Thorough Chicago Film Tour showcases workaday slices of the city

August 20, 2009|By Christopher Borrelli, Tribune reporter

The Chicago Film Tour, which embarks from a curb outside the Rock 'n' Roll McDonald's and shepherds you through a surprisingly thorough history of how the city has been used as a location in movies, is not unlike going to a big summer movie: You're in and out in about two hours. The room -- a standard issue tourist coach -- is air-conditioned. There are cup holders. The guy in front of you keeps checking his cell phone. Onscreen, there are explosions; a car chase or two; a little comedy; and Jennifer Aniston shows up, looking uncomfortable. Images flicker past, so quickly at times you don't know where to look. And the hyperbole is fairly thick. That last part would be courtesy of tour guide Patrick McDonald, an enthusiastic, funny guy with a love for the word "iconic." As we headed south on Lake Shore Drive, he said studios adored its "iconic bike path."

And yet, the funny thing is, that bit of bombast aside, McDonald is so genial and knowledgeable he makes a solid case that Chicago's niche in the movies -- not as romantic as New York's, or as sunshiny as Los Angeles' -- is in its utility. The tour, which began in April as the brainchild of Chicagoan John Brinkman, does this by showing clip after clip (on low-hanging video screens) of how a spot was used, then rolling up to the spot. If you're from out of town, it's not a bad way of seeing Chicago's everyday nature: Many locations are less than spectacular.

For instance, heading north, the bus swings by the Ambassador East hotel in the Gold Coast, interiors of which appeared in "North By Northwest" and "My Bodyguard." And, heading south, by the pier (in Belmont Harbor) where Tom Cruise sank his father's Porsche into Lake Michigan in "Risky Business." But you don't stop. You slow. You watch the respective clip, you nod toward the spot, then you keep going. It's an interesting way to cover a ton of ground -- from Uptown to Chinatown to Wrigleyville -- but at times the tour moves so fast that while you're busy watching a clip of a location, you forget to gaze out at the actual location.

What the Chicago Film Tour lacks in patience, however, it makes up for in volume. McDonald doesn't merely show a clip of Graceland being used once, but seemingly every time the cemetery has been filmed -- including, of all things, for "Sleepless in Seattle." There are tributes to "Backdraft" (partly shot in Chinatown) and Cabrini-Green (featured in "Cooley High"), to "The Dark Knight" (of course) and John Hughes (though oddly, there's no mention that scores of his pictures were shot on the North Shore).

McDonald, however, a reviewer for, is thoughtful enough not to dwell on well-trodden ground -- on "The Blues Brothers" or the legacy of Second City. Rather, he makes time for "Thief," Michael Mann's 1981 crime thriller in which James Caan blows up the Green Mill. He wedges in a short history of Oscar Micheaux, the African-American director who shot his first films in Chicago; and finds a moment for a jaunt down Argyle and a little background on Essanay Studios, which briefly was home to Charlie Chaplin and now houses St. Augustine College. The Essanay logo still sits above the front door. It's a nice touch: something tangible during a tour of Chicago locations where history didn't actually happen.

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If you go

Tip: Bring a bag of popcorn -- there's a Garrett's Popcorn on the second floor of the Merchandise Mart a few blocks south.

Best for: Locals who've forgotten how woven into film lore Chicago really is; tourists looking for a workaday view of the city.

The basics: The Chicago Film Tour meets at 10:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. Thursday-Sunday on the west side of Clark Street at Ohio Street. 312-593-4455, chicagofilm $30.