North State Street, Chicago, USA
(Stanley Kubrick / Look Magazine / Library of Congress)
Stanley Kubrick is a hugely significant figure in the history of cinema, directing thirteen major feature films, including Spartacus, A Clockwork Orange, The Shining, Full Metal Jacket and the groundbreaking 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Prior to his film career, the young Kubrick was an apprentice photographer at Look magazine. Initially using a camera for his school publication, he was offered an apprenticeship at Look after he submitted a photograph.
This picture of people arriving at the Chicago Theatre in Chicago is drawn from a set of pictures the twenty-one-year-old Kubrick took for the Look series 'Chicago: City of Extremes’. The theater production in question, starring Jack Carson, Marion Hutton and Robert Alda, was John Loves Mary, a farce.
‘Among the many plays that come to Broadway every season there may be one or two which have a long post-Broadway life ahead of them. The latest prospect for these happy ranks is John Loves Mary. Into his play, author Norman Krasna has packed all the ingredients for a good amateur show.’
LIFE magazine, April 14,1947
