McClurg Court Cinemas
330 E. Ohio Street,
Chicago,
IL
60611
330 E. Ohio Street,
Chicago,
IL
60611
22 people
favorited this theater
Showing 1 - 25 of 155 comments
1987 print ad added to gallery & description courtesy Tim O'Neill.
35 years ago today, the McClurg Court Theatre in Chicago reopened as the McClurg Court Cinemas. Cineplex Odeon took over the original 1200-seat theatre one year earlier and chopped it up into 3 auditoriums. The original main floor portion became Theatre 1; with THX Sound and 70mm. The upper area of the original auditorium (commonly known as “stadium seating” nowadays) was divided into two small auditoriums with a wall constructed down the middle. The original projection booth was utilized for the two small auditoriums. A new booth was constructed down below for the big 800-seat auditorium. A half-way decent dividing project; but nothing like the original McClurg Court that opened in 1971. The new McClurg Court lasted for 16 years, until a 21-screen AMC Theatre complex opened one block south in 2002. The McClurg Court Cinemas closed forever in August 2003. The space got gutted and there is a grocery store inside it today.
Here’s a new 4-page 50th anniversary FIDDLER ON THE ROOF retrospective featuring a roadshow playdate chronology and historian Q&A. McClurg Court’s 57-week run is mentioned in the piece.
I remember seeing Titanic there. Didn’t appreciate the theater at the time.
Does anyone have anymore photos of the interior of theater one? Would love to see more photos of it, also the corridor, I seem to remember the THX logo outside the entrance as well as a diagram of what THX and the theater is.
I saw Oliver Stone’s Born On The Fourth Of July at McClurg Court the first week of January 1990 in 70mm. The THX logo blew me away. It was the THX Cimaron trailer. Seeing this film, this epic film in 70mm at this theater left such an impression on me that I never forgot it. I went back for Gettysberg in 93, True Lies in the Summer of 94, the restored 70mm presentation of Vertigo in 96, and The Thin Red Line. Miss that theater so much.
This opened on November 10th, 1971. Its grand opening ad can be found in the photo section.
I used to work across the aisle from that guy in the Darth Maul costume seen at 2:33. He was quite proud of it. Had Star Wars stuff all over his work area. Wonder what ever happened to him.
McClurg exterior in May 1999 at 0:29 & 1:10 through the end in the below clip courtesy of alex35mm, who posted it to the Old Orchard Theater page for it’s appearance as well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsHDF7OCPCg
It’s interesting that in his post of Sep. 7, 2009 Cinemark Fan said, “I assume that the screens at 600 North Michigan might be gone by this time (I may be wrong though) And if that’s the case, the seating capacity at the River East alone won’t be enough to handle the volume of people who go see movies.”
Fortunately that hasn’t happened as AMC just completed some renovatios to the 600 North.
Christmas Day 1987 grand opening ad for this cinema and Oakbrook in photo section
With “The Master” getting 70mm prints, and Chicago not being one of them (to my knowledge), this theater is all the more missed.
Does anyone know what the construction crews doing to the space?
Great picture!
It really is a shame that in a city like Chicago, that this cinema (or the Esquire or both) could not have been turned in to something like a Sundance cinema, an Angelika cinema, or even another Landmark location. What a loss eh.
I’d love to see some pictures of the theater when it was still in operation. I remember there being 3 huge posters out in the front and the marquee being lit up at night.
My wife and I were downtown last night and we’re going to catch a flick at River East. The bus let us off right by Mcclurg Court. We walked over and I peered inside a couple of the doors and everything is completely gone. Terribly sad. The only thing left is the ticket booth in front. It doesn’t look like there’s any plans or construction underway for the site so I am curious why everything would be ripped out if there’s no plans for the space. Again terribly sad. RIP MCclurg Court.
coolerlakeside, can you repost those?
Especially surprising since New York has the Ziegfeld, Seattle has the Cinerama and Washington has the Uptown. You would think that there would be enough interest in a city like Chicago. Sad indeed.
Indeed very sad. I think this could have been run something like the Ziegfeld in New York, by being kept available for big event films and 70mm revivals.
They started demolition on the McClurg a few weeks ago. I took some pics today. They have the doors open most of the day if anyone wants to get a closer look. The white thing in the middle of the second photo is a front-end loader one story down.
http://www.rockwebhosting.com/img/mcclurg-1.jpg
http://www.rockwebhosting.com/img/mcclurg-2.jpg
http://www.rockwebhosting.com/img/mcclurg-3.jpg
Afraid I have some bad news for fans of Mcclurg Court. As some of you may have seen on this site, theater management was offering to sell seats and projectors, etc. to cinema treasures users. I inquried to the e-mail address today inquiring about one of the old Cineplex poster cases. I got a reply saying that the owners e-mail posted late on the Cinema Treasures site and they had a salvage company come in last weekend and remove virtually everything out of the theater! I wrote back to see what they planned to do with the theater space, but I haven’t gotten a reply yet. In any case, it looks like any hopes we had of a Mcclurg Court revival are now gone. I am bummed for 2 reasons: 1) I really would like a CO poster case (i also seemingly acted late when I tried to get one out of Rivertree Court, the realty company has yet to call me back)and 2) I never saw a movie here and based on all the posts above, it was an amazing experience. I held out hope someone would revive it so I could have such an experience. I doubt any new movie theater ever built will have a big room with a huge screen like Mcclurg. RIP Mcclurg Court!
Good stories to read.Even"MOONRAKER" was good here according to one post!
Good Luck,hopes it works out you can give me a job there,I used to work for Loews in Nashville, Tenn. years ago lots of experience, only half joking the econony is pretty bad here as everywhere I quess.
Yes it is still closed. The owners of the building don’t know what to do with it…
But I do.
Interesting is it still closed?
CORRECTION
That should be 11/3 or 11/10/71