![]() Eighteen is a lucky number in Judaism, Mr. That guy may even have played a role in the end of Dollar Cinema. “I’m trying to connect with that guy and see what he wants me to do.” “I’m getting older, so I better make sure that guy likes me,” he says, gesturing vaguely toward the sky. You might even find him emerging from a period of pious reflection, right there behind the candy display, where he sometimes dons the tefillin, the small leather boxes containing scrolls of Torah verses that some Jewish men wear for weekday prayers.Īfter a mostly unobservant life – he just turned 81 – Mr. Gurberg seemed to treat the concession stand like an extension of his living room. Christinne Muschi/The Globe and MailĪbove all, there was the way Mr. “I like it because he’s very friendly,” says Hoi Lee, simply, on his way to see The Batman.Ī handwritten sign showing items for sale at the Dollar Cinema. Some people kept coming back for the slightly eccentric warmth of the ever-present owner. In any case, the films were only part of the draw. ![]() Gurberg says he also made a point of screening “every” Holocaust film. The movies at Dollar Cinema have always tended toward a mix of independent, foreign and months-old blockbusters. But the need for a third screen waned with the decline in business. Gurberg simply rigged up a projector and a few seats in an adjoining room. For a time, there was the fabled Theater 3, introduced when the cinema got too busy for its two big screens. The original wooden seats kept collapsing under customers, so he had them torn out and replaced. This period saw some of his first, and last, major renovations. “When you have a thousand people coming in and you have the popcorn, it’s quite a lot,” Mr. In its early years, it actually turned a profit. Christinne Muschi/The Globe and MailĪt first, Dollar Cinema got by on sheer volume, as people flocked there for the novelty and the bargain. Gurberg opened the theatre after a long career in women’s discount fashion. Going to the movies was expensive, and there seemed to be room for a discount option, especially with Montreal in the middle of an economic downturn. He wasn’t a cinephile, exactly, but he saw an opportunity. ![]() #Rolling sky candy movie#In unlocking that mystery, the skeleton key may be Bernie himself.Īfter a long career in women’s discount fashion – “the needle trade,” as he calls it, “the schmatta business” – he was thinking of opening a different sort of shop in the Decarie Square mall when the landlord showed him a vacant movie theatre. When a business lasts almost two decades selling its wares for a 10th of what the competition charges, the question is perhaps not why it’s finally closing but how it survived so long. Sure, he was tempted, he says, but “it wasn’t my model.” But the cinema was also done in by his stubborn refusal to raise his prices. The usual culprits hammering movie theatres – Netflix, the pandemic – helped drive him out of business, he explains. The Dollar Cinema will close July 31, when its lease expires. ![]()
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