Thanks to John Chuckman for hosting this extensive online collection of vintage Chicago imagery. I stumbled across it recently and can't wait to go back and study it in depth. I was particularly interested of course in the photos and postcards of old downtown and neighborhood movie theatres. Many are gone, many are repurposed, and it was amazing to see how every neighborhood had their own local screens.
I remember seeing "I Spit On Your Grave" at the McVickers. It was already a funky, rundown downtown grindhouse by that point, almost on its last legs. Watching a movie there was quite an interactive experience as the art of talking back to the screen was in full practice for almost every line of dialogue or every character's action.
The Clark Street Theatre was legendary and was the spiritual predecessor to us when we reopened The Sandburg Theatre as a repertory house in 1979. The Clark had pioneered the showing of double features of classic and disreputable old movies back in the late '60's and early '70's. It attracted an early crowd of cinephiles and threw them together with the bums who just wanted to get inside for the air conditioning or to sleep off a drunk.
I think it was at a Clark Theatre screening of "House of Wax" where the famous line "If you piss on my girlfriend I will beat the crap out of you" was heard shouted out from the balcony, just as Vincent Price as the deranged wizard of wax was about to "sculpt" another of his fiendish creations.
Good times!!
william
a few weeks ago 5 of us were strolling end of summer past the old sandburg site and reminiscing about the ting a ling and the clark and of course the old jazz showcase in the basement of the happy medium - good time indeed!
Posted by: mh | October 04, 2010 at 09:39 AM
Loved this post!
My parents were friends with the owner of the Clark Theater - Bruce Trinz. I believe the theater was opened by his father or grandfather. He was an incredible guy, who had an encyclopedic knowledge of cinema....The Clark was an odd/scary/intriguing place. The day before I was supposed to take an "entrance exam" at Latin (a wednesday, if I remember correctly), my mother and I went to the Clark and watched a Beatles film festival Bruce had put together (Hard Day's Night, Help, Yellow Submarine, and even the depressing Let It Be. The only other patron was an old man who was getting some shut eye. I still have the lobby card for "Let It Be" that Bruce gave me a couple of nights later when he and his wife came over for dinner....I'll always remember him fondly for trying to convince my parents to buy his rusty, blue Carmen Ghia for $100 to give me as a 16th birthday present. Unfortunately my father said "no thanks."
After selling the Clark, Bruce and some investors re-opened a theater (in Old Orchard, I think)as an alternative/art-house theater --.
...I do seem to remember a former classmate who ran the fabulous Sandburg Theater for a time;-)
Posted by: Jennifer | October 05, 2010 at 01:25 PM
Well, I don't know nothin' 'bout Chi Town, but I you have inspired me to go here tonight and sit around on grotty couches drinking Italian sodas with a bunch of other gigglers and snickerers.
http://www.sentientbean.com/events#1189I
Thank god for these guys:
http://www.facebook.com/PsychotronicFilmSavannah
Posted by: Diane | October 06, 2010 at 05:00 AM