Luna Theatre

moviebuff82 on September 23, 2017 at 8:29 am

Had Plitt continued to own this theater, Cineplex Odeon would’ve taken it over.

LaughlinFalconer on September 23, 2017 at 12:18 am

I remember my dad taking me to see a double feature at the Luna: Patton, and M.A.S.H. I don’t think he knew quite what he was in for with the latter. We also saw 2001 there; he was not a science fiction fan, and really wondered about that one. By the time I turned 18, the Luna had converted into an adult theater.

One year the Trib featured great little neighborhood pizza places. A little bar around the corner on Cicero was cited as the best Sicilian pizza in the city. The son of the proprietor was a classmate of mine in elementary school – surprise!

Broan on January 17, 2016 at 3:39 pm

Here is a THSA photo of the Luna

darrenparlett on August 30, 2013 at 12:29 am

I wish my dad took me see those types of flicks..dammit

RiisPark on March 12, 2013 at 8:35 pm

I went to the Luna many times in my youth. I remember seeing West Side Story there.

rso1000 on June 30, 2011 at 9:48 pm

As mentioned above, the alley east of Cicero at one time ran all the way to Belmont until Walgreens was built. The west wall of the theatre bordered the alley.

Paul Fortini on November 30, 2010 at 1:22 pm

Amazing photos of the Luna. I lived not too far from there, but I’d never been to the Luna. My friends and I did go to the Will Rogers though (The Willy as we called it). I don’t believe I’d ever even seen the Luna.

mikey2 on May 12, 2010 at 2:03 pm

I saw the double-bill “Last house on the left” and “Don’t look in the basement” here sometime in the mid-70’s because I was in early HS at the time. The theatre was NOT on the corner of Belmont and Cicero where Walgreens is now, as someone said earlier, because that was the Luna Lounge, a very interesting dive that had much better days. That was closed then demolished not long ago, less than 10 years ago. The theatre was down the block a little ways from the bar, I think it’s now the parking lot next to the senior home.

KenC on April 22, 2010 at 11:05 pm

And- THE POM-POM GIRLS, MANIAC, MOTHER’S DAY,a number of FRIDAY THE 13TH flicks and- as mark h noted, a few John Carradine titles (FRANKENSTEIN ISLAND), one of the most ridiculous movies ever. By the way, does anyone recall one of the managers of the Luna? If memory serves, he looked much like director John Waters…tall, lean, thinning hair, and a little moustache. This would have been around 1981.

kencmcintyre on April 18, 2009 at 10:38 pm

Here is another photo from 1982:
http://tinyurl.com/c2t9oy

JonPutnam on December 20, 2007 at 5:02 pm

CHICAGO TRIBUNE (November 17, 1986)

“The Luna: Sticky Floors, Sticky Seats and 3 Years of Ben Hur”

by Joseph Marconi

---

You might say that the package that arrived with the Wednesday morning mail hit me like a brick.

Actually it didn’t hit me at all. It was a real brick, however, like the ones houses are made of. It was gift-wrapped.

Having spent several weeks immersed in research for a book on the Mafia, I looked for the symbolism. Alas, there was none. But there was a note from my childhood friend Richard informing me that enclosed was the last of it: The Luna Theater was now officially dust.

“Oh, no!” I shouted.

As is the custom in Chicago these days, my shouts went unnoticed. I quickly phoned Richard for the details of the demise of the movie palace of my youth on Belmont Avenue, a few buildings east of Cicero.

“That’s it,” he said matter-of-factly. “The whole block’s flat. Nothing’s left of the old Luna except the brick. I sent it to you because I know you’re sentimental about those kind of things.”

Sentimental indeed, I thought, reflecting on a time well past when I, then much younger than my children are now, would join the line at the Luna for… .

But wait!

As I think about it, there never was a line at the Luna. Not even for the big blockbuster movies that played there about a year after everyone in town had seen them.

And I guess it wasn’t really a palace either, being kind of seedy, as I recall. It was a very small theater by almost any standard. It didn’t even have a real lobby, just a curtain behind the last row of seats.

Anyway, I remembered the Luna. I think “Ben Hur” played there for about three years. Tickets were cheaper than at nearby rivals, the Portage and Will Rogers theaters, but that didn’t help.

The Luna, like the barely lamented DiGeorgio’s Pizzeria next door to it, is gone. Today’s audiences want cushy seats in multi-screen movie houses with parking lots and Dolby sound. I guess they want franchised generic pizza places, too.

Who shall eulogize or mourn the Luna, that place where little children were taken to see their first cartoons on a big screen and where we neighborhood kids would walk with our dates when we were too young to drive? Who will recall the confusion we experienced when the intermission elves sang “Let’s go out to the lobby … ” and we had nowhere to go? The memories of the sticky floors, the sticky seats, gone now … forever.

I hadn’t been to the Luna in about 20 years. So what? I haven’t watched “American Bandstand” for 20 years, but I liked knowing it was still there.

If you remember the Luna, please join me in a moment of silence. If you don’t remember the Luna, but if you ever went to a neighborhood movie house in your youth, feel free to join in. And be glad, at least, that we still have Dick Clark.

Senorsock on October 3, 2006 at 2:35 pm

The newspaper account was accurate. I don’t know when you lived there, paigevan, but when I lived there in the 1960’s the Luna played many family films on Saturday mornings. I believe they were sponsered by Craigin Savings. The Will Rogers was THE house to see the latest in Disney releases, but the Luna showed its share back then as well.

Broan on December 6, 2005 at 5:06 pm

This must have been one of the very last new theaters Rapp & Rapp built.