Plenty to like 'Beyond the Ivy'

If Wrigley Field can make even the Cubs look good, just imagine what it does to a low-budget movie documentary.

"Wrigley Field: Beyond the Ivy" settles in for a weeklong run at the gene Siskel Film Center, downtown at 164 N. State St., staring at 6:15 p.m. today. To be honest, I'm not sure it's worth the trip from the suburbs. Like the Cubs on the field, it can drop the ball in spots.

Yet, as it documents the lives and dreams of various wacko Cub fans in and around the ballpark - from the familiar, like Ronnie "Woo" Wickers, to the anonymous, like a scalper identified only as Chet - it soon begins to work an irresistible magic, much like Wrigley itself.

Having made its formal debut last fall, "Beyond the Ivy" is already available on tape for $23 through the www.wriglyfieldvideo.com Web site or at Best Buy and other outlets. That might be the best format for it, because that way Cub fans can watch it again and again - in good times or in bad, in groups or alone - and commiserate about what a lost, loopy, loony race we are.

"Ivy" was produced and directed by David Levenson, along with writer-producers Bob Chicoine and Jimmy Mack - three renaissance men who have worked straight gigs as ballpark vendors when not making films or following their many other interests. They're the same group that did "The Wrecking of Old Comiskey Park", which grew out of Chicoine's attempt to write an epic poem about the stadium as he was humping cups of suds up and down the steps pf the world's largest beer garden in the last days before it was razed.

"Ivy", in turn, grew out of the tortured dreams and absurd senses of purpose of Buffalo's Steve Wolf, who liked "Wrecking" and got in touch with Levenson about whether he'd be interested in doing something on Wolf's project to create a massive and only slightly miniaturized model of Wrigley.

Wolf provides the running story that weaves in and out of the other segments, including meditations on Wrigleyville parking and the socialist pride of standing room (ownership is theft in the form of reserved seats). While some of those segments can be hokey (like the camera acting out behavior of a drunken fan who staggers out of the bleachers and passes out on the grass across the street), Wolf's story somehow captures the crushed hopes and aspirations common to all fans.

The documentary shows him sometimes working 16 hours a day on the model, built to exact scale and with immaculate detail right down to the working light bulbs in the standards above the grandstand. Having finished the model, he's willing to part with it - "'Cause I need the money," Wolf admits - and plots to take it to the Cubs Convention. But it's so big it won't fit down the stairs, and it's so bulky he can't even get it out through the porch of his apartment. More than 12 hours and one smashed sliding door later, he finally gets it on the road. It creates a sensation, but nobody bites on the $15,000 asking price.

"The story is, I built it and nobody came", Wolf says.

I'll leave it to the movie to tell whether Wolf's tale ends in triumph or tragedy. As involving as his story is, that of Moe Mullins, "the best ball hawk ever," is almost equally good. Mullins discusses his tactics on how to catch batting-practice homers across the street on Waveland, and his unique way of breaking in a mitt (cover it with shaving cream in a trash bag and bury it in the ground over the winter). Having caught well over 3,000 balls outside Wrigley, he wants to keep at it until he surpasses Pete Rose's number of lifetime hits.

Sitting at home, he thanks his wife and son for their patience in allowing him his "hobby", then he goes over and opens up a garbage can and a chest, both filled to the brim with baseballs. And, like Wolf, he circles back in later on in the documentary when he becomes embroiled in a battle over the rightful ownership of Sammy Sosa's 62nd homer during the 1998 season.

There's also a mopey janitor names Les who lives across the street on Waveland without really knowing why. "I guess it's supposed to be kind of exciting. I don't think it is", he says, adding, "I guess I'm lucky to live here." The owner of Jimmy and Tai's Wrigleyville Tap resolves "I'm gonna be here for a while", only to close down after losing his lease. There's a guy who mines for lost goods outside the stadium using a metal detector, and the scalper Chet who insists, "I'm providing what I consider a legitimate service," although he resists talking about how much money he pockets.

There's also a loving segment dedicated to the placid slow pace of September at Wrigley, when the Cubs are typically out of contention and the rowdies have gone back to school, and the documentary begins and ends with visions of Wrigley in winter, packed in snow, "one square block of silence."

So, yes, "Ivy" can sometimes get a little cutesy. Bradley Williams' pedestrian background music makes one pine for Gary Pressy's organ. And the narration supplied for William Petersen can sometimes grow a little too poetic. (Wrigley is described as "the church of baseball," a line only Susan Sarandon's Baseball Annie could pull off.) But Levenson sometimes finds new ways to look at familiar old objects, as when he peers backward at the scoreboard from the center-field bleachers, and Jim Hausfeld's editing keeps the pace brisk. Finally, some notes are struck perfectly.

"Like the Grand Canyon," Petersen says, "it got beautiful gradually."

In fact, for all its faults, "Ivy" does a better job of capturing Wrigley's mystical majesty than any like-minded documentary about the Grand Canyon. It's a must-see for Cub fans, whether you trek downtown, buy the tape or cheap out and wait patiently for it to make its inevitable way to WTTW-TV Channel 11. It sure isn't perfect, but somehow I can't help liking it, and doesn't that make it the perfect Cub movie?