10 Things to Know About 'Windy City' (1984)

10 Things to Know About Windy City

10 Kate Capshaw Was Dating Director Armyan Bernstein

Revealed during the press tour for Windy City in September of 1984, Kate Capshaw was dating Windy City director Armyan Bernstein. The two had met while making the film in early 1983 and were still together more than a year later when the film was finally released.

9 Part of a Huge Breakout Year for Kate Capshaw

With the release of Windy City, Kate Capshaw had her fourth film release of 1984 following Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Best Defense with Dudley Moore and Eddie Murphy, Dreamscape starring Dennis Quaid. Interestingly, Windy City was actually the first of the films she completed back in 1983.

8 Gene Siskel Hated Windy City

Stumbling on Gene Siskel’s review of Windy City it’s notable just how much the legendary film critic despised Windy City. A couple of choice quotes.

“Its insufferable characters, who think they are so cool and earnest and giving and yet are so stupid, deceitful and selfish.”

On comparisons to The Big Chill:

“The characters are so wimpy the film could be retitled to The Small Chill.”

On Kate Capshaw and John Shea

“Their scenes together are directed as if they are Streisand and Redford, in the sense that we should immediately like them because they are so inherently cute. Well, these two have all of the charisma of Norman Streisand and Carol Redford.”

7 It flopped…. Hard

Windy City had a budget of $5 million dollars and while that number is peanuts today, CBS Films, which distributed Windy City, were unsure the film would make back even that reasonable budget. Thus, the company had the film on the shelf for a year before finally releasing it. When they did, their lack of confidence in the film proved correct. Windy City flopped hard, earning less than $400,000 dollars at the box office.

6 Director Armyan Bernstein Had to Fight to Film Windy City in Chicago

In a classic Hollywood executive bit of thinking, studio executives pushed for Windy City to be shot in Los Angeles while still setting the movie in Chicago. Bernstein had to fight with studio executives before finally getting his way and filming Windy City in the Windy City.

5 Not an Auto-Biography

Writer-Director Armyan Bernstein didn’t base Windy City on a true story. He didn’t have a real dying friend or an on again off again romance but he did have a huge group of friends who loved pirate movies and creating big imaginative adventures in their shared childhood so there was some personal DNA in there but not a purely auto-biographical film.

4 Kudos to Critic Steven White

Someone had to make the obvious pun on the title Windy City and congratulations go to Critic Steven White of the Patriot Ledger in Quincy, Massachusetts whose review carried the most obvious pun:

“Windy City is a Lot of Hot Air”

3 Try Not to Gag on these Box Quotes

It can be no wonder that a common criticism of Windy City in 1984 and today is the word ‘Treacly.” The film is a syrupy, goopy, sugary sweet movie that overwhelms in attempts to be sweet and ends up leaving a sour taste. This feeling is captured by the film’s VHS box art which includes treacly phrases to describe the film:

“Set sail and find your dreams”

Ugh, even Hallmark would pass on that pablum.

“For The Rogues, their story is about growing up, staying together, and falling in love in a Windy City.”

Who needs ipecac when you can just try reading the VHS box art for Windy City,

2 Bad Poster Copy

Still more treacle on the film’s poster:

“Me and my friends, we had a dream once, life was going to be a great adventure and we were going to be the heroes.”

Yup, there goes my lunch.

1 F*** Sol

Windy City has one fan, sort of… well not really but he did make the movie a brief and hilarious online meme. Brad Jones, aka The Cinema Snob, featured Windy City on his online review show and he hilariously roasted the film. And his vitriolic hatred of Windy City became such a popular meme on his show that he briefly sold shirts dedicated to Josh Mostel’s character Sol.

The t-shirt shows a dying Sol in his hospital bed with the singular caption “F*** Sol.”

In context, he wasn’t bluntly, angrily dismissing the dying character but rather the hilarious, almost cruel obliviousness of Sol’s friends whose attitude toward their dying friend equates to that singular t-shirt caption.