A Lost Era

came upon this photo while poking around on the Net and it just brought back a flood of memories of taking the El into the big old bad Chicago Loop to see some great 70's exploitation films . Sadly most of these big old movie palaces are gone. In fact by the 70s' most of them were near falling down and rodent infested whch to me added to the atmosphere of the films they were playing. I mean who the hell would want to see a movie like "The Losers" or "The Return Of Count Yorga" in some spiffy polished multiplex anyway. The charm of those films was being able to sit with your feet glued (literally) to the floor while two overgrown rats quibble over a piece of stale popcorn under the seat next to you like some whacked game of Rock Em Sock Em Rodents. Yes...an era gone but not forgotten...

The weirdest for me though was going to see the play Wicked at the rehabbed/rebuilt Oriental Theater last summer. I believe it has some bullshit name now like the Cadillac Palace or Ford Center or some other commercial sounding name
Anyway the whole time I sat through this fine Broadway production I could not believe I was sitting in the same theater that I saw "The Abominable Dr Phibes" in some 30 years earlier.
As I looked around at some of the people sitting near me it became very clear ...
I really missed the rats.