The Automat
directed by Lisa Hurwitz
written by Michael Levine
2021
The Automat isn't technically a Mel Brookes movie, but he is director Lisa Hurwitz's first interviewee, and seemingly her directorial mentor. Brookes was clearly invested in the success of the film - he helps connect Hurwitz to her other famous interviewees, and he both wrote and sang some outro music for the end credits. Hurwitz definitely got some pretty famous faces for her documentary debut. In addition to the usual academics and historians, she scored Brookes, Carl Reiner, the CEO of Starbucks, Colin Powell, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. She also makes really good use of archival footage, especially from golden age Hollywood movies and Looney Tunes that used the restaurant as a set for romance and comedy.
Hurwitz uses all this firepower in service of telling the history of one of the most visually iconic restaurants that's ever existed - the Horn & Hardart automat. Famous for its wall of widows, like little PO boxes for your food. Customers could take their tray up to the wall, put in a nickel, open the window, and retrieve a single serving of cafeteria food.
Vending machine restaurants were originally developed in Europe, and in the US, mostly only existed in New York City. Its heyday was from about 1900 until mid-century. But because of New York's cultural dominance, the restaurant's many locations in NYC, its striking appearance, and its popularity with writers and other creative types, the automat had an outsized impact on the popular imagination.
The interviewees' get nostalgic about the food, the coffee, the decor, (which, unlike most mid-century cafeterias, still looks appealing today!), and especially the benefits of the long hours and low prices. Nearly everyone Hurwitz talked to had a story about a time in their life when they were poor, but at least they could afford the automat, and the chance to sit inside. The place also seems to have had an egalitarian effect on its customers; unlike at restaurants with more personalized service, everyone ate the same food, sat at the same tables, and got treated alike by the automated systems. They found dignity in that.
(It's not mentioned in the film, but that's a lot of what I like about the experience of going to Pret a Manger whenever I'm in a city big enough to have one.)
Ultimately, the automat was done in by economic changes. Inflation is an obvious culprit - their machines could only accept nickels, making price increases difficult to implement. The rise of McDonald's and other fast food chains offered a form of competition that automats had never really faced before - the same thing, I believe, that happened to Howard Johnson's.
And most importantly, I think, middle class and White people became less and less willing to eat at the same restaurants as the poor and Black. We might blame some of that on the worsening conditions of urban poverty, but also perhaps on a hardening of race-based and classist intolerance. And without those customers, the automat could no longer take advantage of the economies of scale that allowed it to function.
Hurwitz has assembled a very good documentary about a somewhat niche, but very interesting topic. She's also put the film together in a way that sort of deliberately 'shows the seams,' if you know what I mean. Rather than making a totally polished finished product, she's embedded evidence of the filmmaking process (and Mel Brookes's avuncular mentorship) in the footage the audience gets to see. It's a really enjoyable watch.
Note: I'm trying something new by starting to include film reviews here. Unlike with books, I'm not reviewing everything I watch, and I'm publishing them on a considerable time delay. For example, I originally watched The Automat in December 2022.
