I watched “Call Northside 777” recently and, like all of you, am interested in the filming locations. I took a number of screen shots of the movie on TV (see album at [picasaweb.google.com]) and am interested in definitively ID’ing the locations.

FYI - Here’s a quote from the Trib article dated 1995 0109 entitled “Real life Chicago Murder Mystery” by Gary Houston: “They shot on South Halsted, South Canal, South Des Plaines and the Back of the Yards area; they shot the spooky scene of Stewart's confrontation with "Wanda" on South Honore. They filmed in the 19th Precinct police station, the sheriff's office, the questioning room in the Criminal Courts building, the Bureau of Criminal Statistics and police headquarters. On many days they traveled 36 miles to Stateville for scenes between Stewart and Conte, and in one memorable frame we see the curved tiers of cells with the watchtower rising within it.”

Here’s my list of key sites (primarily outdoors) roughly as they occur in the movie and of my findings, from various research including your posts on Forgotten Chicago, so far. I do have to double check a few things so let me know if I have anything out of whack.

1) Wanda’s grocery where the officer was killed - Actual event took place at 4312 S. Ashland. The movie shows an address of 1226 and no street is indentified. You can also see a 1225 address across the street. Interestingly as the killers escape you see a lower number 1224 address to the left, which would mean this address would be on the north side.

2) Frank’s arrest - It seems that the cop car comes off a diagonal street, crosses a main street, then heads to the home which is in a building next to an empty lot. Look carefully and you can see a twin towered church off in the distance (perhaps All Saints at 518 W. 28th Pl. ?) Later in the movie you see his arrest card which shows 3021 Farrell St. as his home. That’s a real location today but doesn’t seem to match this scene.

3) Mother cleaning floors - The real mom cleaned floors at the former Comm Ed Bldg, now Chgo Public School offices, at 125 S. Clark. The interior shots were apparently filmed at the Wrigley Bldg.

4) Newspaper office – Actual former Chicago Daily Times offices building at 211 W. Wacker. If you pay attention to the views out the window they seem accurate for looking up and down the nearby Chicago River plus across the way to the Merchandise Mart. Also, the one scene where Cobb is leaning out the window is over the lower level North Post Place just to the west of the building.

5) Wife’s house - The number is 1925 but no street is identifiable.

6) Police Warehouse - There’s a plaque on the outside that reads “City of Chicago, Marshall Blvd.” and then part of a word that looks like “Plant.”

7) New City Police Station - Exterior 3501 S. Lowe; interior 47th & Paulina, as documented here

8) Subway exit - “now defunct and paved over south exit of the Harrison stop @ Polk St on S State, on the Red Line” at 759 S. State, as documented here

9) Searching for Wanda Bar #1 - Corner entrance with number 15, near dead end street

10) Searching for Wanda Bar#2 – Probably 1034 Milwaukee, as documented here. (I found a reference that it was called the Three Point Tavern from 1/25/1940 Trib) How the Kopelski (which as documented here was nearby at 1101 N. Noble) shows up in the window is unclear. Perhaps he was the owner at that time?

11) Searching for Wanda Bar#3 – This is where he finds the lady who knows where Wanda lives, I believe. The view from the interior shows the Ambrosia Brewing Company and one of their Nectar Beer taverns across the street. Ambrosia Brewing was at 3700 S. Halsted, so this location is probably on the east side of Halsted. In the scene leading up to him going inside (I think this is the right sequence but I’ll have to re-watch the movie to double check) Stewart is looking over his right shoulder toward a sign in Polish (which btw translated means “Closed July 20 to August 4”) and has a big tank and a water tower behind him. I think this is the same tank (on Diversey) that you see later when Stewart is walking towards the mother’s home from Holy Trinity Church. If so, this scene is looking east on Diversey from about Noble.

12) Wanda’s apartment – As documented here, it can’t be 725 N. Honore. But in the book “Hollywood on Lake Michigan” the author said "One of the film's most gripping scenes was actually filmed at Walush's (Wanda Skutnik in the movie) apartment at 725 S. Honore Street." 725 S. Honore Street today would be just North of Polk Street in the parking lot for the medical center. But when I look at www.historicaerials.com, the 725 S. Honore location looks like it is still part of medical center buildings back in '38 and '52. So that address doesn't seem to be good either. Honore doesn't seem to start again until south of 35th street. I emailed the author with the hope of getting more info.

13) Mother’s home – east of Holy Trinity (1118 N. Noble St. ) on a street (that was probably part of Haddon at the time) that now looks like a pedestrian mall probably built after the Kennedy Expy went in. If you look closely at one of the photos you can see an address sign that says “1381-7 ½” which would be correct for this location.

14) Stateville – the real Stateville in Crest Hill on Route 53

Alan