The crude pilot that aired 50 years ago this month on WTTW-Channel 11, starring two ill-at-ease reviewers talking about the movies, gave little hint that it would launch a deep friendship, and for a time, establish Chicago as the world’s epicenter of film criticism.
But with some coaching, Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel managed to transform their off-screen rivalry into mutual respect and a tense but crackling chemistry that endured for decades.
Starting Wednesday, the Chicago Cultural Center is marking the milestone with a series of free events honoring the show best known as “Siskel & Ebert.” Appropriately enough, most are screenings of films championed by the duo, featuring post-show discussions with guest speakers.
The films are:
“Eve’s Bayou,” 7 p.m. Wednesday
Chaz Ebert, who was Roger’s wife until his death in 2013 and now runs rogerebert.com, will speak at this presentation of Kasi Lemmons’ directorial debut, about a girl in 1960s Louisiana (Jurnee Smollett) wrestling with the infidelity of her father (Samuel L. Jackson). Roger Ebert called it the best film of 1997.
“Breaking Away,” 7 p.m. Nov. 12
Siskel so loved this 1979 film set in Bloomington, Indiana, that he offered to refund the ticket fee of any viewer who didn’t like it. Peter Yates directs a young Dennis Quaid, Daniel Stern and Jackie Earle Haley as working-class friends determined to win a local bicycle race. The post-screening speaker will be Thea Flaum, a WTTW producer credited with teaching the two critics how to connect with viewers.
“Drugstore Cowboy,” 7 p.m. Nov. 19
Siskel and Ebert both singled out this drama as one of the best films of 1989. Directed by Gus Van Sant (“Good Will Hunting”), it follows a gang of drug addicts looking for pharmacies to rob in the 1970s Pacific Northwest. Matt Dillon stars. Charles Coleman, programming director of the Chicago art house Facets, will dissect the film afterward.
“Lone Star” 7 p.m. Nov. 25
The screening of this 1996 John Sayles mystery is part of a live taping of the movie podcast “Filmspotting,” with its co-host Adam Kempenaar discussing the film with a frequent guest, former Chicago Tribune movie critic Michael Phillips. Chris Cooper, Elizabeth Peña and Kris Kristofferson star.
Siskel & Ebert at 50: A Live Performance 2 p.m. Nov. 22
Another, less-conventional segment of the celebration will find actors Zack Mast as Ebert and Stephen Winchell as Siskel playing the two critics in re-creations of their TV commentaries and arguments. As they did on their show, the hosts will show clips, but on this occasion, actors will be acting out the movie scenes.
A live band will play the themes of the duo’s various series, and a conversation will follow featuring the Tribune’s Rick Kogan, Flaum and another key figure from the WTTW era, Michelle McKenzie-Voigt.
All events are at the Claudia Cassidy Theater on the second floor of the Chicago Cultural Center, 78 E. Washington.
Reservations are required; go to https://www.chicago.gov/city/en/depts/dca/supp_info/claudia_cassidy.html
The two critics were working for rival papers — Siskel at the Tribune, Ebert at the Sun-Times — when they were recruited for the experiment in dueling movie critics on TV.
At first called “Opening Soon … at a Theater Near You,” the monthly series was picked up by multiple PBS stations and went weekly in the fall of 1978 with the new title “Sneak Previews.”
The show’s formula of educated commentary and movie clips brought viewers something special in the pre-internet age, but its secret weapons were its hosts, a pair of less-than-telegenic fellows who knew what they were talking about, routinely differed and weren’t afraid to make that known.
“One question we were asked, again and again, was: ‘Do you really hate each other?’ ” Ebert wrote after Siskel’s death in 1999. “There were days at the beginning of our relationship when the honest answer sometimes was ‘yes.’ It was unnatural for two men to be rivals six days of the week and sit down together on the seventh. But over the years respect grew between us, and it deepened into friendship and love.”
When the critics left PBS for Tribune Entertainment in 1982, they premiered their “thumbs-up” rating system on a new show called “At the Movies.” Another name change, to “Siskel & Ebert,” followed in 1986 with a switch to Disney’s Buena Vista Television.
After Siskel died, Ebert pressed on with guest hosts and then permanent co-host Richard Roeper in 2000. Ebert fell ill in 2006 and the show was canceled in 2010, three years before his death.
In announcing this month’s tribute to the duo, Chaz Ebert noted that they always insisted their shows be filmed in Chicago.
“Although both were world-educated and knowledgeable, at heart they were Midwestern guys who wanted a show that didn’t talk down to their audience,” she wrote. “And I am convinced that, deep down, both Roger and Gene were convinced that some of the lessons learned from the movies could perhaps help us make the world a better place. Let’s keep that hope alive at the movies.”