Great post. That windycityballyhoo Instagram account gives me a lot of pangs about what the Loop must have been like for a moviegoer back then, to say nothing of the drive-ins outside of town.
I'm sure I'd seen the United Artists theater in other movies but my clearest memory is in a very unclear picture as it exists today, a bootleg transfer of Duccio Tessari's THREE TOUGH GUYS, with Lino Ventura and Isaac Hayes. It's super artifacted and blurry but because I had to squint to make it out, that's what stuck with me.
First Chicago memory onscreen was seeing that car fall off the Marina Tower parking structure in Buzz Kulik's THE HUNTER.
Lovely piece. I've only spent a couple hours in Chicago, but many more in movies, especially the ones you reference here.
This past weekend we watched TIN MEN, a sorta lost Barry Levinson movie set in my hometown Baltimore at a time before I was born. There's a shot of DeVito running to the car that frames Memorial Stadium overhead and we hear the sound of a ballgame in progress. My high school is out of frame across the street from the stadium. Ballgames would stop being played in that stadium within years of the movie's release. We'd one day get a football team again, but they'd get their own brand new stadium downtown (no doubt pushing out homes of people who were no longer financially viable for the city). Baltimore doesn't show up in a lot of movies. Levinson and Waters were our main representatives. I've spent far more movie time in other people's lost hometowns.
Chicago native Philip Kaufman also shot his first two features — the ’60s obscurities GOLDSTEIN and FEARLESS FRANK — there, and mostly on location as I recall.
Great piece, but as a homer for another Midwest city, was the steakhouse in PRIME CUT filmed in Chicago even though it was set in Kansas City? I know they filmed in both cities - not saying this would be a crushing realization, but it would be nice to have served as a location for scenes other than the county fair and Gene Hackman's barnyard prostitution ring.
Mmmm... Perhaps. It's been a while. It's not the same place, but there's a place called Miller's downtown with decor very much from that era that always puts me in mind of Prime Cut.
Me feel same way about old New York movies, which obviously there no shortage of. (Fun City Cinema podcast was terrific excuse to revisit different eras of city).
But then, me also like present-day New York movies so me can do Leo-pointing-at-TV when me see places me have been to. Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist will always have soft spot in heart because A) they get NYC geography right (Hoboken, not so much), and B) it closest anyone has come to capturing nights out me had as young monster decade earlier.
Please tell me where!!! Me have been trying to work out where that intersection is for almost 30 years! Someone told me it was Church & McDonald, and buildings look similar, but not quite right.
Me lived near south side of park for years (near Church & McDonald in fact), and probably went through that intersection thousand times and never realized!
As a North Side resident from 2007 to 2013, I still love seeing films from Chicago's past, like THIEF. I also remember how thrilled I was the first time I stood in that atrium downtown where the final shootout in RUNNING SCARED took place.
I lived not far from that Essenay Studios doorway for five years. I remember how amazed I was when I was out walking the dog and noticed it and read the plaque. I had no idea Chicago had any silent film history to speak of.
I felt similar kind of nostalgia in 2009 when a friend of a friend got me into the premiere screening party for the documentary YOU WEREN'T THERE: A HISTORY OF CHICAGO PUNK, 1977-1984. All those old clubs, all those old bands, all that old scene. I really felt like I'd missed out on something.
Also, maybe that AMC theater was not a memorable location, but I'd watch the shit out of a horror movie set in that Century Centre complex on Clark Street with the Landmark Theater at the top of the spiral.
It's so great to read this essay and then read the comments, just to see how many people this idea resonates with, despite living in places other than Chicago.
Film ends up being like a crystal clear memory, even as it lies to us. When I was in high school, Foxfire (not the helicopter one) was shot at my school over spring break. I worked a day on it as an extra, got my first proper paycheck from it and everything. Last year, the school was torn down, there's a new, much safer building in its place. But that movie is now the only way I know of to show my kid what my school looked like. It's weird watching it now (it's not very good, I don't recommend it), seeing those dark hallways, the oranges and yellows, and being able to smell it.
Unfortunately, Portland isn't known for great cinema being made here (outside of Drugstore Cowboy, Pig, and Zero Effect), so we don't get as clear a history as larger cities have, but we did birth David DeCoteau, who was a teenage projectionist at the Fox/Music Box theaters, which can still be seen in the background of some shots in Brainsmasher: A Love Story!
This is a great piece by Keith that expresses something I love about movies: As much as I love fantasy worlds and futuristic spaceships and pew-pew-pew, there's a unique thrill in seeing a now-disappeared time and place captured on film. For example, I enjoy the oddball 1949 film noir D.O.A. — a movie that has a freakin' slide whistle crash the soundtrack when the protagonist ogles a sexy dame — but half of its pleasures are witnessing post-World War II San Francisco in the background.
I watched all the Dirty Harry movies in order a few years ago and they combine to from a visual history of a changin San Francisco. I remember wondering, in one scene set on some undeveloped land, how much that real estate must cost now.
A couple months ago I saw a four-hour supercut of scenes filmed in Massachusetts over the past 100 years, it was a very interesting way to track changes the landscape (particularly in Boston) and also the changes in stories told there. Wrote about it here: https://www.the-solute.com/film-on-the-town-made-in-massachusetts-100-years-of-filmmaking-in-the-bay-state-by-miller/ . But this is a wonderful essay, Keith -- I'm also a transplant and this nails that feeling of wanting to be in a place's history that predates your own, especially when you can see it on screen. The Brink's Job was filmed in the late 70s and is set in the mid 50s but Peter Falk's apartment has the same layout as my old place, I can look at that at least and feel the connection to the past.
Des Moines doesn't have a lot of cinematic representation, aside from those weird Christian scare films from Mark IV Pictures, like A Thief In The Night and A Distant Thunder, one of which features a chase scene through 1970s downtown, featuring brief glimpses of the porno theaters and dive bars that used to sit in the shadow of the state capitol, and which have been replaced by expensive restaurants and boutique hotels.
But wow, that anecdote about seeing The Boy And The Heron resonates. The River Hills theater was a Des Moines mainstay for decades, built in the mid-sixties for Cinerama, featuring a curved 70 foot screen and an amazing sound system. When Star Wars opened in '77 and The Empire Strikes Back opened in '80, if you wanted to see them, and you lived anywhere in central Iowa, that was where you had to go--it had exclusive rights to them. But by the time Return Of The Jedi opened, it still played at the River Hills, but you could also see it at one of the crappy multiplex auditoriums in the suburbs. Sure, it wasn't the same experience as seeing it in 70mm, but it was the beginning of people just not giving a shit. Still, even those crackerbox three-screen theaters had a sort of ramshackle character, and either because of the slightly out-of-focus screenings or the frequently surly staff, they could lead to memorable viewing experiences. Now all the non-arthouse theaters in the Des Moines area are located in the suburbs, and the auditoriums are perfectly nice, the image and sound quality are as good as digital projection allows, and there is not a single thing that distinguishes one theater from another.
also: it's kinda the opposite of the "nostalgia" Keith is talking about here (and I'd agree with him it's more about the fantasy that true nostalgia) but seeing the Bronx in Wolfen is an amazing document of a period in time that is no more
I feel the same way, living in LA and seeing its past in movies. Conversely I am eternally irritated at movies set in “LA” but are clearly Atlanta (another city I love and that also deserves to be reflected (projected?) as it is). I long for the days (even though I never had those days) for when everything was shot here. It must have been so much fun to see places where, say over the weekend, you had just been. Now it’s seeing places and being disappointed that it has been turned into a Target.
I did a movie tour of Chicago many years ago, which is how I found about THIEF and MEDIUM COOL (the only "cool" movies mentioned on the tour). That's also where I learned about Essenay's history
Great post. That windycityballyhoo Instagram account gives me a lot of pangs about what the Loop must have been like for a moviegoer back then, to say nothing of the drive-ins outside of town.
I'm sure I'd seen the United Artists theater in other movies but my clearest memory is in a very unclear picture as it exists today, a bootleg transfer of Duccio Tessari's THREE TOUGH GUYS, with Lino Ventura and Isaac Hayes. It's super artifacted and blurry but because I had to squint to make it out, that's what stuck with me.
First Chicago memory onscreen was seeing that car fall off the Marina Tower parking structure in Buzz Kulik's THE HUNTER.
Lovely piece. I've only spent a couple hours in Chicago, but many more in movies, especially the ones you reference here.
This past weekend we watched TIN MEN, a sorta lost Barry Levinson movie set in my hometown Baltimore at a time before I was born. There's a shot of DeVito running to the car that frames Memorial Stadium overhead and we hear the sound of a ballgame in progress. My high school is out of frame across the street from the stadium. Ballgames would stop being played in that stadium within years of the movie's release. We'd one day get a football team again, but they'd get their own brand new stadium downtown (no doubt pushing out homes of people who were no longer financially viable for the city). Baltimore doesn't show up in a lot of movies. Levinson and Waters were our main representatives. I've spent far more movie time in other people's lost hometowns.
Great piece, Keith.
Just want to add "Medium Cool" and its extensive shots of the city, especially Uptown.
I also love the extended shots of the car lots that use to line Western Ave in "Thief."
Oh, and finally: "My Bodyguard," which has great Chi scenes and is kind of a lost treasure.
I loved My Bodyguard as a kid but I didn't remember it was filmed in Chicago. Maybe time for a rewatch.
Ruth Gordon steals it.
All-around great cast. Kid-friendly, too (pretty much).
Chicago native Philip Kaufman also shot his first two features — the ’60s obscurities GOLDSTEIN and FEARLESS FRANK — there, and mostly on location as I recall.
Great piece, but as a homer for another Midwest city, was the steakhouse in PRIME CUT filmed in Chicago even though it was set in Kansas City? I know they filmed in both cities - not saying this would be a crushing realization, but it would be nice to have served as a location for scenes other than the county fair and Gene Hackman's barnyard prostitution ring.
Mmmm... Perhaps. It's been a while. It's not the same place, but there's a place called Miller's downtown with decor very much from that era that always puts me in mind of Prime Cut.
Me feel same way about old New York movies, which obviously there no shortage of. (Fun City Cinema podcast was terrific excuse to revisit different eras of city).
But then, me also like present-day New York movies so me can do Leo-pointing-at-TV when me see places me have been to. Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist will always have soft spot in heart because A) they get NYC geography right (Hoboken, not so much), and B) it closest anyone has come to capturing nights out me had as young monster decade earlier.
Loved watching Wayne Wang's SMOKE when I first moved to Brooklyn in 1995, which was set a block away from the theater where I saw it!
Please tell me where!!! Me have been trying to work out where that intersection is for almost 30 years! Someone told me it was Church & McDonald, and buildings look similar, but not quite right.
16th Street and Prospect Park West! And I think that theater nearby might be a Nitehawk now.
Me lived near south side of park for years (near Church & McDonald in fact), and probably went through that intersection thousand times and never realized!
That’s how persuasively movies transport us to a different place!
As a North Side resident from 2007 to 2013, I still love seeing films from Chicago's past, like THIEF. I also remember how thrilled I was the first time I stood in that atrium downtown where the final shootout in RUNNING SCARED took place.
I lived not far from that Essenay Studios doorway for five years. I remember how amazed I was when I was out walking the dog and noticed it and read the plaque. I had no idea Chicago had any silent film history to speak of.
I felt similar kind of nostalgia in 2009 when a friend of a friend got me into the premiere screening party for the documentary YOU WEREN'T THERE: A HISTORY OF CHICAGO PUNK, 1977-1984. All those old clubs, all those old bands, all that old scene. I really felt like I'd missed out on something.
https://youtu.be/gxWOHfdBaXQ
Also, maybe that AMC theater was not a memorable location, but I'd watch the shit out of a horror movie set in that Century Centre complex on Clark Street with the Landmark Theater at the top of the spiral.
It's so great to read this essay and then read the comments, just to see how many people this idea resonates with, despite living in places other than Chicago.
Film ends up being like a crystal clear memory, even as it lies to us. When I was in high school, Foxfire (not the helicopter one) was shot at my school over spring break. I worked a day on it as an extra, got my first proper paycheck from it and everything. Last year, the school was torn down, there's a new, much safer building in its place. But that movie is now the only way I know of to show my kid what my school looked like. It's weird watching it now (it's not very good, I don't recommend it), seeing those dark hallways, the oranges and yellows, and being able to smell it.
Unfortunately, Portland isn't known for great cinema being made here (outside of Drugstore Cowboy, Pig, and Zero Effect), so we don't get as clear a history as larger cities have, but we did birth David DeCoteau, who was a teenage projectionist at the Fox/Music Box theaters, which can still be seen in the background of some shots in Brainsmasher: A Love Story!
This is a great piece by Keith that expresses something I love about movies: As much as I love fantasy worlds and futuristic spaceships and pew-pew-pew, there's a unique thrill in seeing a now-disappeared time and place captured on film. For example, I enjoy the oddball 1949 film noir D.O.A. — a movie that has a freakin' slide whistle crash the soundtrack when the protagonist ogles a sexy dame — but half of its pleasures are witnessing post-World War II San Francisco in the background.
I watched all the Dirty Harry movies in order a few years ago and they combine to from a visual history of a changin San Francisco. I remember wondering, in one scene set on some undeveloped land, how much that real estate must cost now.
A couple months ago I saw a four-hour supercut of scenes filmed in Massachusetts over the past 100 years, it was a very interesting way to track changes the landscape (particularly in Boston) and also the changes in stories told there. Wrote about it here: https://www.the-solute.com/film-on-the-town-made-in-massachusetts-100-years-of-filmmaking-in-the-bay-state-by-miller/ . But this is a wonderful essay, Keith -- I'm also a transplant and this nails that feeling of wanting to be in a place's history that predates your own, especially when you can see it on screen. The Brink's Job was filmed in the late 70s and is set in the mid 50s but Peter Falk's apartment has the same layout as my old place, I can look at that at least and feel the connection to the past.
Des Moines doesn't have a lot of cinematic representation, aside from those weird Christian scare films from Mark IV Pictures, like A Thief In The Night and A Distant Thunder, one of which features a chase scene through 1970s downtown, featuring brief glimpses of the porno theaters and dive bars that used to sit in the shadow of the state capitol, and which have been replaced by expensive restaurants and boutique hotels.
But wow, that anecdote about seeing The Boy And The Heron resonates. The River Hills theater was a Des Moines mainstay for decades, built in the mid-sixties for Cinerama, featuring a curved 70 foot screen and an amazing sound system. When Star Wars opened in '77 and The Empire Strikes Back opened in '80, if you wanted to see them, and you lived anywhere in central Iowa, that was where you had to go--it had exclusive rights to them. But by the time Return Of The Jedi opened, it still played at the River Hills, but you could also see it at one of the crappy multiplex auditoriums in the suburbs. Sure, it wasn't the same experience as seeing it in 70mm, but it was the beginning of people just not giving a shit. Still, even those crackerbox three-screen theaters had a sort of ramshackle character, and either because of the slightly out-of-focus screenings or the frequently surly staff, they could lead to memorable viewing experiences. Now all the non-arthouse theaters in the Des Moines area are located in the suburbs, and the auditoriums are perfectly nice, the image and sound quality are as good as digital projection allows, and there is not a single thing that distinguishes one theater from another.
the loss of marquees on venues is a huge pet peeve of mine. tell us what's going on inside you, event space!
also: it's kinda the opposite of the "nostalgia" Keith is talking about here (and I'd agree with him it's more about the fantasy that true nostalgia) but seeing the Bronx in Wolfen is an amazing document of a period in time that is no more
I feel the same way, living in LA and seeing its past in movies. Conversely I am eternally irritated at movies set in “LA” but are clearly Atlanta (another city I love and that also deserves to be reflected (projected?) as it is). I long for the days (even though I never had those days) for when everything was shot here. It must have been so much fun to see places where, say over the weekend, you had just been. Now it’s seeing places and being disappointed that it has been turned into a Target.
I did a movie tour of Chicago many years ago, which is how I found about THIEF and MEDIUM COOL (the only "cool" movies mentioned on the tour). That's also where I learned about Essenay's history