Before I was a friend and colleague, I was a fan.
In my early and mid-teens in the 1970s, I was a loner jock/pop culture nerd who was obsessed with these pursuits:
Playing and watching baseball and football and to a lesser extent basketball, and consuming issues of Sports Illustrated and Sport and Baseball Digest, and reading books such as Roger Kahn’s The Boys of Summer, Jim Bouton’s Ball Four, David Wolf’s Foul! The Connie Hawkins Story and George Plimpton’s Paper Lion.
Watching late-night and weekend TV, especially talk shows such as “The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson,” “The Tomorrow Show with Tom Snyder,” ABC’s “Good Night America,” wherever Dick Cavett had landed in a given season—and the Chicago-based “Kup’s Show,” with the legendary Chicago Sun-Times columnist Irv Kupcinet presiding over an eclectic group of guests engaging in “the lively art of conversation.”
Movies. Movies movies movies.
Then came a program that merged two of those three passions: movies and talk shows. At some point in late 1975 or early 1976, I became aware of “Opening Soon at a Theater Near You,” a monthly review program on WTTW-Channel 11. The show featured Chicago Sun-Times film critic Roger Ebert and Chicago Tribune film critic Gene Siskel talking about new releases in the low-key but instantly engrossing style that made you feel like you were eavesdropping on your two favorite teachers as they verbally sparred between classes. (Roger was 33 when the show debuted; Gene was just 29.)
It was great. I watched every week. I took notes. (I had piles of spiral notebooks back then, filled with scribblings about everything from stats comparing the 1927 Yankees to the mid-1970s Big Red Machine, to my ratings of various episodes of “The Tonight Show.” Like I said: nerd.) Conventional wisdom has it that Roger and Gene were awkward, unpolished and slightly geeky in those early years—and while there’s some truth in that, they were also pretty comfortable in their respective personas from the get-go, clearly knowledgeable and passionate about films, and respectful of each other’s opinions, even when they vehemently disagreed.
When I had the cash to see a movie at the Dolton Cinema or the River Oaks in Calumet City, I based my choices largely on Roger’s reviews in the Sun-Times (we were never a Tribune family, no offense)—and what Roger and Gene had to say on “Opening Soon at a Theater Near You.” It was a well-produced show from the start, but it also had a quirky, almost no-budget, enormously charming local public television vibe. The guys delivered insightful and sobering commentary on major films such as “Taxi Driver”—but they never took themselves too seriously, as evidenced by segments titled the “Dog of the Week” (with Spot the Wonder Dog) and later the “Stinker of the Week” (with Aroma the Educated Skunk), shining a harsh but playful light on terrible movies. As memory serves, in both cases, real animals were supplanted by plush toys. Easier to wrangle, I would imagine.
Fast forward to the 1980s and 1990s, when Roger and Gene were syndicated across the country. The review show was still must-see television for me—but as a talk-show geek, I was also a big fan of the Siskel & Ebert chat show appearances, including the grandaddy of them all, “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.” (Years later, Roger told me that when he and Gene were backstage at “The Tonight Show,” a producer told them Johnny was going to ask about the best movies currently playing in theaters—and they both drew a blank. From that point forward, whenever they taped a talk show appearance, a producer would be at the ready back at the Chicago offices in case they needed to make a call.)
They were great with Regis and Kathie Lee, with Oprah and Johnny and Jay and Arsenio, but best of all were the appearances with David Letterman, who recognized comedy gold in these fellow Midwesterners. Roger and Gene would come on and mostly talk about movies (the running joke was that while Letterman would have only one guest on at a time, he always kept two chairs on the set “for Siskel & Ebert”) —but they were also featured in comedy bits. They made quick cameos, gave their concession stand recommendations at a makeshift snack counter, and perhaps most famously, filmed a segment where Dave, Roger and Gene went door to door in New Jersey, cleaning the gutters at one woman’s house, playing a game of basketball in a driveway court, and even stopping in to pay their respects at a funeral home in West Orange. They had become such household names that when Michael J. Fox was on with Letterman to promote his movie “The Hard Way,” nearly an entire segment was devoted to Fox’s feelings about Gene and Roger and their respective reviewing styles.
It’s nearly impossible to overstate the impact Siskel & Ebert had on the careers of filmmakers, and on the popular culture. When they championed films such as “Hoop Dreams,” or did an entire show in black and white to decry the horrific practice of colorizing films, when they touted the works of Spike Lee and Errol Morris and Werner Herzog and the Coen Brothers, millions were watching and taking heed. At times, Hollywood players would take not-so-thinly-veiled shots at the lads. Roland Emmerich’s “Godzilla” had the incompetent “Mayor Ebert” (Michael Lerner) and his advisor, Gene (Lorry Goldman). In “The Ref,” where Richard LaGravenese had J.K. Simmons playing a deviant character named “Siskel” because Gene had said LaGravenese’s screenplay for “The Fisher King” was the least deserving of the Oscar nominees in that category in 1991. Gene and Roger were on “Saturday Night Live,” lampooned in Mad Magazine, on the Howard Stern Show, and were depicted in animated form on “The Critic.” They were as famous as the movie stars and directors they talked about.
Through it all, though, the Roger and Gene we saw in the balcony every week were the same guys who popped up on Channel 11 back in 1975. They never moved the production from Chicago to Hollywood. They never added unnecessary bells and whistles or gimmicks. It was two smart guys who loved movies sitting across the aisle from one another, speaking with passion and knowledge and savvy about the movies that would be opening that weekend at a theater near you. It was magic.
