Barrington's Catlow Theater
Between the pandemic and the convenience of streaming services, people just aren’t going to the movies anymore. Back in the day one could find an old movie palace on the main street of nearly every commuter suburb. The theaters were built to last and served as important gathering places for the local community. Now they are literally becoming a thing of the past. Obviously these relics have been struggling for awhile with a number of them torn down for new development, like the DuPage Theatre (1928) in Lombard in 2007 and the Highland Park Theatre (1925) in 2018. Even the recently shuttered Liberty Theater (1937) in Libertyville, where a young Marlon Brando worked as an usher, might soon be demolished. And then there’s the fate of the Catlow. Will it find a new purpose?
The Catlow, a historic single-screen movie theater in Barrington that first opened in 1927, was named after its original owner, local businessman Wright Catlow, whose father had started Barrington’s first movie house about a decade earlier. The architectural firm of Betts & Holcomb designed the Catlow to look like a medieval English Hall both inside and out. They were known for creating a number of movie theaters in the Chicago suburbs like the still open Glen Art Theatre (1927) in Glen Ellyn. The Des Plaines Theater (1925) was one of Betts’ solo projects.
At the Catlow one can see exterior Tudor Revival design elements like diagonal brick accented with half-timber framing as well as a dominant gable above the entrance. The lobby has wood beams and trusses along with three coats-of-arms wall murals, iron sconces. The screen still uses the original hand-painted stage curtain. Visitors will notice the grinning gargoyle figures designed by sculptor Alfonso Iannelli, who was also responsible for the theater’s interior “Idyll” fountain. It is strikingly similar to the “Sprite” design Iannelli created for Frank Lloyd Wright’s Midway Gardens located on the South Side of Chicago. He was also did the stenciling found on the ceiling, walls, and beams of the Catlow.
Earlier in his career, Iannelli had designed vaudeville showcards for the lobby windows at the Orpheum Theater in Los Angeles between 1912-15. By the 1920s he had moved beyond doing theater lobby advertisements by creating the actual decor. His collaborative work on Betts & Holcomb’s theater commissions had started a year earlier with the Chelten Theatre (1927) in Chicago’s South Shore and the Villard Theater (1927) in Villa Park. The fact that both William B. Betts and Alfonso Iannelli lived in Park Ridge probably explains how they ended up working together on these three projects.
A year after Catlow was built, Iannelli contributed to another theater project, this time in his adopted hometown of Park Ridge. Recognizing Iannelli’s groundbreaking modernist designs, the architectural firm of Zook & McCaughey gave up part of their fee to secure his services for Park Ridge’s Pickwick Theater (1928). Iannelli would design the entire interior as well as part of the marquee; its grinning faces similar to the ones found at the ends of Catlow’s wood beams.
While many theaters shut down during the 1950s as television became more popular, the Catlow stayed in business showing major film releases at reasonable prices. In May 1988 the Catlow was sold to the owners of the neighboring Boloney’s Sandwich Shop, Tim O’Connor and Roberta Rapata, who led a group of investors in saving and restoring the theater. The next year it was added to the National Register of Historic Places. Because they owned both establishments, it’s no surprise that O’Connor and Rapata made their sandwiches from Boloney’s part of the overall Catlow experience. They were delivered right to the seats of movie goers, who were allowed to eat them during the film. The Catlow was also popular during the award season, even holding screenings of the Oscar-nominated short films every year. The owners raised funds through Kickstarter to upgrade the Catlow to digital.
Then in August of 2016 co-owner Roberta Rapata died of a heart attack at the age of 57. Boloney’s shut down, then reopened under a new name and menu. Customers felt something was lost with Roberta no longer running the eatery. Just three and a half years later a social media campaign was underway to raise funds for the small theater, which was struggling to pay the bills. And then the pandemic hit, making its temporary closure in January of 2020 permanent. Today the theater’s fate is up in air but there are plans in the works to turn it into a live performing arts center. Hopefully this happens as the Catlow deserves to survive for another century.
Sources:
Alfonso Iannelli: Modern by Design by David Jameson
Barrington: Postcard History Series by Ken Munson
Historic Movie Theatres in Illinois, 1883-1960 by Konrad Schiecke
Various Chicago Tribune articles.