The Wikiness

It’s shortly after noon on a Sunday. Church is over, and the weather’s uninviting. I call up my friend.

“May I speak to Mike?

“Sure…. (off sight shout) Mike!”

Pause.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Mike. It’s Drew. Wanna go see the 1 o’clock Live and Let Die at the Ritz?” 

The truth is, I’ll be walking over there regardless, but I like Mike, and his house is just a block away from the southeast corner of Ridgeland and Roosevelt, where stands the Ritz.

Built as a 2000-seat movie and vaudeville house in 1926, the theater takes up most of the block.  During the 1930s, the Ritz served the largely Bohemian population of Berwyn and Cicero, screening Czech-language films. By the time she welcomes me, only traces of her former glory (velour curtains, thick, sound-absorbent carpet in the lobby, a few golden escutcheons) remain. Whatever murals or artistic ceiling she had are begrimed with decades of cigarette smoke.

Now the Ritz is a second-run dump, getting major motion pictures months after their initial runs. In 1973, her seats are worn and her floors sticky. Her urinals smell as if they had collected under their cracked tiles all of the urine in the world. In between shows, when the lights are up, you can see cockroaches scurrying if you look down, and the occasional rat shadow moving along the baseboards. The local fauna are nourished by spilled popcorn, candy, and sodas. 

But mostly, I’m looking up, up at the screen, my first vivid window into the big, colorful world outside south Oak Park, a magic conveyance that carries me far away, educating and entertaining me for precious hours of escape from my decidedly un-entertaining home. Sunday matinees tickets are but 35 cents–often for a double feature. I am hooked. Unless it were playing something R-rated like The Godfather, you’d often find me at the Ritz, regardless of what was showing. In the days before streaming, you took what you could get. 

And there were some good films I saw at least twice there: 

• Dr. Zhivago
• Funny Girl
• The Out of Towners
• Harold and Maude
• Oliver
• The Paper Chase
• Butch Cassidy
• The 12 Chairs

No, it wasn’t the quality of the films that kept me coming back. It was the sanctuary the Ritz gave me from feeling irrelevant and unsatisfied. I could contentedly endure one of my least favorite types of film–a romantic comedy, say, like George Segal and Glenda Jackson in 1973’s A Touch of Class, so long as it got me out of my life. And ironically, though I usually sat alone in the dark, I felt seen, and a kind of social status at the Ritz. 

Merely taking my place in the ticket line, I wasn’t some punk kid, but a real member of society, waiting my turn just like the adults, and then choosing my seat, the same crappy quality as all the other seats. 

An important element of my Ritz experience was biochemical. If I had a couple of dollars, which I often did, I would dose my body with dopamine-inducing snacks–fatty, salty, and sweet–whichever I chose, and usually a combination. They were all displayed for me through the glass case under the counter: the Jujubes, Dots and Chuckles, the Raisinets and Goobers, the Snowcaps, Red Hots, and the Lemonheads. I didn’t go for those. My favorites were Twizzlers, black and red. Twizzlers are basically congealed corn syrup. They dissolve in your mouth and spread contentment through your being. Along with a buttered, salted popcorn, I’d order at least a medium Coke, so my blood was packed with enough feel-good juice to make it through even a “chick flick.”

Going to the movies energized me, and influenced my behavior. After looking up at a James Bond, or a John Wayne, I practiced walking manfully on my way home, and also my sudden moves (you know, to be ready for any threat). And after vicariously enduring the suffering of the SS Poseidon passengers, I  emerged into the raw air outside the Ritz with a bit of perspective. No matter the chaos or dysfunction I was returning to, I’d feel a bit wiser and older with my just shared suffering. Hadn’t I just been somewhere even worse?

Below: the defunct Ritz in 1978 or so.