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May 26, 2008
Goin to Hollywood
The Ol' Food Store, originally uploaded by Oh Malarkey.
Some of you may recall my run-ins with Jennifer Aniston a few years ago. God willing, we can soon add Johnny Depp to that list. The above picture is of Lincoln Avenue, just north of Fullerton, where they have made the entire block into a replica of Lincoln, circa 1934. The occasion: the filming of Public Enemies, a movie where Johnny Depp plays fabled bank robber John Dillinger. As any Chicagoan ought to know, it was at the Biograph Theater, on Lincoln Avenue, that Dillinger met his death, betrayed by the Lady in Red.
The above picture is what Lincoln looks like today, as film crews are scurrying about. It really is quite uncanny, the way the street has been transformed into its past self. I sort of wish they'd leave it like that once the filming was over, but I somehow doubt it. It's been a pleasure to see it undergo the changes, and I'll miss them. I would highly recommend going to see it, as this is a great chance to see what a city street might have looked like in the 1930's.
entry no. 1154
Posted at May 26, 2008 10:23 PM
Comments
Very cool. I agree that it would be nice if they left the buildings that way, but sadly that will never happen. Too much money to be made with flashy modern signage and such.
John Goodman starred in a Babe Ruth movie during the late 80s, and though it was set in New York, Chicago had such a superior collection of 1920s-vintage buildings that they filmed it here instead. They transformed a stretch of Southport (one block on each side of Roscoe) into a convincing depiction of the Roaring Twenties. I was able to watch the filming of one brief scene, which involved Goodman/Ruth driving down the street on a motorcycle. Pretty cool.
Also, when I first moved to the city in 1989, the building at Clark and Roscoe that once housed the Texas Star Chili Bar (not sure what's there now) had an old-fashioned sign that said LAUNDRY. I thought that was strange, because it didn't appear to be a laundry business at all. Later, the mystery was solved when I saw The Untouchables - this was the building whose storefront was blown up with a mobster's bomb at the beginning of the movie. By the time I saw the building for the first time, they still hadn't removed the LAUNDRY sign.
Posted by: Pete at May 27, 2008 09:30 AM