Last of NWI grand movie houses nods to past
From The Farm
A couple years ago in an April 2016 column, I wrote about the big-screen glamour that still exists in Whiting at the Hoosier Theatre, 1335 119th St., right in the heart of downtown Whiting.
I alerted readers to a special afternoon double feature of silent films showing, with Charlie Chaplin in his 1921 film classic “The Kid” and stone-faced comedian Buster Keaton in the
1922 short-subject work “The Electric House.”
More than two years later, another opportunity has arrived to step back into the Hollywood of yesteryear and just in time to welcome the week of Halloween.
At 2 p.m. Sunday, there is a special silent film presentation of the 1923 film classic of Victor Hugo’s tale “The Hunchback of Notre Dame,” starring the legendary Lon Chaney Sr. in the title role. Once again, Chicago organist Jay Warren will trek to Northwest Indiana to accompany the film with the musical score on pipe organ.
Tickets are $10 for this silent film gem, which was directed by Wallace Worsley and produced by Carl Laemmle and Irving Thalberg. More information is at www.hoosiertheatre.com or 219-659-0567.
Silent films hold a special place in my heart. When my grandparents arrived from Poland in 1915, they married and initially lived in Chicago before purchasing the family farm in Indiana in 1928. Silent films were the popular vehicle of entertainment enjoyed by all immigrants regardless of language barriers. Even if the written subtitles were not understood, the acting and facial expressions, paired with the dramatic musical accompaniment, allowed stories told on the big screen to be universally understood by all audiences.
Built in 1924, just a year after the release of “The Hunchback of Notre Dame,” the one-screen, 600-seat Hoosier Theatre ranked as one of the most opulent of the movie houses in Northwest Indiana. It’s the same stage where W.C. Fields, Amos and Andy and the Three Stooges made live appearances and actor Jimmy Cagney came to sell war bonds in the early 1940s. The neighboring Paramount Theatre, 5404 Hohman Ave., Hammond, was constructed in 1930 and seated 1,992. It also featured live shows, including visiting headliners like Minnie Pearl, Pat Boone and Benny Goodman and his band. It closed in 1981 and was later razed to make way for the Hammond’s new Federal Courthouse Complex.
Hammond’s rival movie houses included the massive 2,500-seat Parthenon Theatre, 5144 S. Hohman Ave., which attracted star appearances by Harry Houdini, Jack Benny and canine hero Rin-Tin-Tin, before it was torn down in 1983. But the largest of the Northwest Indiana movie palaces was the State Theatre, 564 State St., Hammond, which boasted 3,000 seats and opened in 1926.
Fortunately, the Hoosier Theatre has outlasted them all and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1987. It was purchased by John Katris and his brother Chris in 1991; they restored the space and reopened it in 1994. The Katris brothers understand the importance of the preservation of the last of our local old movie houses since their parents owned the 914-seat Voge Theatre, 811 W. Chicago Ave., East Chicago, which opened in 1936 and remained in operation through the 1950s.
Only once before have I seen this silent film version of “The Hunchback of Notre Dame.” I was 12 years old, and a 16 mm “show-at-home” reel-to-reel print was shown to our seventhgrade class in 1982 in the decaying auditorium of our town’s old North Judson High School, which was built in 1921 during the silent film era.
The film ranks as a masterpiece because of star Lon Chaney Sr., dubbed by the Hollywood press as “The Man of a Thousand Faces” as a credit to his ability to create so many characters by applying his own makeup and using his expressive face. Chaney (whose son Lon Chaney Jr. would later portray the Wolf
Man and many of Universal Pictures classic monsters) refused to embrace a movie star’s lifestyle in Hollywood, even though he starred opposite many famed leading ladies beginning their careers, such as Joan Crawford in “The Unknown” in 1927 and Loretta Young in 1928 in “Laugh, Clown, Laugh.” One of Chaney’s most iconic films remains his portrayal of the title character in 1925’s “The Phantom of the Opera.”
In 2007, I interviewed Ron Chaney, the great-grandson of Chaney Sr., during a Chicagoland screening of his grandfather’s 1941 film classic “The Wolf Man.” He shared a couple of recipes with me, one of which is for his family’s “hunter’s stew” and is included in my 2010 published cookbook “Further From the Farm.” The second recipe he shared is from his great-grandfather Chaney Sr. for his potato biscuits, which was originally published in a promotional cookbook by Photoplay magazine in 1929, describing it as “an uncomplicated recipe from the complicated Mr. Chaney.”
Philip Potempa has published three cookbooks. Mail questions to: From The Farm, P.O. Box 68, San Pierre, IN 46374.