By Lloyd Mackey

THE SLEEK, white, ultra-modern theatre on Yates Street in Victoria ­– which I knew, in my boyhood, as the Odeon – has turned 60.

There it was, in the March 7 issue of the Times-Colonist.

I have a couple of Odeon stories to tell, even though I grew up in a home where attendance at the theatre was virtually verboten.

The first occurred when I was about 13. Elizabeth II had been crowned queen of, among other places, Canada. A Technicolor Cinemascope documentary of the event had top billing at the Odeon.

My parents were part of Oaklands Gospel Hall (now Oaklands Chapel, a Christian Brethren assembly). They had decided that the no-movie rule could be broken to attend The Coronation.

My mother had checked out the idea with Mrs. Thompson, one of the assembly matriarchs. Mrs. Thompson congenially suggested that, in ascending the throne, Elizabeth had become defender of the faith once for all delivered to the saints.

We would see, she promised, the implications of that defender status in the coronation liturgy, making the film a remarkable Christian education opportunity.

Thus began the slippery slope into an appreciation for good film – which I would contend is widely shared among evangelical Christians today.

Ten years later, I was once again at the Odeon. By that time I was a young man trying my fit at pastoral work. In that role, I was serving Parkdale Evangelical Free Church and studying part time at the University of Victoria.

In the English course in which I was enrolled, we were plowing through Shakespeare.

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Our prof recommended we see Othello, the movie version of one of the plays we were exploring.

As it happened, a non-movie-going member of another evangelical church saw me going into the Odeon.

Later, in a preemptive strike, I had a chat with the Parkdale elders, explaining what had taken me into this unholy House of Film. I did not want them hearing about it first from the evangelical gossip loop.

Fast forward another five years: By then I was the religion reporter at The Chilliwack Progress. As a professional development project, the editor sent me to Christian-rooted Whitworth University in Spokane, for a short course on reviewing movies from a theological perspective.

The class members took to a theatre one evening, to see The Graduate, starring Dustin Hoffman, Anne Bancroft and Katharine Ross.

A memorable scene depicted Hoffman’s character, chasing his future bride (Ross) into a church where she was erroneously about to marry another man.

Hoffman, himself, was being pursued by the bride’s mother – the notorious Mrs. Robinson – who had initiated an affair with him some months before.

The symbolic faith highlight was Hoffman using a large wooden cross to bolt the door handles of the church entrance, to separate himself and his love from his ex-seductress and her friends.  

It was all quite funny, ridiculous and well-acted, but the point was not lost: One can rely on the cross to separate oneself from one’s demons.

Today, of course, the good folk at Oaklands and Parkdale would be much less likely than they used to be, to avoid theatre attendance. And our own Peter Chattaway, here at BC Christian News, is widely known as a film reviewer for several perfectly respectable Christian publications, including the venerable Christianity Today.

The Odeon on Yates Street has much to celebrate – and to answer for, no doubt – in its 60-year linkage with Victoria.

April 2008