Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Movie Filming On Argyle?


A reader writes in:

"Noticed that work has been progressing quickly at 1124 W. Argyle, and then today (maybe yesterday?) these movie location signs went up. Any idea what's going on?"

10 comments:

  1. They are filming a scene from a Ron Howard film. Vince Vaughn and Kevin James will be in the scene. According to the security guys, the setting will be a massage parlor.

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  2. Isn't that near the old Charlie Chaplin studio?

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  3. @gayle

    1124 W. Argyle is between the El tracks and Broadway. IIRC Essanay Studios at 1340 W Argyle is the old Charlie Chaplin studio. You can still see the name over the entrance to St. Augustine's College.

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  4. Oh my gosh! That is old site of the "Red Rooster" tavern. I am soooo glad to see some money going into that eye-sore and someone doing something with it. The Red Rooster has quite a bad history -- catered to severe alcholics and the owner was typically drunk by 11am to the point she closed the place early every afternoon because she could no longer stand-up to bartend. The smell walking by it was disgusting! It was the most depressing place you could imagine. Thank goodness the property is getting spruced!

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  5. The location in photo is the former "Red Rooster" bar next to the Argyle El stop. I didn't even notice there was any work going on there.

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  6. I walk by there to go to work around 6:30am and the workers are already out there. It has made a great deal of progress in the week/week and half I've seen them.

    Any idea what it will be when the movie is over?

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  7. It's a movie called Cheaters: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1578275/locations

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  8. They must be filming in other locations in Uptown as well. Winthrop north and south of Lawrence and Lawrence east and west of Winthrop (all around the Aragon) are being blocked off as well for the next several days.

    Fun to see Uptown being used in a film again, but a Huge parking nightmare for those of us that park on the street. Especially over a Holiday weekend!

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  9. I was briefly talking with the security guard guarding the location as they were doing the initial renovation of the room, since it is just down the street from where I live. (You'll probably pass him yourself if you use the Argyle stop: he's a burly African-American gentleman in a yellow reflective vest.)

    "Believe it or not," he said, "they're going to return it to the way it was once they're done." I can't imagine he's right, though. It seems idiotic to think that they'll improve the place and then purposefully return it to a cruddy state afterwards.

    Still, things more nutso than that have certainly happened before. It'll be interesting to see what the place looks like after they're done filming.

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  10. Keep in mind film sets are VEry fake. Walls, ceilings, windows, EVERYthing isn't code since it's just temporary. If it was a bar and is becoming a "massage parlor" those are two very different locales. The bar has a bunch of plumbing, and the parlor probably has a bunch of divided rooms which are brightly light and very clean/sterile. The bar is probably being stored in tack around the back and will be screwed back in place once they leave.

    -Brian

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