What was playing at the Palace on Thanksgiving 1937?

Many people enjoy going to the movies as part of a holiday celebration.

This is nothing new, as shown in the above ad which ran on Thanksgiving eve in the Lorain Journal on Wednesday, November 24, 1937. It promotes the Palace’s Gala Holiday Show.

But as you can see from the foreboding graphic in the ad, warm and fuzzy holiday fare was not exactly in store for movie patrons.

Seeing as the theater was the Warner Brothers Palace, perhaps it’s probably not a surprise that the main feature was a crime drama: Alcatraz Island (1937). It’s the story of a man railroaded into Alcatraz prison who ends up framed for the murder of another inmate. John Litel stars as “Gat” Brady (no relation).

Courtesy gcaptain.com

The second half of the double feature was a little bit lighter: Swing It, Sailor (1938). I’m not sure how it could be playing in Lorain in 1937 when all the online movie websites say it was released in 1938.

The movie features a real grab bag of lesser-known actors: Wallace Ford, Ray Mayer, Isabel Jewell and Mary Treen. Wallace Ford is always great, and later appeared in a lot of really good westerns. But the only other cast member that I’ve ever heard of is Tom Kennedy, who played a lot of policemen in comedy shorts, with comedians such as Laurel & Hardy. In fact, he was even in It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World – in which he played a whistle-blowing traffic cop near the end of the movie.

Anyway, the whole movie is on YouTube, so if want to find out if it is indeed a “comedy riot,” here’s your chance. Give it a click below.

I wonder what nameless “cartoon” was shown with the double feature?