True to the egalitarian allure of the restaurant chain itself, Lisa Hurwitz’s documentary “The Automat” is both a touching farewell and a fond hello-again for those old enough to remember the salisbury steak, creamed spinach and peach pie behind those little windows of nickel-fed discovery.
The documentary, several years and many Kickstarter donors in the making, tells the story of a 20th Century dining phenomenon particular to New York City and Philadelphia: the Horn & Hardart restaurants popularly known, especially in New York, as the Automat.
The first opened in 1902; the last closed in 1991. For decades, especially the 1920s, ‘30s, ‘40s and early ‘50s, the Automats helped define two great American cities’ affordable and small-d democratic dining options, with a novel Mechanical Age premise — no waitstaff, no need for new arrivals to America to struggle with the language. Just a massive vending machine scenario, offering customers a great wall of a la carte options most folks could afford.
The Automats didn’t look cheap, however. They were gussied up in a disarmingly swank atmosphere of marble tabletops, chrome and brass trim, and glass, glass, glass, plus high ceilings. Over the century, millions of immigrants with a few coins surveyed the tiny see-through compartments for what looked good. The baked goods and other items came fresh from a centralized commissary, supplying dozens of Automats with, we learn, up to 2,400 pies baked per hour.
Along with the immigrants, the average office worker found a lunch or dinner home at the Automat. So did countless swells in furs, before or after a play or a movie. Virtually all races and walks of life walked through the front door. For Colin Powell, the future U.S. Secretary of State interviewed here, the Horn & Hardart diners was where his South Bronx family ate out when eating out was a rarity.
The place was “sparkling,” Powell says in the film. The Times Square Automat he remembered best attracted a broad clientele of “a beautiful diversity that didn’t exist in most of the rest of the country.”
In “The Automat” Mel Brooks takes the role of Horn & Hardart Enthusiast-in-Chief. Brooks’ participation in Hurwitz’s project led to the filmmaker snagging a lot of other prime gets. (Several key subjects, such as Powell, Carl Reiner and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, are no longer with us; Hurwitz began work on her film in 2013.)
The high ceilings, the Carrara marble — for not much cash you got a lot of “panache,” Brooks says, choosing the word as if he were searching for just the right piece of Automat pie.
Starbucks executive chairman Howard Schultz, another interviewee, recalls his childhood Automat encounters as being a key influence on the coffee empire he’d eventually create. The “theater” of it, the sense of “discovery,” stuck with him, even if the ancestral link between the Automat and Starbucks may be puzzling to some.
Younger viewers might find themselves squinting a little to see what Automat aficionados saw so clearly, and remember with such love. Hurwitz does a good job covering the bases of how the Automats flourished, and why, with the post-World War II and Eisenhower era emphasis on interstate highways and fleeing to the suburbs, the Automat slid gradually, then quickly, into disfavor. Several longtime Horn & Hardart executives and executive’s offspring speak from the heart, often in quietly anguished tones, about what the company founders did to foster loyalty (unionization efforts, unsuccessful, notwithstanding). In the end, the Automat’s initial and longstanding appeal as a gleaming, ultra-modern taste of the future became a remnant of yesterday.
The documentary has a few limitations. It could’ve used a few more movie clips, though rights to some key Automat scenes in Hollywood movies (such as the 1937 screwball “Easy Living”) might’ve broken the modest production budget. “That Touch of Mink,” the Cary Grant/Doris Day vehicle with its early scenes shot in a Manhattan Automat, came out in 1962, not 1952. The musical score by Hummie Mann threatens to drown the movie in good cheer or familiar sentiment at various points.
But when Brooks sings the love song he wrote for the documentary, all is forgiven. “There Was Nothing Like the Coffee at the Automat” takes a nice poke at Starbucks in Brooks’ lyric “You have to understand, they/Had no latte grande.” Elsewhere, Reiner reminisces in footage cross-cut with Brooks’ own memories of writing for “Your Show of Shows” and noshing with Reiner at the Automat between sessions. Reiner favored the chocolate pudding pie, available only in winter. “We waited patiently all year for it,” he says. “That was the best pie.”
Like the movie palaces built in the post-World War I era, the Automat offered unexpected elegance at popular prices. But you couldn’t get chicken pot pie or chocolate pudding pie at The Roxy.
Director Lisa Hurwitz discusses “The Automat” in person following the 7:30 p.m. Saturday April 2 screening at the Landmark Renaissance Place in Highland Park. The documentary continues its run this week at the Renaissance Place; the AMC River East; and the AMC Streets of Woodfield in Schaumburg.
‘The Automat’ — 3 stars
No MPAA rating.
Running time: 1:19
How to watch: Now playing at the Landmark Renaissance Place in Highland Park; AMC River East; and AMC Streets of Woodfield in Schaumburg. Streaming premiere: June 2.
Michael Phillips is a Tribune critic.
Twitter @phillipstribune
Big screen or home stream, takeout or dine-in, Tribune writers are here to steer you toward your next great experience. Sign up for your free weekly Eat. Watch. Do. newsletter here.
"tasty" - Google News
April 03, 2022 at 05:16AM
https://ift.tt/AquZx7T
Review: 'The Automat,' a tasty slice of nostalgia to go with that pie - Chicago Tribune
"tasty" - Google News
https://ift.tt/26Sf3RT
https://ift.tt/1PpcOMU
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Review: 'The Automat,' a tasty slice of nostalgia to go with that pie - Chicago Tribune"
Post a Comment