Chicago Silent Film Festival-- where the hip kids will be!

One of my favorite events in the whole wide world has announced its latest season. It's the Silent Summer festival, in which hundreds of people, many of them younger than 70, come to the Gateway Theater/Copernicus Center on the northwest side, a vintage movie theater done in the atmopsheric style (like the Music Box), and enjoy silent movies on the big screen with live organ music and other wholesome entertainment like sing-alongs and live Dixieland jazz.

While there are lots of silent film screenings throughout the year in Chicago, this series stands out as a "pops" kind of thing that anybody can enjoy-- the movies are generally the proven warhorses, the organ part is grandiose fun, and the crowds (which usually about half fill the 2000-seat theater) are appreciative. Bring the whole family, everyone has a good time, especially if you stop in Ideal Pastry beforehand and have an eclair purchased from one of the Polish gals with fecthingly broken English.

I would particularly recommend, out of this year's choices, the first screening, Buster Keatonin one of his best comedies, Steamboat Bill Jr., and Colleen Moore and Gary Cooper in a riproaringly sentimental World War I romance, Lilac Time. But it's all good, check it out. Each program is on a Friday night at 8 pm, at the Gateway, 5216 W. Lawrence.

July 23, 2004 at 8:00 p.m.

Mike, thanks for the heads-up. I've got the 23rd penned in for the Keaton flick.

Actually, the Gateway was my childhood theater (along with the Patio and the Portage, which I believe are closed). I remember seeing the "Time Machine" (Rod Taylor, Yvette Mimieux) at a matinee there many years ago, and I still remember coming out into the light and getting the sense that , wow, that movie really put me into a different place.

Maybe we should organize a chow-event around the film-event.

David

I'm not sure the Patio and Portage are closed-- or rather, I think both still exist in a kind of edge-of-bankruptcy state where they go in and out of being operational. (As opposed to, say, the Uptown, which has been closed for decades.) In any case, the Patio was definitely open as of when I noticed "Mission to Mars" playing there a couple of years ago.

The really cool theater still in operation as a movie theater everyone should check out is the Pickwick in Park Ridge. Art Deco Mayan, plus a really wildly painted fire curtain, it's way cool, I plan on making it my tomb when I die. The Arcada in St. Charles is another nice one. (I'm assuming no one needs to be told to go to the Music Box.)

I concur that this is a truly fun series, and the theater is a marvelous example of its era. Get there early if you go for the night with the orchestra, because they do fill up even this vast house.

Food is kind of sparse in the neighborhood. The theater sells hot dogs and popcorn. Otherwise, there's the Gale Street Inn, which in my experience has terrible service on Silent Summer nights, and the Golden Duck, which is quite good but also very small.

Gale Street serves falling-off-the-bone ribs, which people who like that sort of thing say are good, and Mexican-influenced American fare; Golden Duck offers substantial Middle European fare, including a delicious roast duckling.

Scouting last summer also turned up Excelsior Garden, a Chinese place that looked to be mainly carryout; Sloppy Joe Lutzow, which never seems to be open; and Teresa 2, a tiny Polish restaurant about which I've heard decent things, but I've never visited any of them.

Gale Street Inn
4914 N. Milwaukee Ave., Chicago
773/725-1300

Golden Duck
4801 N. Milwaukee Ave., Chicago
773/203-7300

Excelsior Garden
4855B N. Milwaukee Ave., Chicago
773/283-1618

Sloppy Joe Lutzow
4945 N. Milwaukee Ave., Chicago
773/282-8774

Teresa 2
4751 N. Milwaukee Ave., Chicago
773/283-0184

Mike G wrote:I'm not sure the Patio and Portage are closed-- or rather, I think both still exist in a kind of edge-of-bankruptcy state where they go in and out of being operational.

Portage Theater

The Portage closed in 2001 and was reopened briefly last year by Paul Warshauer and the Henslowe Group, but they ran into trouble with the landlord and city bureaucracy and apparently gave up. The web site says re-opening plans are "on hold" and features a "For Sale" sign. You can sign up there for e-mail updates.

http://www.portagetheater.com

There's some info on what went wrong at http://cinematreasures.org/theater/437

Well, the silent movie series at the Gateway/Copernicus Center still hasn't been announced for this summer, but in the meantime, the organists from the Silent Film Society of Chicago will be doing accompaniment for a series of Harold Lloyd comedies at the Music Box during the first week of July. (Harold Lloyd specialized in eyepopping stunts no insurance company would let any star do today. If you've ever seen him, you've seen the picture of him dangling from the face of a clock in Safety Last, the climax of a sequence in which he climbs the face of a building.)

I especially recommend Safety Last and The Kid Brother; and if you're a baseball fan, among the supporting cast of Speedy is a fellow named Babe Ruth in one of his few movie appearances. Fun for all ages.

http://www.silentfilmchicago.com/SFSCevents.htm

Alas, no fetchingly broken English is spoken along Southport, but at least you can certainly get Italian ice after the show along there.

P.S. Alas, the Arcada referenced above seems to have closed, too.

After missing a year, the Silent Film Festival returns this week at a new home, the Portage Theater on Milwaukee near Irving.

Schedule here:

http://www.silentfilmchicago.com/Festival.htm

Many fun choices there, starting with what I consider the best comedy of an admittedly minor comedian....

Not sure what to suggest for food in the immediate vicinity, though there's that Bosnian or whatever place Harry V. liked (name escapes me and it closes early), and a Las Tablas which is okay. Mr. Steer, the Polish imitation of a Wild West Saloon circa 1972, is alas no more.

Speaking of silents, if you were ever forced to watch Soviet ones in film class, you'll enjoy this, which is like all of them boiled into five minutes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOHFWfqOg0c

I spent many hours of my youth in the Portage Theater -- it will be very interesting to see how it's held up.

For those of you who have not ever been to this festival, it is a real eye-opener. Watching the Keaton film a few years ago, I realized why some people were so upset when "talkies" came on the scene.

David "Silence is Golden" Hammond

There is also a silent film society in Milwaukee that has a film festival in the fall months I believe. They usually hold their shows at the Oriental Theatre which is worth a visit for the architecture alone.

Mike G wrote:Not sure what to suggest for food in the immediate vicinity, though there's that Bosnian or whatever place Harry V. liked

Meisa Cafe?

La Palapita, a taqueria I believe related to Las Pasaditas, is a little north on Milwaukee. And you're not to far from such favorites as Thai Aree, Sabatino's, La Humita, and even Taqueria la Oaxaquena.

Right, Meisa Cafe. I couldn't get the right vowels in the right order to do a search.

Yeah, expand from the immediate area and you're not far from a number of things, which the various Old Irving Park threads would be helpful with.

Maybe not quite right for this thread, but I just watched “The Cook,” a silent film starring and directed by Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle – certainly a controversial guy - and featuring Buster Keaton. While it doesn’t all make sense, and it’s not great, it’s a fascinating look into the world of restaurants in 1917.

It had been considered lost, until a copy of it (on highly-perishable nitrite film) was discovered in Norway, within the last decade.

It might be a bit tough to find at your local Blockbuster, but I was able to get it through Nexflix.