CTA Tattler

I loved The Hunter, Steve McQueen's last movie. Playing real-life bounty hunter Papa Thorson, he pursued a bad guy over the tops of the cars of a moving Howard Street (before it was the Red Line) train that went around the bend at the Sheridan stop about three times during the chase.

The Matrix. In toto.

Except in 'Hunter' They put roof boards on the train cars that were never there in real life.

Hands down my favorite is The Fugitive, which incorporates the El into a lot of key scenes. Not sure why they had to make up Balbo Station tho.

((Except in 'Hunter' They put roof boards on the train cars that were never there in real life.

Posted by: Unindicted Co-Conspirator | January 16, 2009 at 07:55 AM ))

Uhm, yeah, they were there in real life. He didn't run on imaginary support. You're correct that they weren't always there and weren't used for transit operations, but those boards remained for some time after the movie was shot.

In fact a similar system was used years later for another such scene.

In Code of Silence (1985) Chuck Norris ran across the roof of several cars on the then-Ravenswood until he jumped off the roof down into the Chicago River as it passed over the Wells Street bridge.

I told a train conductor, "Thank you for letting us know what was happening!" after riding on a train that had suffered a brief delay last week. It seemed like he was utterly shocked that someone would give him a compliment for a change. I had to repeat myself several times before he managed to stammer, "You're welcome."

One of my favorite outrageous CTA scenes was from "Running Scared" (1986).

Billy Crystal and Gregory Hines are following some bad guys from O'Hare (in a commandeered cab). They start out following them on the Kennedy expressway, and then chase them (in their car) onto the 'L' tracks in the median of the highway. (Third rail anyone??)Then they follow them through random geographically-unconnected CTA rail locations (Skokie Swift, I think, among others) until they end up on the Ravenswood approaching the Merchandise Mart. Completely illogical but very entertaining.

Movie: Plains Trains & Automobiles. When Steve Martin leaves John Candy at the LaSalle/Van Buren stop, but somehow manages to come back on another train going the opposite direction on the SAME track. haha

I wish the trains ran as often as they did outside Elwood's window at the men's hotel.

"Except in 'Hunter' They put roof boards on the train cars that were never there in real life."

Except what? You're going to argue with him over what movie he likes? He's not allowed to like a movie because a scene involving the CTA is not completely accurate in comparison to normal operation? Do you add any value here?

My favorite is the Blues Brothers apartment by the El tracks, but I really enjoy the train scene in Planes, Trains and Automobiles. There is a cool scene in High Fidelity as well, but the scenes aren't accurate as he gets on and rides the El.

Movie: Shall We Dance (2004)

its quite an awful movie but what rings true is our notice of passing the same building or landmark everyday, getting a glimpse of what goes on inside. Richard Gere rides the brown line in to work each day and spies the dance class inside an old building. . One scene has him dancing with an imaginary partner on one of the old wooden elevated stops, maybe Chicago and Franklin?

Risky Business. A youthful Tom Cruise is seduced by the hooker he's entertaining while his parents are out of town. As a single, empty car runs on the L tracks south of Chicago Ave, she purrs, "Have you ever had sex on a real train?" When I saw the movie the first time, my teenage brain was more concerned with whether or not the L was a real train than the unfolding scene. I should have known then I was headed for a life of unrelenting transit obsession.

I still get a little excited watching the love on the train scene from Risky Business.

For people who enjoy both the CTA and boy bands, you can't go wrong with 2001's "On the Line," with Lance Bass from *NSYNC.

I mean, aside from the fact it was a terrible movie. Allegedly. Of course, I never saw it. I was too busy that day... um... watching monster trucks and ah... eating beef jerky. You know, guy stuff. Ahem.

Sex on the L isn't nearly as glamorous as they make it out to be in that movie.

The famous chase in The Hunter culminates in McQueen pursuing the bad guy up the parking lot at Marina City, smashing many cars in the process (due to Thorton's infamously bad driving) until the bad guy drives his car into the Chicago river and meets his demise. It's one of the most famous shots ever filmed in Chicago.

Our resident wet diaper UCC would say, "yeah, but nobody really died filming that scene -- it was all just staged."

Jeez Loueeze!
All I wrote was that the trains were altered to allow for some stunt men to run of the roof of the trains. CTA trains normally have no roof boards, except for the Skokie Swift which had a very narrow roof board under the pan trolley.
The boards added to the L cars were even wider than those on a box car.

Stop getting your panties in a bunch!

m: You're an troll!
Don't try to put words into my keyboard!

There's a saying about movies: They must make you suspend your disbelief.
When I see roof boards on a train that would never have them, I know the scene is a fake. Just like any movie or TV show that adds the sounds of air brakes to a CTA train. CTA L trains don't have air brakes!

So my disbelief is not suspended!

I remember staying up nearly all night watching the filming of Red Heat, a Jim Belushi - Arnold Schwarzeneggar cop film. They staged a scene where they suspended a fake glass lobby off the back of the loop station post office, ran a bus through it, and then drove the bus through the legs of the Calder sculpture on the Federal Plaza. It was freezing out on the plaza but it was still pretty awesome.

I remember they wanted snow, but there was none, so they had crew dumping mashed potato flakes in front of fans blowing it all over the place.

Making movies is a messy business.

I guess you don't get it UCC. You simply are a complainer or a malcontent. Earlier in the week, you were quick to point out your perceived fallacy of a caption on the picture of a free CTA calendar. The way in which you phrased your comment today implied the person should not like the movie, otherwise I see no reason for using the word, "Except" to start off your sentence.

Does anyone here know the percentage of IL gas tax that goes to mass transit? I've been reading about the possibility of gas taxes being increased in IL and other states with budget shortfalls. I know the Federal gas tax gives 20% or so to mass transit.

>>For people who enjoy both the CTA and boy bands

I'm thinking this is a tiny community.

Still trying to figure out what train Bob Newhart took to get home. He leaves work, walks across the river on a bridge, somehow gets to what appears to be an elevated train station, goes back across the river and gets off an a train station which I'm pretty sure is the Thorndale stop because the building he walks home to is located near Thorndale and Sheridan Rd., next to that tiny park and beach.

You can see his ride home at the beginning of this video: (can't post a link for some reason but: http://www.tv.com/video/xRkNCAmISV416ImhW7iN5Y2AETYDovuw/101/78/serve-for-daylight?o=hulu&category=all&tag=showspace;video;10

Strange trip...

Bob Newhart's strange commute is what it was like to commute in the 70's... on drugs.

Or perhaps a brown line transfer to a red getting on at the Mart with a bunch of needless trips walking back and forth on a bridge.

This is slightly OT, but back when I lived in NYC, I got kind of tired of everyone in a movie walking down into a New York Subway entrance from a New York Street and magically hopping onto a Toronto subway train. Or, since NY has even more diverse rolling stock than Chicago does, people in movies boarding one type of train car, only to be shown sitting down inside a completely different car.

Now that I'm an adopted Chicagoan, I found the whole Spiderman 2 Chicago-L-as-NYC-subway thing just plain silly.

I don't care if you liked the movie or didn't. I was stating a fact, roof boards that are not a part of the normal operation of an L train were added specifically for the stunt men.
I then stated that because of that I couldn't suspend my disbelief, which is a well known concept in movie making.

And that isn't the original version of Newhart's commute as that one had him boarding a 4000 series car, sitting in a 6000, but getting off a 4000 at Isabella St. in Evanston & then walking to his condo at Thorndale & Sheridan.

Your comment about the disbelief was not apparent in your original comment. You just came off sounding like a malcontent. And the suspension of disbelief is not necessary to make a good movie, sorry. There are plenty of good movies that are completely unbelievable. In fact, if you want to get technical you could argue that most dialogue in movies is not how people actually speak. You hardly ever see actors stutter, mispronounce a word, sneeze, cough or anything else human. You seem to enjoy identifying something good and then taking a crap on it, much like the free CTA calendar, the Holiday Train, and I'm sure many others. I'm sorry that the sun doesn't shine in your part of the world.

Bob Newhart had 2 shows, so maybe the original version of his commute you mention was on the other show? He had The Bob Newhart Show and Newhart. I assume they were both set in Evanston, but I have no idea and don't care enough to look it up.

UCC, I guess you didn't suspend your disbelief for the Newhart Show either?

The Bob Newhart Show was set in Chicago. Newhart was set in Vermont, although I suppose that after the last episode it could be argued that it was actually set in Chicago, but everyone thought it was in Vermont until then.

I always assumed that Bob Hartley got on what is now the Brown Line (or maybe the Purple Line) at Quincy and transferred to what is now the Red Line and then got off at Thorndale. I would have thought that the subway would have been closer to his office, but maybe he had a fear of being underground.

ebob...

"I would have thought that the subway would have been closer to his office, but maybe he had a fear of being underground."

Yeah, I guess the subway would have made more sense. But maybe they thought the irony of a psychiatrist who was afraid of enclosed places was funny.

Ucc...

"And that isn't the original version of Newhart's commute as that one had him boarding a 4000 series car, sitting in a 6000, but getting off a 4000 at Isabella St. in Evanston & then walking to his condo at Thorndale & Sheridan."

There were two versions of that? Never realized.

although I would love to see him getting off at Thorndale today and going through the station to get home.

I am very confused by this sentence: "Newhart was set in Vermont, although I suppose that after the last episode it could be argued that it was actually set in Chicago, but everyone thought it was in Vermont until then." I might be too young to remember this show (although I have watched Bob Newhart on Hulu), but how could everyone confuse Chicago with Vermont? I've been to Vermont and it is nothing like Chicago.

"I am very confused by this sentence: "Newhart was set in Vermont, although I suppose that after the last episode it could be argued that it was actually set in Chicago, but everyone thought it was in Vermont until then." I might be too young to remember this show (although I have watched Bob Newhart on Hulu), but how could everyone confuse Chicago with Vermont? I've been to Vermont and it is nothing like Chicago."

On the very last episode of the Newhart show set in Vermont, Bob woke up in suddenly in bed next to Emily (from the Bob Newhart show) in Chicago and discovered that the entire Vermont show had been a "dream", a take off on the "Dallas" thing where an entire season was suddenly called a "dream". It was pretty funny at the time. So theoretically, you could say that the Newhart show in Vermont actually took place in Chicago.

Can we add literature to the mix? Stuart Dybek mentions the L in almost all the short stories in his great collection, "The Coast of Chicago." The end of the story "Pet Milk" takes place entirely on the L. Since it's fiction, it suffers from the same continuity problems as some of the movies and TV shows:

"We walked to the subway. We must have caught the last express. Once the train climbed from the tunnel to the elevated tracks, it wouldn't stop until the end of the line, on Howard."

BTW, have we gotten way the f*ck off topic or what?

I enjoyed Batman Begins, where the L was transformed into a multi-level monorail and went into Wayne Enterprises aka the Board of Trade Building. I thought it was very art deco chic in a way.

"I got kind of tired of everyone in a movie walking down into a New York Subway entrance from a New York Street and magically hopping onto a Toronto subway train."

Ha ha. The same exact thing happens with the DC Metro in "No Way Out" and "The Day of the Jackal" (modern crappy version).

chris: You apparently never saw Newhart's show when it first ran.
I did!
There were different beginnings the first couple of years. The opening credits were changed for the second season after people in Chicago complained about how geographically nonsensical it was.
As for which post was about suspending my disbelief, who cares?
You seem to think your choice of movies was criticized, I am criticizing the movie, maybe you can figure out there's a difference.

As for ifeel: Bob Newhart was a comedy, a totally different creature from a bad McQueen movie. I don't think less of the show because Elliot Carlin was such a whack job.
Or his secretary Carol was a joke.
And you certainly don't understand the concept of suspending your disbelief.

And as for this complaining about my comment on the calendar, I was riding the Diversey bus in the mid-60s & there weren't any trolley buses on the route then. They were all ex Chicago Motor Coach buses & ran out of the old CMC garage on Diversey & Keeler.

Exactly how many of you were riding any buses 45 years ago?

I was going to mention that there were two versions of the opening of the Bob Newhart Show, the one everyone knows where he walks from the Realtor Building on Michigan Ave. via a very fractured path to Quincy & Wells, where he leaves the train in Evanston and then walks to his home on Thorndale and the later one where he commutes to downtown in the morning, getting off at the Water Tower and walking to his office in the Realtor Building, but UCC took the fun out of it.

Anyway, MeTV locally and American Life Network on cable both run the Bob Newhart Show, so people who just have to see it have plenty of chances.

My favorite TV - CTA scene is from Early Edition. He gets off the train at Chicago and Franklin chasing someone. He runs down the stairs and hails a cab. The cab drives around all over following the guy. Then the cab pulls up at the OTHER SIDE OF THE STREET at the Chicago and Franklin stop where he climbs the EXIT STAIRS and gets on the train again. He took a cab that drove him all over, just to board the train again, across the street from where he got off. nutty...

"Exactly how many of you were riding any buses 45 years ago?"

ahem... (nervous cough as he recalls the electric buses, but only the last few that were still running in the late 60s)

You could once look into Jake and Elwood's room in the Blues Brothers movie from the Evanston Express (Purple Line), they stayed in the SRO above the old Dill Pickle, it was not a pretty sight. That building, formerly at Van Buren and Plymouth has since been torn down and a park is in its place.

In the Dark Knight, there is a chase scene under the L tracks, I think on Franklin. Ah, Chicago.

I hope that nobody got frostbite waiting on a 22.

Come on guys,

the best movie ever, While You were Sleeping!

It wasn't the Realtor Building when Newhart filmed the opening, it was the Uptown Federal Savings Building then. They built it & it was sold when Uptown merged with another S&L that was owned by Ford Motor Co.
Yes, Ford owned an S&L at one time.

"As for which post was about suspending my disbelief, who cares? You seem to think your choice of movies was criticized, I am criticizing the movie, maybe you can figure out there's a difference.

And as for this complaining about my comment on the calendar, I was riding the Diversey bus in the mid-60s & there weren't any trolley buses on the route then. They were all ex Chicago Motor Coach buses & ran out of the old CMC garage on Diversey & Keeler.

Exactly how many of you were riding any buses 45 years ago?"

I guess you just don't get it...

I can't believe no one has mentioned ER. They get off at Chicago and Franklin to walk to County, then they get on at Chicago and Franklin and get off at Chicago and Franklin and go to their apartments.

I made my father watch "The Fugitive" (slowly) just so he could see my street. "That's my L stop he's jumping off!"

For fun you should watch "Special Unit 2" on Sci-Fi. Lot's of Chicago there.

Today's (Jan 19) topic on Mary Wisniewski's Sun-Times transportation blog, "The Ride," is transportation in the movies. More than just a coincidence?

Adventures in Babysitting! I haven't seen it since ... well, since I was young enough for it actually to be appealing to watch it ... but anyways, I loved everything that they got completely wrong in every single circumstance they possibly could.

Also, I used to be really entertained about all of ER's shapeshifting geography (like how the ambulance bay seems to occupy some sort of meta-space that is next to every single L entrance in the city simultaneously, but not a single bus stop; or how the hospital's roof access door miraculously opens atop the Field Museum), until one day Dr. Corday referred to a patient transfer from a hospital on the east side, and I stopped being able to suspend my disbelief any longer.

And I loved the gorgeous Batman bazillion-stories-high L tracks over La Salle St., but I admit I did spend an unhealthy amount of time diverted from the story wondering how the hell they expected people to walk up all the stairs to /get/ there. I mean, it's not like the escalators would be working... :)