I came across this 26-minute film, Chicago Mural: Midwest Metropolis (c1960) for the first time yesterday. I can’t believe how it stuck with me. As I walked around the Loop yesterday, I saw these scenes in my mind.
Posted by the incredible Chicago Film Archives, it’s a quirky, fun, creative promotional film made by documentary filmmaker Gordon Weisenborn (1923-1987) for the Sperry and Hutchinson Company, who operated the S&H Green Stamps retail loyalty reward program. The film highlights many of Chicago’s downtown and lakefront attractions, including many stores where original viewers would have been able to get those S&H Green Stamps!
The music is really interesting, the footage of Chicago is spellbinding… but I have to tell you what I love most about this film: the clothing! Look at how everyone is dressed! There are some great scenes of women walking down State Street with shopping bags… check out their dresses, their gloves, their heels! What a pleasure to behold…..
The jump clock accompanying the Coke sign on Michigan and Randolph (which building, to my mind, resembled 1572 Broadway in New York’s Times Square section, with their array of ads) dated back to about 1953-54; according to a 1955 General Electric ad in Signs Of The Times magazine, PAR38 light bulbs – 185 in all – were used to light up that clock (which only told the time, never the temperature, judging from the absence of curvature in the second lamp bank which would have shown ‘7’ as the first and third banks had); from what I could gather, the columns for each lamp bank were spaced 10.5″ apart, the rows 10″ apart. At what point in 1969 would that whole Coke sign setup have come down (I seem to recall it was just before they adopted their “It’s The Real Thing” slogan and little stripe below the logo; and certainly in preparation for the building itself coming down)?
Thanks for that, W.B.!