Homage to Bens

As many have noted over the last few weeks since it was announced that this downtown Montreal institution was closing its doors forever, Bens had seen better days. We here at "...an endless banquet" reported as much way back in November 2004, in AEB's infancy, in a two-part post that you can find here and here, respectively, and already if Bens hadn't been the ideal location for our unlikely tête-à-tête with David Thomson, it would have gone without saying. Heck, that Bens was in a bit of a tailspin was evident even back in the late '80s when I first started frequenting the place. By that time, Bens' bread-and-butter, its famous smoked meat sandwich, had been left in the dust by its competitors and the only thing left was its structural elements--its great late-Deco exterior and that amazing interior with that notorious Wall of Fame (more "where are they now?" than "Who's Who")--and the faded glory of its atmosphere, especially after hours. Back then there was still a sense of bustle at Bens, and if memory serves the place was still running 24 hours a day, as unlikely as that now seems. Anyway, here Bens was on the verge of its 100th anniversary and I just kept hoping against hope that someone with a little vision might take the place over and breathe a little life into it. I didn't even care if it went touristy in the way that the Carnegie Deli went touristy in the years that followed Broadway Danny Rose, with grossly overpriced sandwiches and the like, as long as they found some way to keep what was left of the magic going. As with everything else around here, the fear of losing an old friend wouldn't be nearly so bad if we didn't have to worry so much about who the new neighbor was going to be. And with downtown being the way it is--a veritable vacuum when it comes to anything resembling a true metropolitan culture--god knows we need all the help we can get. When I first heard about the strike, I had a feeling it was the end. I sympathized with the workers as they formed their picket line, but the way things had been going with Bens I felt certain that this would be the excuse management would use to finally call it quits. Before long it was clear that that was exactly the way things were playing out. Then, late last year, the announcement came. Will someone step in and find a way to resurrect the space, save this little corner of downtown from becoming yet another highrise, yet another parking lot? I'd love to think so, but it's not clear to me that there's anyone with the resources and taste in this town to pull off such a feat of derring-do.

Anyway, there was a time when Bens occupied a certain space in the center of Montreal, culturally as well as geographically. There was a time when Bens made the most wonderful and logical setting for shots such as this one, from Michel Brault's Entre la mer et l'eau douce (1965):



Those were the days.

aj

David and Bens™, pt. 1

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Originally uploaded by ajkinik.

A year and a half ago, David Thomson came into town for a couple of rare public appearances. His new edition of the Biographical Dictionary of Film had just been released to yet another generation of rave reviews. The Montreal International Film Festival had decided to celebrate its release by presenting Mr. Thomson with an honorary award.

During his sojourn in town Librairie Paragraphe hosted one of Mr. Thomson’s engagements—a lecture/question & answer session/book signing. The MIFF was typically tight-lipped about Mr. Thomson’s presence in town. I was working the festival and the only reason I found out Mr. Thomson was around was because my friend Paul, the events guru at Paragraphe, called me to tip me off. To my knowledge, the local press completely missed him. Anyway, I promptly got on the horn with our friends at Automatic Vaudeville™ and, together with M, we made a date of it.

Mr. Thomson was brilliant. It was easily one of the best book signings I’ve ever attended, and as a veteran of a half a dozen bookstores, I’ve seen my share. His talk was loose, lucid, and witty. He covered an enormous amount of territory without notes but somehow managed to reel it in. There was a fair bit of cinephilia-is-dead melancholy to Mr. Thomson’s comments, a fair bit of nostalgia, but between our party and the aging-hippy-revival-house-cinema-owning couple who’d come up from Vermont to hear him speak, it’s safe to say he had a receptive audience for this angle. Mr. Thomson has hardly totally given up on the cinema, though (his work on the New Biographical Dictionary of Film is testament to this on some level), and any sense of loss was tempered by his clear enthusiasm for the cinematic experience, even if this cinematic experience has been greatly eroded over the decades. The fact that Mr. Thomson lives in the Bay Area and has access to the Pacific Film Archive, the Castro, et al. probably makes it a bit easier to weather the storm.

We left our encounter with Mr. Thomson charmed and energized, with our signed copies of the Biographical Dictionary, Rosebud: The Story of Orson Welles, and Suspects in tow, and we made our way outside—but we found ourselves incapable of leaving the premises entirely. Instead we milled around outside and peeped through Paragraphe’s bay windows jealously as Paul had a one-on-one with Mr. Thomson. Then we watched Mr. Thomson grab his things and just walk out the door. Just like that. We’d been joking/talking about how great it would be to take him out for lunch, but we figured he’d get an invite from the Paragraphe brass, or that he’d get picked up by some film festival honcho, or something… But he just walked out solo. We deliberated for a minute—just long enough for Mr. Thomson to get a block and a half away—and then we ran after him like a gaggle of schoolkids. “Uh, Mr. Thomson?… Hi. Remember us? From the bookstore? We were just wondering…if you had any lunch plans?” It was already nearly 3:00pm by this time, but he accepted anyway.

Now, the problem was, where to go? Montreal is a great food town for a city of its size, but one of the tragedies of living in Montreal is that downtown Montreal (the part that stands above famed The Underground City, the only part, aside from le Vieux Montréal, that most tourists ever see, unless, of course, they’re really funky and they happen to make it to le Plateau Mont-Royal) is a wasteland when it comes to good food. (Which finally gets me to the point of this story.) With limited options at hand, we opted for an “old classic”—an “old classic” that also had the advantage of being a mere 500 ft. away: Bens™.

Bens (that’s right, no apostrophe), at 96 years old, is one of Montreal’s oldest, most venerable restaurants. It’s even older than the Montreal Pool Room (1912), for Christ’s sake [note: more on the MPR later]. The problem is, it’s venerated primarily for its architecture (late deco), its interior design (50s-era diner), and the memories it provokes in those old enough to remember its heyday (my Dad always likes to tell the story of the night he came across Duke Ellington and Ella Fitzgerald sharing a late-night meal at Bens after a gig, sometime in the early 60s). It’s safe to say that Bens has seen better days. Its “wall of fame” is still impressive, if a bit faded, but every other aspect of Bens has gone downhill (a fact attested to by the signage currently to be seen out front). The food (including their “famous” smoked meat [note: more on real Montreal smoked meat later]) is run-of-the-mill and overpriced. The service is spotty. The ambience? Morose. But it still has that great décor, and it was close, so we went.

continued...

David and Bens™, pt. 2

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Originally uploaded by ajkinik.

Suffice to say, Mr. Thomson got a laughable impression of Bens. The décor scored points, as we were sure it would, but then it came time to order. Between the 6 of us, we chose 3-4 different items from the lengthy menu. Our waiter (the only one working the floor at the time, where, once, a veritable fleet of black and white clad waiters had operated) listened to me ask for a grilled cheese sandwich before informing us that the kitchen was closed (!), as the cook was taking his lunch break (!!). "So, what does that mean," we asked. And we were told that it meant the only thing available was the “famous” smoked meat sandwich. Mr. Thomson, savvily, asked, “Why? Where do the smoked meat sandwiches come from?” Smoked meat sandwiches, the waiter replied, come out of counter-side steaming units and not the kitchen, and therefore are the domain of the wait staff and not the kitchen. We promptly ordered 6 “famous” smoked meat sandwiches (what else were we going to do?) with a few dill pickles, and 6 soft drinks and got back to our conversation.

An hour later, we’d had plenty more quality time with Mr. Thomson and we found him perfectly happy to discuss nearly any aspect of the film biz. Strangely, there we were sitting with one of the world’s leading authorities on the studio system, but D., M., and S. froze in his presence and failed to tell him about their own “hi-class” film studio [Dear Mr. Thomson (and anyone else, for that matter), for more information about Automatic Vaudeville we'd like to direct you to the following "hi-class" website: Automatic Vaudeville Studios--ed]. Instead, S., poor guy, confronted Mr. Thomson with a film he'd been wrestling with all summer: “What did you think of The Hulk?"

Mr. Thomson trumped us on the bill—the idea had been to take him out, to thank him. He told us he was flattered we’d asked him out (in spite of the poor food, I guess) and that it was his pleasure. We said our goodbyes, and he walked away—again.

I went home and started leafing through my newly signed copy of The New Biographical Dictionary of Film.

aj