On Area Movie Screens – December 1970

It’s always fun (for me, at least) to see what was playing on area movie screens back in the days when we had area movie screens. Even without the pandemic, there simply aren’t a lot of options these days if you want to see a first run movie in the Lorain area. 

But there were plenty of options fifty years ago, when the ads above ran in the Journal on December 4, 1970. As usual, there is quite a variety, with ‘hip’ offerings that reflected the changing times, as well as more wholesome fare.

The first thing to catch my eye was Mr. Magoo’s Holiday Festival, playing at matinees at both the Palace in Lorain, and the Avon Lake Theater. The movie was merely a mash-up of the Christmas special (which I wrote about here), and a two-part episode ("Snow White") from the Famous Adventures of Mr. Magoo TV series. 

The other thing that leaped out at me was the re-release of one of my favorite movies, It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, World (which I wrote about here and here), which was playing at the Capitol Cinema in downtown Elyria.

The drive-in theaters were still open (note the Tower Drive-in ad promoting their in-car heaters). While the Carlisle and Lorain Drive-ins were showing adult fare, the Tower had Rebel Rousers (with Jack Nicholson), Wild Scene and Born Losers.

The regular theaters were all over the place with their offerings, including House of Dark Shadows at Amherst Theater, M*A*S*H at the Ohio Theater, TROG and Taste the Blood of Dracula at the Tivoli, Airport at the Midway Cinema, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid at the Palace, and (gasp) Beyond the Valley of the Dolls at the Liberty Theater in my now-adopted hometown of Vermilion.

(I’ll leave it to you to see what was playing at the, ahem, VL Cinema.)

Note that the Lorain Downtown Merchants were sponsoring a “Free Kiddie Show” at the Palace on Saturday. They obviously knew their audience, with the scheduled showing of The Three Stooges Go Around the World in a Daze (which I wrote about here).