FILM

Five-cent coffee

‘The Automat’ peers into the past of automated restaurants

By Bryan VanCampen

Ilove documentaries like Lisa Hurwitz’s “ e Automat” (A Slice of Pie Productions, 2021, 79 minutes) for the simple reason that I saw a listing on Cinemapolis’ website the night before it opened, saw that it starred Mel Brooks and Elliott Gould, and decided to check it out. I had no previous interest in the history of Horn & Hardart’s chain of automated restaurants that ruled New York City and Philadelphia for most of the 20th century. “ e Automat” is worth seeing just to watch Brooks wax rhapsodic about the Automat’s pies and vecent cup of co ee, but it’s a well-made, compact doc that tells a big American story that’s nearly forgotten.

“ e Automat” opens on the road with driving shots. We’re in Upstate New York snow, discovering a raw storage space in Ellenville, New York, where the last Automat window and brass doors from the famed restaurant chain are stored.

Ellenville is about a half-hour drive from SUNY New Paltz, where I was majoring in drug abuse back in the day. I was about an hour’s drive from NYC, and anytime I could nd someone with a car, we’d drive down to the city and bomb around Times Square and Greenwich Village. I must have known about the Automats but I never went to eat at one; I had certainly seen the Bugs Bunny cartoon excerpted in “ e Automat” where the famous rabbit has a great gag with an Automat window door and a slice of pie. e last Automat shut down in 1991, 10 years a er my city trips. Why didn’t I check out the Automat at least once?

Hurwitz’s lm details the inspiration for the Automat chain — a German eatery where customers were served via dumbwaiters — the rise of the Automat brand, and why it all imploded a er more than half a century. Brooks and Carl Reiner ate at the Automat when they were writing and performing on TV’s “Your Show of Shows”; I assume they were ush enough to eat elsewhere. (It was especially sweet seeing Reiner one last time prior to his death in 2020.) Aside from Brooks, Reiner and Gould, Ruth Bader Ginsburg waxes warmly about the Automat’s creamed spinach and sweet things, and Colin Powell talks about the Automat’s casual but rm policy of integration and inclusion at a time when most restaurants were segregated.

“Don’t tell my mother this, but I liked the ham and cheese sandwich there,” says Brooks toward the end of “ e Automat”; he is clearly so enamored by the notion of Hurwitz’s project that half of his interview consists of him o ering advice, wondering where the lm will be shown, and he even ends up writing and performing a song about the Automats over the end credits, though it’s mostly about the ve-cent co ee.

“ e Automat” is streaming on Apple, Amazon and Google Play.

Recommended: “Top Gun: Maverick” at Regal Stadium 14; “Crimes of the Future” at Cinemapolis

RIP: Brad Johnson (“Always”) manager, who became my manager in 1961. ey called him and said, “We want them to do advertisements for Dove soap.” And it made Pete Seeger retire from e Weavers. [laughs] He said he would quit if they had them advertising their soap company, so they didn’t do that. But the folk music revival had been goin on really for a few years when I jumped on board,

continued from page 13

SPORTS

continued from page 4

of them could have played on their varsity teams.” e coach expressed her appreciation that so many athletes took part, and that the team received so much support. She said, “ e gym was packed. Kids from the lacrosse, track, basketball, baseball and so ball teams showed up, and the gym was so loud our athletes couldn't hear me!”

I mentioned earlier that the students, in Valletta's words, “bought into the purpose.” When asked to elaborate, the coach said, “If you think about what the high school experience should entail, all kids from the Ithaca City School District should have an opportunity to wear the Ithaca jersey and hear the crowd go wild.” She pointed out again that the support from the school community has been robust, and she hopes to see some of that support remain in place when Ithaca hosts the Special Olympics next weekend. Stephanie said, “One of our athletes — Nikolai Huie — is a competitive swimmer, and he will be going for the gold!”

LOCAL MEDLEY

continued from page 11

one wonderfully comic scene, the very use of the phrase “curb appeal.”

Beth (Lindsay Brill), disoriented and lonely a er her husband’s abandonment, is unsurprisingly the rst to fall for Dionysus’s earthy charms. Pam (Melissa Miller), a garrulous Italian-American who sports sexy animal prints (costumes by Chelsea Kerl), aggressively assents. e most comical pasde-deux is with Renee (Cynthia Henderson), a savvy shelter magazine editor who welcomes the new ecovision while clearly stirred by memories of her own lesbian past.

Diane’s rst target proves the most resistant to change: Carol (Erica Steinhagen) holds out for her ordered corner of reality, her cul-de-sac retreat, the planet be damned. “What I want is what we want,” she insists. But with their snug little town on an inlet just o Sandy Hook Bay, storms inevitably threaten.

Except for two overly long speeches, George’s script is clever, with down-to-earth banter in an absurdist context. All the actors do it justice, delightfully mining the comedy in every moment. ( e drollness echoes that of “Schitt’s Creek.”) It’s unclear whether the play makes any climate converts, but at least you won’t look at your backyard the same way again. • “Catch Me If You Can,” book by Terrence McNally, music by Marc Shaiman, lyrics by Shaiman and Scott Wittman.

Directed by Brett Smock. At e Rev (Merry-Go-Round Playhouse), Emerson

Park, Auburn. Mon-Sat through June 28. Tickets at https://therevtheatre.com/ tickets/ticketing-options / or (315) 2551785. • “Hurricane Diane,” by Madeleine George, directed by Rebecca Bradshaw. At the

Kitchen eatre, 417 W. State/MLK, Jr.

St., Ithaca. rough June 26. Tickets at https://www.kitchentheatre.org/buy-tickets or (607) 272-0570.

And Denver had a folk music society, and I joined them and started to learn songs.

IT: Post World War II, it was easier to have a banjo or guitar than a piano.

JC: Yeah, well, exactly, because they’re portable.

IT: You can take ‘em anywhere.

JC: You can take them anywhere. It’s hard to have a piano and it’s even harder to have an orchestra.

IT: Yeah, you can’t really have a piano at a cook-out.

JC: Yeah, exactly.

e Special Olympics Summer Games will be held at various venues around Ithaca, starting next Friday (June 24). ere is a volunteer portal on the Special Olympics website, www.specialolympics-ny.org. e website also lists the sports that will be represented, as well as times and locations.

Big news for the Big Red from Eugene, Oregon... Rhys Hammond — a Cornell sophomore — broke a 29-year-old school record in the 1,500 meters at the 2022 NCAA Outdoor Track & Field Championship at Hayward Field in Eugene. e run — in which Hammond nished 17th — put the nishing touches on an outstanding season, during which the Big Red runner received honorable mention All-America recognition.

Hammond placed 10th in the second heat with a personal best of 3:41.36, eclipsing the previous school mark of 3:41.48 (run by Rob Cunningham in 1993).

— Steve Lawrence