At The Movies

Well......It really doesn't matter, who you are...All of us can remember, going to the movies, when we were youngsters....It was a big, big deal, let's face it...We didn't have cable tv, we didn't have DVD's or VCR's...Our primary form of entertainment back then, was kicking rusty, old beer cans, down an alley...and going up to the drug store on 87th, to steal candy...

So, getting the mega $3 or $5 from our Mom's to venture out of the neighborhood, to the various theatres across the South Side of Chicago...was a huge treat...

My first movie, I saw, was a Disney movie...I'm guessing it was JUNGLE BOOK-not such a great movie-but who cares, I had the attention span of a fruit fly back then. My dear sister Joan took me to the swanky CORAL THEATRE out around 93rd & Cicero, in Oak Lawn(which is long-gone now).

I made my sister, go with me..right up to the front row, of the theatre, because I wanted to see that damn movie, as big as life...Afterwards, Joanie took me to the soda fountain/ice cream shop across the street, next to the Walgreen 's...(right near the White Castles)...which was even better than the movie...

Next movie, I remember, vividly was WILLY WONKA & THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY...at the Evergreen Plaza, in Evergreen Park(95th & Western)...Me and a few 86th Street chums, clumsily trodded along the railroad tracks from 87th out to 95th Street...because it was our secret railroad wilderness trek...like adventurous new explorers of the free world...

There we were...Throwing rocks at squirrels, scampering all about and if an occaisional train came running down the tracks....We'd all lay down a penny or a nickel or a quarter on the railroad steel rails and watch....as the force of the train's wheels would pulverize our coins into demented slabs of funny looking metal...Oh yes, just an endless hoot of silliness to contend with, as we made our way to THE PLAZA...(evergreen park plaza, a huge mall)...

As we got closer, say about 93rd Street along the tracks, we came across this hidden pond, right behind The old Martinique...(where a whole slew of my family held their wedding receptions)...It was like stumbing onto a lost paradise, frogs, fish and fowl, everywhere...We just about came un-glued stumbling upon this rare gem...but we had to press on, cuz' the movie started in 20 minutes...

It was funny, when we finally settled in for Willy Wonka, the movie is all about CANDY, and as a crazy kid you were drooling out of your mind...watching the whole giant candy themes come boldly jump, right out, at you...

So as the movie ended...You wanted to immediately run out of theatre and chow down on some candy bars...ASAP...And oddly enough, the Evergreen Plaza Theatre had a special concession stand set up...after the Wonka movie, with all kinds of special Willy Wonka stuff...

Willy Wonka chocolate bars, and Ooompa Loompa Peanut M&M's...Just a great big bunch of candy, that you frenzily bought with every last dime you had and stuffed it into your pockets with supreme glee...

Another great flick from my aspiring youth was TOMMY...The WHO's rock opera, starring Ann Margaret & Roger Daltrty and a bunch of big stars...Me and the Howland Boys were really, really kind of mesmerized by the weird and strangeness of the storyline...which sucked...but the music was out-of-this-world, exciting with a huge spectacular mega-production of the classic PINBALL WIZARD...rabidly rocking things out of control...

As I got older, I got a little more adventurous, the G rated movies, were long gone, from our radar and I was skipping the PG movies, totally,and sneaking into the R rated movies, at about 3rd or 4th or 5th Grade...

I can remember, sneaking back into the Evergreen Plaza Theatre with my good friend, Johhny Howland(HOP) and maybe Danny Casey, as we saw a great Steve McQueen movie called PAPILLION...

It was this wild prison movie, also starring a very young Dustin Hoffman, that had Steve McQueen escaping from all these unbelievable exotic prisons, off the French Coast...Just some mind blowing stuff...Anyway, me & Hop had a great time, first wandering thru the Mall, munching caramel corn, devouring giant chocolate soft-serve ice cream cones, jumping on the escalators, like they were carnival rides...maybe even dropping a goldfish into the coin fountain....goofy kids stuff like that...

But then, as we got in our theatre seats and watched the movie unfold...we are scratching our heads, wondering, why is this movie rated R...???...There was no swearing, nothing beyond intense, that you wouldn't see in a PG movie...Where is the good stuff...???...

But then about 3/4 of the way thru, Papilion(McQueen) stumbles thru a dense jungle and comes upon this isolated, pagan jungle tribe, and all the women are completely naked...(for a good 10 minutes).

So, surely, when we rushed back to our ol' stomping grounds of 86th Street, grinning from ear to ear, we gave Papillion a huge thumbs-up, and said this R rated movie stuff...is gonna be on our agenda, quite a bit, from there on out...

Johnny "Hop" Howland was such a kooky, crazy, cool kid...He just had a wacky, wry, non-chalant, sense of humor...even at a young age...He was the one Howland boy, always catching the blame, from his parents, it seemed, but Hop, had his funny way, of rationalizing...any situation, in his pissed-off, who gives a damn, attitude...

Gosh...we had such a blast...all us 86th Street kids...stealing cigars, too, back then, from John's Liquors & Grocery, chomping on those stinky stogies as we built countless numbers of forts...playing ball like madmen, until the sun went down and of course...getting out of the neighborhood...to play miniature golf on 95th Street(then always stopping off at the Jack-In- The-Box for greasy, yummy, fried tacos) or catch a fun, fun movie, every now & then...Endless, endless hilarity...

Next 2 movies I saw as a kid, as I got older, are quite famous...JAWS & the EXORCIST....at the Ford City Cinema...around 6th Grade...with Slim, Eddie B, Johnny Murph, Fitz & Fees, Joey Devlin, maybe Bucky, probably Moodo, Don, Neil(Krull), Marty(Eck), Kevin(Ryan), Denny (Cusack), Bob(Kross)...

Oh yes...there's more...Tommy Duffner(Duff), Mike Mulligan, Jimmy Curley(Curls), Marty Rogers, Mike Powers (Pows), Jimmy Disbrow(Dizz), Jimmy Bandyk, just a whole crazy bunch of us, countless of others too, from our age group...from around Tommy More...could have been with me, the somewhat infamous, Jimmy O's, that day...

We all had to walk all the way to the other side of the neighborhood to catch the 79th Street bus...that took you...riding over beyond Bogan H.S. to the Ford City Mall...As the bus, let you off, you still had to walk about 5 blocks to get to Ford City...so we were quite exhausted from our adventures to and from Ford City...(but it was well worth it...)

JAWS...Wow...Jaws....what can you say...???....Just about the biggest, hyped movie of our time. The line to get into that movie was by far as I'll ever see...just wrapping around the block...Of course, we managed to sneak in at the door...and ran for our seats....and sunk in and watched the Shark terrorize the sleepy little ocean-side town...

It was an incredible rush, as everyone in the theatre had their hearts pounding, scared to death, that damn shark, was gonna devour everyone who came 15 feet within the water...Just an awesome movie, with that spooky, unrelenting shark music...pulsating thru you...transfixed on the mysterious shark that doesn't show up on the screen until well over an hour into the movie...

Egad...next up...The Exorcist....another movie, hyped to the gills...Suddenly, all the news was about demons and evil and such...And I'll say right now, if that movie pops up on my TV, I turn it off, in an instant...How scary was it...???....Terrifyingly scary...

When that possessed little girl, had the glowing, evil eyes, with the distorted evil voice, spinning her head in circles and spewing out a blast of green pea soup vomit...You pretty much, wanted, to cover your eyes and start praying that never, ever happened to you...

A very, very funny side note to The Exorcist...I came home that night...and was surely spooked out of my mind...I eventually climbed into bed and hoped I didn't dare dream about that crazy stuff...Anyway, I woke up, about Midnight and went to the bathroom...

It was pitch-black when I got back to my room as I was just about to throw myself back into bed....Suddenly, my brother Joe...(remember James Bond)...well, he was laying on the floor, besides my bed, and grabbed hold of my ankles, like a vice grip, squeezing as tight as he could...

Well, much to my dismay, I thought I was being visited by some demonic force, wickedly about to send me into an Exorcist-like demonic rage....I was so, so scared, I couldn't scream, and I was pretty close to peeing on myself...

There I was, a frightened mess, as all I could do was muster up a tiny whimper of a scream...when my brother, Joe, jumped up and covered my mouth and dropped me onto the bed, and started laughing and laughing and laughing....

It was utterly hilarious...thinking back now...I don't even think Joe knew I saw that Exorcist movie that day...It was just perfect timing...on his part...

I also really felt lucky to hop on the Kedzie Avenue bus, with my buds, and head a mile north to the gritty, seedy, Marquette Park area, too, to the old, dilapidated Colony(59th street) and Marquette(63rd street) theatres...just crumbling old dinosaur movie theatres built way back in the 1920's...

Movies at those 2 theatres were only $1 and the movies were tepid, lack-luster, B-Flicks....like the Vincent Price horror movies, or the Richard Pryor movie, CAR WASH or more horror stuff, like PHANTASM & ORCA THE KILLER WHALE. We didn't care...That stuff was top-notch in our books...

I'll cover those theatres, more extensively, later on...as my teenage years progress...hopefully...

Most excellently, I saw plenty of great, great movies back then, with me and the Howland Boys, then me & my fellow chums from Tommy More grade school, too...Just an endless amount of exciting movies galore...that always left us always wanting some more.

For it wasn't just the movies, that held us in awe...It was getting out of our comfort zone, beyond Tommy More, and wandering new areas, across the whole south-side of Chicago, seeing new things...and yes, finding ourselves in plenty of mischeivous trouble...from time to time...along the way...

I didn't even get to mention great movies I saw like...

THE STING
BUTCH CASSIDY/SUNDANCE KID
TOWERING INFERNO
POSEIDON ADVENTURE
AIRPLANE
APOCOLYPSE NOW
KILLER TOMATOES

and on and on and on...

oh well, maybe we'll recall some of those later...(I'm sure we will...) because these memoirs have us merrily rolling along...and who knows...what will pop up next...