Parkway Theatre

I remember back in the early 80’s when it was a repertory cinema with great programming. It showed its age, but I loved the history of the building and the unusual horseshoe balcony that was missing seats on both sides then. Just the back. I wonder if it’s all still there hiding behind a drop ceiling? One of the oldest next to The Bryn Mawr, Biograph and Three Penny which is now Lincoln Hall. And The Lake Shore which is now a live comedy venue: The Laugh Factory?

Circa 1971 Saul Smaizys photo via Flickr. Image will enlarge in link.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/ceebop/24244411495/in/album-72157662523920010/

I lived at Buckingham and Halsted in the 70’s. During this period the Parkway showed a different double feature every night of the week for $2.50. This in itself was unique. But they also printed a flyer two or three months in advance, so you could plan ahead for 90 double features! Truffaut, Bergman, films so esoteric that I can’t even remember. This is the theater where I saw Eraserhead when it first came out. I remember sitting in the balcony and the audience was stone cold silent, like they didn’t know what the hell was going on. A few days later I saw it again and everyone was laughing. Ha!

btkrefft and DavidZornig: Thanks for your photo and comments! I remember taking that streetcar down/up Clark street from my home at Newport near Clark all the way to downtown way back in the late 40’s and early ‘50’s. I think it cost a nickel. See the wall poster for Jays Potato Chips in the background? My dad used to take me to the Parkway when it showed 3 film changes a week and I was lucky to see movies from the late 1940’s and 1950’s that were several years old as a second or even third feature there.(I saw “Buffalo Bill (1944)”, “The Uninvited (1944)”,“Lorna Doone (1951)”, “The Thing from Another World (1951)”,“The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)”,“The Master of Ballantrae (1953)” to name a few that I remember). The area around Diversey and Clark had three great movie houses all within a block or so of each other back then: The beautiful Century movie palace showing first run films straight after their downtown run; the Parkway showing films like 'Abbot and Costello’ and ‘Francis the Talking Mule’; and the Covent that showed wonderful foreign and “Art” films, like “The Man in the White Suit”, “I am a Camera (1955)and "And God Created Woman”. What memories …

That’s a Martin Kennelly banner above the bus. The incumbent that Richard J. Daley would defeat to become Mayor of Chicago in April 1955.

I grew up on Belden & Clark when it was a working class area and the Parkway Theater wasn’t far from there. I first went there with my Mom and sisters and later went with friends seeing 2-3 movies in an afternoon in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. I saw movies that were never going to win any awards but it didn’t matter. I saw monster, horror, kung fu and any B-rated movie you could imagine. It was a great time and I will always remember the fun and friends.

I lived in this neighborhood in the mid 70s but I never went to this theater. I remember hearing that it was a real dump. By the time Landmark took it over I was long gone.

That’s understandable. If you’re searching through net archives for news articles, though, you will get more hits if you use 2736 instead of 2738.

Most of the Chicago Tribune stories from the teens and twenties place the theater at 2736 N. Clark.

Jeramy, I’m Terry G. and I worked for you at the Parkway from mid-1980 to 1981. I remember well climbing through the bathroom window to put up a clever slogan for the next days' films. I was great watching all of the great classic films on my off hours. I remember making the fresh popcorn for the customers. There needs to be more Reperatory Film Theaters around. I live in Cincinnati and we have nothing. Here’s to great classic films and the old Parkway!

I managed the magnificent Parkway for Landmark Corp. from 1980 to 1984. A few
things: It was built in 1911, as a vaudeville house. Charlie Chaplin, by the
way, lived right down the street. Might he have performed there? The furnace
and air conditioning system were maintained from 1911. The 35 mm. projectors
were the originals.
The house held 950, including the (non-horseshoe shaped) balcony. The ceilings
behind the screen went up 4 or so flights, to accommodate the levels used to
let down backdrops for the theatrical productions. The flights were connected by
ladders, only.
Also, behind the theatre was an attached, unheated, never-having-been-heated,
room the size of a large garage. This was where the vaudeville troops would
live while they performed there. There was no plumbing, either.

With Landmark, the theatre was always, most always, packed. We ran films from
noon every day to 12 midnight, double bills, changing every day. That’s about
730 films per year! The films cans (35mm and heavy) would have to be taken up
to the projection booth 3 floors up, and then, down. A lot of carrying!

The lobby wasn’t THAT short, although it was way too small to accommodate the
huge crowds who would cluster there to smoke and discuss the films. There was so
much interaction then!
The office was under the stairs, in what should have been a broom closet. It
featured a secret window into the theatre.

Landmark Theatre hired a Californian drug dealer to renovate, in 1982, and that
destroyed much of the original beauty, making the place look like a Mexican
restaurant. But the films remained, the audiences remained, and they did not
stop coming when home video came along. Instead, Landmark joined forces with a
real estate company from Denver, and the place went corporate. They closed the
Parkway because it cost more to heat a theater in Chicago than in Los Angeles,
so our expenses were too high. And that was that.Before, this had been a really
progressive film company in California, run by Gary Meyers and programmed by
Jan Klingelhoffer who were both brave and brilliant people.
The programming was brilliant indeed! Well known repetory, obscure foreign
films, directors' festivals, any number of possibilities.
Another thing of note: the staff would choose a “saying” to put on the marquee
every night, along with the film titles. This meant climbing out the bathroom
window, often in very icey conditions, and applying the letters upside down.
These sayings were often quite intelligent (as was the staff, which did not
consist of teenagers trying to make extra money but of film scholars and
aficionados.)
I heartily miss the Parkway.

Here’s a link to a complete Parkway schedule from April 5 to June 7 1981.

View link

Here’s a photo from 1980 when it was a revival house owned by Landmark.

View link