Jack Behrend (Tape 3/3) 4/28/10
Tape 1/3 includes:
- Discussion of Jack's early career and work at his father's company, Movie Supply. Jack describes how their business prospered in the 1950s because CinemaScope was arriving and there was lots of new equipment to sell to accommodate the new technology.
- Discussion of the clientele of Movie Supply, which included third run, fourth run, and fifth run theaters as well as drive-in theaters. These included Chicago cinemas like the Clark Theatre and the 4-Star, which were operated by Bruce Trinz. The conversation includes details of how the drive-in business worked, and the kinds of films that were produced for those markets.
- Discussion of the movie theater equipment business in Chicago in the 1950s, which was concentrated near 13th and Wabash. Companies mentioned include Abbot Theater Supply, National Theater Supply, Movie Supply, and Gardener Theater Supply.
- Discussion of industrial film production in Chicago, including Wilding Productions, Fred Niles, Dallas Jones, Sarra Studios, as well as Evanston's Pilot Productions.
- Discussion of educational film production, including Chicago's Encyclopedia Brittanica and Coronet Films in Glenview.
- Discussion of Chicago-based filmmakers Jack knew, including Gordon Weisenborn, Herschell Gordon Lewis, Mort and Millie Goldsholl, Howard Alk, and Helen Morrison.
- Jack describes some of his technical achievements, including setting Helen Morrison up with an Auricon sound-on-film camera kitted out with a magazine that allowed her to record up to 30 minutes of film without reloading her camera, enabling her to better document her creative partner Sybil Shearer's dancing. Discussion of Jack's relationship with Helen Morrison and Sybil Shearer continues at the start of Tape 2/3.
Tape 2/3 includes:
- Discussion of challenges of documentary filmmaking and sync sound filmmaking before portable tape recorders, and the ways that film technology affected filmmaking technique.
- Brief discussions of the work of Chicago film scene figures and organizations, including The Film Group, Ruth Ratny, and Haskell Wexler.
- Jack describes a series of screenings he organized via the Directors Guild of America (DGA)
- Discussion of Kodak and their role in the Chicago film industry.
- Jack describes how Technicolor cameras worked.
- Jack discusses his entry into filmmaking and film production. He describes his first project, making Russian-language versions of industrial films for the International Can Company in the 1970s. Because he didn't want to compete with his film equipment customers, he focused on niche techniques like high-speed photography.
- Jack describes a few personal projects, including his time-lapse film of the construction of the Equitable Building and a project he did for a speech therapist at Northwestern using time-lapse to show the movement of the larynx.
- Jack discusses the Chicago Censor Board (aka the Chicago Police Department Film Review Board)
- Brief discussion of other figures in Chicago's filmmaking worlds, including Madeline Tourtelot, Margaret Conneely, Bert Van Bork, John Nash Ott, and Don Klugman.
Tape 3/3 includes:
- Discussion of Chicago's film lab infrastructure.
- Jack describes the experience of making films for advertising agencies like Leo Burnett.
- Discussion of racism in the film industry, including discussion of Chicago cinematographer Henry Ushijima. Jack also discusses anti-Black prejudice in film industry unions, describing how he and others had to write letters of support to enable cameraman Jim Strickland to enter the union in the early 1970s. Jack states that Jim was the first Black cameraman in the Chicago union.
- Brief discussion of the limited jobs available to women in the film industry at that time.
- Jack describes his relationship with Bob Link, including a story about Bob's role as set lighting tech at the 1960 Nixon-Kennedy presidential debates.
- Brief discussion of how Jack met his wife Mary.
- Brief discussions of other local film industry figures, including Harry Mantel, Bill Butler, William Friedkin, and Gordon Quinn and Kartemquin Films.
- - - - - - - - -
List of links to the records for each tape comprising this interview:
- Tape 1/3
- Tape 2/3
- Tape 3/3
