In Old Chicago (1937)
The (Bad) Luck of the Irish
Here at ILTBTA, we’ve covered a musical set in Chicago before. We’ve also covered a disaster movie about a massive fire before. But we haven’t covered a musical set in Chicago that’s also a movie about a massive fire … until now! Leave New Chicago behind and join us as we travel back in time via In Old Chicago.
Previews
What, if anything, did we know about this coming attraction before we watched it?
Ellen: There’s a musical about the Chicago fire?!
Tyler: Imagine my surprise when I found out there was another Oscar-nominated movie with our wedding city in the title!
Plots & Feelings
This one’s pretty self-explanatory.
Short Version (courtesy of IMDb): The O’Leary brothers--honest Jack and roguish Dion--become powerful figures, and eventually rivals, in Chicago on the eve of its Great Fire.
Long Version (modified from Wikipedia and formatted to fit your screen):
The O’Leary family, comprised of Patrick, Molly, and their children Jack, Dion1, and Bob, trundle their way to Chicago in a covered wagon. They marvel at a steam train that’s passing through the prairie. Egged on by his sons, Patrick attempts to race the train, but tragedy strikes when the horses break loose and drag him. Surrounded by his family, Patrick urges them to make something of themselves in Chicago, after which he succumbs to his injuries. He insists they bury him there, and that he’ll just have to wait for Chicago to come to him.
Tyler: Gotta say, I did not expect Patrick to die in the first few minutes of the movie. A lesser movie would just tell us about the sons’ subsequent motivations, so I appreciated that this showed it to us.
Ellen: Also, shout out to Seer Papa O’Leary for predicting suburbs.
What remains of the O’Learys make it to The Big City™, and when the boys accidentally platter a rich woman’s dress with mud, Mrs. O’Leary bets the woman that she can get the stains out. Jump forward in time, and Mrs. Molly O’Leary’s French Laundry is booming with business in an area known as “The Patch.” She’s able to get an education for her sons, but Bob seems most interested in staying home and helping his mother… and making googly eyes with Gretchen, a German girl who helps out. Jack is a reforming lawyer, while Dion is kind of your garden variety gambling scoundrel.
Tyler: Here ends Bob’s relevance to this entire movie.
One day, while washing a tablecloth, the family discovers a suspicious doodle on it! It depicts plans for a tramline along a street that the crooked businessman Gil Warren and his cronies intend to buy up cheaply, including someone named B. Fawcett. The brothers react very differently to this news: Jack is excited for the opportunity to nail Warren for something illegal, whereas Dion intends to suss out B. Fawcett in the name of not-so-friendly competition. He heads out with his right-hand man: PICKLE BIXBY.
Tyler: The only thing more bananas than the name “Pickle Bixby” is the voice of the actor who plays him. Jump down to Wiki-Wiki-Whaaat? to see where else we’ve heard him before.
At Warren’s establishment, Dion becomes enamored with the beautiful singer, not least of which because her name is Belle Fawcett. He pays $1002 for a private audience with her but is kicked out instead. He can’t just be normal about it, so he hijacks her carriage home. She rightfully beats his ass, and you’d think that’d be the end of it for the night. Nope. He breaks into her house, professes his “love,” and makes her a business offer to compete with Warren. Belle essentially is like “I love business, I guess you’re hot, smooch smooch smooch.” The pair secures the requisite bribes to local politicians, most importantly Senator Colby, whom they meet with at Palmer House, feeling it’s only appropriate to do business in a place where the floor is tiled with silver dollars. They very subtly name their new establishment “The Senate.”
Ellen: Wikipedia describes Dion and Belle’s situation as a “stormy courtship,” which is… generous.
Tyler: Even though it’s likely manipulative and untrue, Dion gives us what might be ILTBTA’s new fastest “I love you” and subsequent audible groan/booing by us. This is after he hides in her cab home and basically assaults her. Boy have times changed.
On opening night, everyone who’s anyone in The Patch is in attendance! Belle isn’t thrilled with Dion dancing closely with Senator Colby’s daughter Ann, but Belle has her own job to do to make this establishment a success: singing “In Old Chicago”! Warren arrives and is placated by promises of support from The Patch and Dion for his mayoral campaign.
Ellen: It’s at this point we can be sure that this movie is only a “musical” in that there are people singing on stages occasionally.
Tyler: Could that influence our next movie … 👀
Some time later, one of Warren and Dion’s underlings is arrested for multiple voting. The prosecution lawyer is on the election reform committee and just so happens to be Jack! He goes hard, not letting up just because his brother is supporting the very guilty defendant. Unfortunately for him, his star witness is married to the defendant, and her testimony is inadmissible. Jack takes it on the chin, and the brothers plot for their mother to meet Belle. Dion notices how commanding Jack is in the courtroom and begins cooking up a plan where he won’t have to share power with Warren after all. He puts together a committee of men to go beg Jack to run for mayor, and Jack throws his hat in the ring as the reform candidate!
The O’Leary house is full of joy! Bob and Gretchen have a baby (Bob Jr., naturally), and everyone is celebrating Mrs. O’Leary’s birthday with piano music and beer. Dion and Jack suggest a carriage ride, and Molly is shocked to see Belle. Mrs. O’Leary has already made clear her disapproval at even the concept of this floozy, and she’s no kinder about it when face-to-face with her. Dion attempts to force them to stay inside to work out their differences, but nothing doing. Belle, for her part, is furious to have been put in that position in the first place.
Ellen: Dion spends a non-zero portion of this movie refusing to allow women to leave vehicles.
Jack has a lackluster campaign rally on the night before the election, while across the way, Warren is throwing a rager. It’s just too bad that Dion, Pickle, and Belle arranged for a huge fight to break out and all of Warren’s election workers to be arrested and held for 24 hours on suspicion. Suspicion of what, you may ask, as Warren did? Just “suspicion!” Dion is a messy little bitch and can’t help but tell Warren that it was him. Jack is elected mayor, and soon thereafter, he announces a campaign against corruption, targeting his brother’s fiefdom in The Patch, which he intends to demolish using eminent domain.
RIP Dion, you would have loved Game of Thrones (Source) Belle and Jack have both kind of had it with Dion’s antics. He refuses to properly commit to her and also refuses to stop being corrupt! Dion tells Jack the truth about the strings he pulled to get him elected, but far from being grateful, Jack is newly determined to clean things up. News breaks that Belle plans to testify in the grand jury trial against Dion. He breaks into her house once again, this time using just a dash of physical violence along with his silver tongue. He proposes, and Belle is thrilled, thinking he’s finally come around. He insists he can’t wait a second longer to tell Jack, and hey, he’s the mayor, he can probably marry us!
Jack is thrilled! He marries the couple on the spot. Now, um, remember the part about Dion being a messy bitch who lives for drama? He reveals that he’s had no change of heart at all but merely wanted to prevent Belle’s testimony from being used against him. And to this author’s shock, Jack straight out decks his brother3! They fight around the office, but Jack prevails. Mrs. O’Leary is told about the fight while in the barn with her cow Daisy. She’s so distracted that she leaves her lamp in the barn, and Daisy kicks it over. A fire springs up, soon spreading all throughout The Patch.
Ellen: Jack is so ready to believe that his brother has turned over a new leaf, just totally guileless, it’s kind of heartbreaking when he learns the truth.
Tyler: Jack is as naive as Dion is corrupt.
Back at The Senate, Dion is licking his wounds. Word of the fire spreads, and he believes that Jack started it to get rid of The Patch. Warren and others are furious, and they begin searching for Jack. Dion eventually finds Bob, who tells him how the fire started, and Dion is like “oh beans, I have to go stop this mob I started!” Jack, meanwhile, is trying to save his city. The plan is to create a firebreak by dynamiting buildings to stop the fire reaching the gasworks, but Warren’s gang try to stop him. During the faceoff, Dion snatches a torch and tries to run to light the dynamite. A well-thrown rock stops him, and a bullet stops Jack when he tries the same thing, but he manages to light the fuse!
Bob pulls Dion out of the way, and Pickle attempts to do the same for Jack, but they’re both crushed under the collapsing Senate. The fences at the stockyards break down under the weight of anxious cattle, and they flood the streets. Warren climbs a building to try to avoid the stampede, but he dies Mufasa-style under their hoofs.
Chaos reigns, families are separated, and the fire spreads. Bob and Dion manage to find Gretchen and the baby, but their mother is nowhere to be seen. Mrs. O’Leary is struggling hard when Belle finds her. She initially doesn’t want the younger woman’s help, but Belle doesn’t abandon her. In the aftermath, Dion manages to find them in a rowboat in the shallows of Lake Michigan. The worst kind of boy mom to the end, Mrs. O’Leary berates Belle for not instantly forgiving Dion. She predicts that the city will be rebuilt and flourish after her son’s sacrifice for its future.
Intermission
Even though ILTBTA is free, please indulge us further and enjoy this quick “advertisement.”
This installment of ILTBTA is brought to you by … The Senate!
Are you looking for a classy neighborhood establishment to grab a drink after a long day at work? Or hobnob with bribe-curious politicians while ogling the female entertainers? Well look no further than The Senate. Run by owner and general manager Dion O’Leary, The Senate is The Patch’s premier saloon at which to rub elbows with Chicago’s rich and powerful. Take your place among the city’s movers and shakers while our master bartenders and mixologists move and shake out some delicious drinks. (Our special this month is a Fireball-based cocktail!)
Mention ILTBTA at the door and receive a free month of Senate+, the monthly subscription service to The Senate that offers one discounted drink per month PLUS access to exclusive merchandise and local elected officials.
Come enjoy The Senate, because it’s better than the House!
Wiki-Wiki-Whaaat?
Love a good Wikipedia rabbit hole in search of some fun facts? Us too.
In Old Chicago’s Wikipedia page has some interesting facts and anecdotes that we recommend you read through, but here are a few of our favorites:
If you’re dying to know more about the Great Chicago Fire that serves as the backdrop for In Old Chicago’s climax, Wikipedia has got you covered.
In Old Chicago was directed by Henry King, regarded as one of the most successful directors of his era. In addition to receiving Best Director Oscar nominations for his work on future ILTBTA topics The Song of Bernadette and Wilson (two of the over one hundred movies he directed), King was also one of the founding members of the titular Academy.
With a reported budget of “over $1 million,” the film was one of the most expensive movies ever made at the time of its release. The fire set for the climax also reportedly burned for three whole days.
That was one expensive building (Source) “The Patch,” the neighborhood where much of the film’s events take place, was a real area in Chicago popular with Irish immigrants and associated with crime.
The Palmer House, which is where Dion and Belle met with corrupt Senator Colby, is famous in Chicagoland. The original was destroyed in the fire, and it was actually its second iteration that boasted silver dollars as part of the tilework in the barbershop.
While much of the O’Leary family’s portrayal was fictitious (e.g., they had two children not three, the father did not die early, Mrs. O’Leary didn’t run her own “French Laundry”), the family’s only son (James Patrick O’Leary) was a successful gambler and saloon owner like Dion in the film.
Tyrone Power, who played Dion, is one of several famous people on the cover of The Beatles’ album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.
While loyal ILTBTA readers may remember Don Ameche (who played Dion’s brother Jack) from our post on 1943’s Heaven Can Wait, you might not realize that Ameche was the voice of golden retriever Shadow in Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey.
Loyal ILTBTA readers (or anyone with ears) might also remember Andy Devine and his … uniquely raspy voice from 1936’s Romeo and Juliet or 1937’s A Star is Born.
Two actors with smaller parts in the film, Scotty Mattraw and Eddie Collins (who played “Beef King” and “Drunk”4, respectively), voiced Bashful and Dopey in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs the previous year.
Oscar NomNomNomz
Since we all know a movie is nothing without the food and drink it incorporates.
It’s now time to award the Oscar for Best Snacktor in a Supporting Role5. And the nomnomnominees are:
A pint of Ma’s favorite beer
A drink at The Senate saloon, on the house
A glass of milk from Daisy, Mrs. O’Leary’s cow
And the Oscar goes to … the glass of milk from Daisy! Unfortunately, RFK Jr. heard there was raw milk nearby and stormed the stage to chug it, so we will accept this award on its behalf.
Fill In The Blank
How did we really feel about The Academy nominating this?
Ellen: I’d like to urge The Academy to stick with their original instincts and kick Dion right to the curb. This was an interesting one. While I was disappointed that people weren’t singing and dancing with the Chicago Fire in the background, I thought the idea of framing it around the drama of the O’Leary family was a good hook. That being said, Jack was just a bit too agreeable for most of the time to provide much tension. It was just Dion being an absolute menace for like three quarters of the movie before they briefly disagreed and then came back together. And then the relationship between Belle and Dion is toxic from top to bottom. It’s odd because the movie can’t seem to decide if it thinks this dynamic is good or bad and kind of tries to have it both ways. Lastly, for the time, the scale of the effects and the fire is kind of stunning. They really went all-in, and it looked pretty darn good!
Tyler: I’d like to tell The Academy not to chase the train and just amble on to Chicago according to plan. I agree with Ellen in that the use of the family as a framing device for a larger historical event is intriguing, and the fiery explosions and sets and extras provide an impressive scale, but I just could not care less about the family at the center of it all. Dion is so close to being an interesting character but can’t help but be unlikeably slimy, Jack is similarly nearly interesting but frustratingly naive, and the third brother is so irrelevant to the movie that I forgot his name and don’t care enough to scroll up to remember what it is. Meanwhile, every female character is at the whim of one of the aforementioned brothers, which does them no favors on the likeability front. All told, this felt so close to being a much better movie, but no cigar. Which is probably a good thing, those things can start fires.
Let the Credits Roll
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Post-Credits Scene
Get a sneak peek at the next ILTBTA installment.
Okay folks, let’s be honest with ourselves: this chicanery was not a musical! In order to correct that oversight, next week we’ll be covering the 1968 Barbra Streisand classic Funny Girl. Following Fanny Brice’s rise to stardom and her relationship with gambler Nicky Arnstein, Funny Girl is available to stream on Prime Video or to rent if you want to stick it to Bezos.
Until then, hide ya kids hide ya cows.
Ellen: I’m sorry who??
Tyler: I genuinely did not know what his name was until I saw it in the end credits. In my defense, neither did the captions.
That’s over two thousand of today’s dollars!
Ellen: I cheered!
Sounds like my ex-wife!
Results tabulated and certified by the accountants at Ernst & Yum™.