The lost 1961 documentary about Chicago

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“The interpretation of Chicago was at stake at this moment.”

That’s Northwestern University professor Michael Metzger talking about the 1961 made-for-TV documentary “Chicago: First Impressions of a Great American City,” which would ultimately be suppressed and virtually unseen — until now — because of its warts-and-all portrayal of the city.

Mayor Richard J. Daley called it a “monstrosity” and threatened to punch whoever was responsible for it. One newspaper report described it as a “libel on the metropolis of the Midwest” and ABC President of News James Hagerty recommended that it be “filed and forgotten,” despite acknowledging that “I have not seen the film,” basing his opinion on “the report of men whose judgement I trust in such matters.”

“Seamy” is a word that comes up in multiple articles about the film from 1961, including one from the Tribune that describes its focus on “skid row, a narcotics raid, honkey-tonks, cheap rooming houses and the slaughter of animals in the stock yards.”

For Metzger, this was a jackpot.

“Rarely do I encounter documentaries that generate that kind of visceral and vituperative response. This is doing the things I really want to see documentaries do, which is pushing people’s buttons and putting forward a personal view that might ruffle feathers.”

Made by a British filmmaker named Denis Mitchell, it was a co-production of the BBC and Chicago’s local ABC affiliate (then operating under the call letters WBKB), but it became a cinematic obscurity before it could be broadcast stateside.

Now, more than half a century later, the film has been unearthed and will screen at Northwestern’s Block Cinema on Nov. 5.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/10/28/suppressed-chicago-documentary-1961-unearthed/