergeant! by Bruce Bairnsfather. (1928)

Kingston Whig-Standard advertisement, November 30, 1928.

Kingston Whig-Standard advertisement, December 1, 1928.

The Kingston Grand Theatre was originally the Grand Opera House, designed for live performances and built in 1901-02 on the site of Martin’s Opera House (1879), which was destroyed by fire in 1898. But for several decades, The Grand operated as a movie theatre and in 1916, screened the controversial American film The Birth of a Nation (D.W. Griffith) with an orchestra.

In 1928, The Grand featured Carry On Sergeant!, a silent World War I drama directed by Bruce Bairnsfather that was largely filmed at studios in Trenton, Ontario, known as Film Street, as well as select locations in Kingston, including the Plaza Hotel (built in 1876 and originally called The Albion Hotel, at Montreal and Queen Streets) and Canadian Locomotive Company (along the waterfront on Ontario Street between William and Gore Streets).

Carry On Sergeant! premiered in November 1928 with much fanfare – it played at the Grand Theatre in Kingston on Dec. 6, 7, 8, accompanied by an “augmented symphony orchestra.” But by Christmas, the film – which went significantly over budget and led to bankruptcy proceedings for its production company – had flopped, and disappeared from movie screens. Bairnsfather blamed this on the transition to sound film, although silent features were still standard fare at the time, says Blaine Allan, Professor Emeritus, Film and Media Studies, Queen’s University.

These days, The Grand is one of the main performing arts venues in Kingston (along with the Isabel Bader Centre, opened in 2014), featuring ballet, modern dance, theatre, comedies, musicals, and concerts of all kinds. But it is still a key location for film exhibition, with the Kingston Canadian Film Festival screening films in the smaller Baby Grand theatre and the main theatre. Carry On, Sergeant! was screened at the 2010 edition of KCFF.

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Kingston Brewing Company

Walk 2 blocks south on Princess St. Turn right on Wellington St. Walk 2 blocks and turn left on Clarence St.

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Filming Vendetta on Clarence Street. Photo: Kingston Whig-Standard, a division of Postmedia Network Inc.

Filming Vendetta on Ontario Street. Photo: Kingston Whig-Standard, a division of Postmedia Network Inc.

Filming Vendetta in front of Kingston City Hall. Photo: Kingston Whig-Standard, a division of Postmedia Network Inc.

On the set of Vendetta. Photo: Kingston Whig-Standard, a division of Postmedia Network Inc.

Vendetta premiere advertisement, September 1999.

In 1998, parts of downtown Kingston were transformed into 1890s New Orleans for the TV film Vendetta (released in 1999), a drama focused on the true story of the 1891 lynchings of 11 Italian Americans following the murder of police chief David Hennessy. The film shoot, running a few weeks’ long, brought acclaimed actor Christopher Walken (playing wealthy merchant James Houston) to town.

“Clarence Street became the biggest location for the market scenes, and the Kingston Brew Pub was also used,” recalls Derek Brady, location manager for the movie. “There was a market tent with peat moss on the streets, and many of the building facades were perfect. For others, the crew built additional facades, especially on the other side of the street, to create those New Orleans terraces. There was a massive dress on Ontario Street in front of the Prince George Hotel, with peat moss from Clarence all the way to Brock, which was used for the funeral scene.”

The film also recruited hundreds of Kingstonians to appear as extras. For a funeral scene, the production company put out a call for adults to show up wearing dark clothing and comfortable shoes: free bowler or top hats were given out to the first 500 volunteers for the scene.

Vendetta was filmed in several other Kingston locations. Look closely and you can see Cathcart Tower on Cedar Island in several shots, with the dock and pier scenes filmed at the Royal Military College and CFB Kingston docks. Chase scenes were filmed near Rochleau Court, through the winding limestone-lined tunnels in the downtown block, and the former Rockwood Asylum near Lake Ontario Park was used as the New Orleans prison; it also provided room for the set’s carpentry shop and storage unit.

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