I am 24 and first heard of this several years ago in the booklet for Jackie Brown where Elmore Leonard said that this was the only movie he knew Robert Forester from. I really like this movie and think it's just as powerful today as it was in 1969.
shareI'm 62. I watched the'68 Democratic Convention on the news. My boyfriend was freshly home from Vietnam but not severed from the service yet. He was ordered to deploy to Chicago "to restore law and order ". What a joke. He said the cops were so corrupt you could score from them.
I didn't know a movie had been made until today when I recorded it on TCM.
Wow! That's amazing. Thanks.
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I saw it the theater when it came out in 1969. I couldn't believe they filmed any of the police riot.
I had been in that mess the year before on the night before the convention where we were all to meet near Old Town. That day Mayor Richard J.Daley had retracted the permit for us to gather to demonstrate. This made it legal for the cops to beat heads in and/or arrest anyone. Cop cars parked around the ellipse, bumper to bumper, in Lincoln Park so we were surrounded. They gave the order, by bullhorn, to disburse which was impossible unless you crawled over the cop cars. And we did once those night sticks started flying.
A few nights later we went down to the Conrad Hilton where McCarthy's and Kennedy's(would have been) headquarters and kept a distance from the tear gas and tanks rolling down the streets.
Too unreal to see in my town. I was20 years old. Quite a wake up call.
Great story mnbush.Just happened to catch this movie last night. I'm 53 and don't remember this event when it happened. I do remember Nixon winning the election though cuz my parents were pissed! This resonates with me at the moment since I live in the Cleveland area and we're hosting the Republican Convention this week. With all the tension that is building in this country,I really hope there isn't a repeat of '68 here.
shareWhy do you think TCM showed it this week? Because of Cleveland! It's no co-inky-dink that they scheduled it for the night before.
I'm Chicago-born and raised, and lived in the city (and suburbs) for 36 years. So I was there in '68. I had just turned 21, and I was in Grant Park that day and in the streets every night. Now I'm twenty minutes away (on the train) from the RNC shenanigans downtown. How's that for irony?
Never thought I would see it all happening again in America.
Once was enough for a lifetime.
I knew this film was coming out, back in '69, because I'd read Roger Ebert's stories and reviews about it. But I was still stunned when I finally saw the crowd and riot footage for the first time...just can't remember where or when it was. Might have been years later on late-night TV, but I think it must have been in on the big screen.
When I saw the chick in the yellow dress, I remembered having seen her in the crowd, and then I recalled a guy following her around, but I didn't really think anything of it at the time...not with so much chaos going on all around me...people were getting chased and beaten and gassed, and the air was getting pretty thick.
So I thought the cameraman was merely filming her because she was, as we said back in the day, a stone fox. I had no idea that a full-length feature film was being made during all that heavy-duty action, or that I would find myself appearing in it.
True story. I'm the tall skinny doofus with the iconic McCarthy sticker (the famous blue and white flowered one) on the back of my denim jacket.
Look for me. But look fast, or you'll miss me. I'm right...there.
🚋🚋 Just take that streetcar that's going uptown...