Of Sports and Cinema WGN Style!
February 25th, 2010 by Scott Marks
It should come as no surprise that my hatred of sports is as deeply rooted as my love of cinema. I wish I could say that I never went to a sporting event, but wrestling matches notwithstanding, I can count the number of games I’ve attended in person on two hands.
Visits to Chicago’s Wrigley Field with Adventure Day Camp were an annual burden. I liked it better when it rained and we took refuge in the Riviera Theatre to watch “Snow White and the Three Stooges.” Apart from a few trips to Wrigley mandated by adult supervisors I’ve witnessed exactly one football, basketball and hockey event each.
I’d rather watch Tarkovsky movies without subtitles.
Before earning my learner’s permit allowed access to every movie house in town, WGN was my home theater. Theirs was the best movie package in Chicago. They held the syndicated rights to all the Warner Bros., MGM, Fox, Universal and United Artists features, including the Warner’s cartoons and a trick deal that netted them not only Columbia’s Three Stooges shorts, but “Clutch Cargo” as well..
Sports and cinema collided in my mind thanks to Chicago’s Very Own WGN-TV. Professional sports was, and still is, a big money maker for WGN, yet the miserly bastards won’t even stop three hours on Labor Day for a charitable cause. What did they care about movies?
By the 1970s, they had run their 16mm film library into the ground while the Friendly Confines of Wrigley Field became home to state of the art video equipment. The gate of their film chain had more dirt than a dugout and the station’s print of “North by Northwest” contained so many black bars it appeared to have been filmed from inside a jail cell. Many of their old Deluxe prints had turned redder than Bozo’s nose.
WGN timed commercial breaks to the mili-second. It was a science with them. Films shown before 10:30 pm were trimmed to fit the schedule. In order to accommodate a two-and-a-half hour time slot, five minutes of Leo McCarey’s 125 minute “An Affair to Remember” were missing from every telecast. For years I agonized over what was kept from me. A 35mm print at the Davis Theater set my mind to rest. For once they were right. The boys at 2501 W. Bradley Place wisely excised the insufferable Boy’s Choir sequences.
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Tags: Chicago Cubs, Creature Features, Frazier Thomas, Garfield Goose, The Three Stooges, wgn chicago, WGN-TV, When Movies Were MoviesFiled Under Rants
Chuck Connors: Baseball’s gift to movies
April 30th, 2008 by Scott Marks
“IN SQUEEZE PLAY — Chuck Connors, Baseball’s gift to the motion picture screen, goes to bat to score with a top featured role in Warner Bros.’ ‘South Sea Woman,’ forth-coming Burt Lancaster and Virginia Mayo co-starrer. In the romantic comedy Connors plays a marine pal of Lancaster and the impatient fiance of Miss Mayo. Chuck, who last year covered first base for the Los Angeles Angels, has also played for the Chicago Cubs and Brooklyn Dodgers.”
Tags: 8 x 10, Actor, Baseball, Brooklyn Dodgers, Chicago Cubs, Chuck Connors, Los Angeles Angels, Movies, Photo, Publicity Photo, South Sea Woman, StillFiled Under Image Blog