Frontier Week & On Area Movie Screens – July 1963

Sixty years ago this month, the city of Amherst was enjoying the second year of its annual Frontier Week celebration. Above is the page from the July 29, 1963 Journal with the story.

As it notes, "An estimated crowd of 5,000 persons turned out Saturday for the first day's festivities of Frontier Week which featured a 1 1/2 hour parade.

"The evening's attractions were two free-fall parachute jumps held at Memorial Field.

The festivities planned for that day included a Western sports act with knives and cracking whips by the Oklahoma Kids, as well as a rock-and-roll street dance.

As I noted back on this post (which highlighted the inaugural celebration), the last Frontier Week was celebrated in 1966. It's too bad, because it looked like a fun concept. 

Elsewhere on that same Journal page: an ad for the Al G. Kelly and Miller Bros. Circus (whose appearance was spotlighted on this blog post); the Radio Program listings for W-WIZ 1380 KC (the same radio frequency for today's WDLW Kool Kat station); a small ad for A&W Root Beer on W. Erie in Lorain; and the usual movie ads.

The movie listings seem to be in the summer doldrums, with such ho-hum fare as Walt Disney's Moon Pilot. But at least there was the classic musical Bye Bye Birdie. (Did you know that the name of the Conrad Birdie character in that movie was based on music legend Conway Twitty, who at that time was a rock and roll artist?)

Here's the trailer. It's funny seeing Ann-Margaret so young and cute.

I had forgotten that the wonderful and very hummable tune, "Put on a Happy Face," came from that movie. Hey, I like Janet Leigh as a brunette!

It's so nice that the great Dick Van Dyke is still alive and doing well at 97 years old. Ann-Margaret is still around as well, so there are two good reasons to put on a happy face.

One interesting thing about the movie Bye Bye Birdie is that apparently there was a Hanna-Barbara connection somewhere in the making of it; I think it's because Columbia Pictures sponsored their cartoon studio in its early days. Anyway, in the scene where young Ann-Margaret is in her bedroom making her bed, you can see plastic figures of Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble in the background! There's also a stuffed Cindy Bear (Yogi Bear's girlfriend).

We had those same Fred and Barney figures when I was a kid! (Remember, we were big Flintstones fans.) They were about a foot tall and hollow. I remember looking in the hole in the back of them and studying the inside of each of them. It was like looking inside a hollow tree.

We had Betty Rubble too, because I remember that she was leaning on a tree stump or something. But I'm not sure if I noticed at the age of 3 or 4 just how off-model they all were!

Speaking of Betty Rubble, she was probably the reason I've always favored brunettes.

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There's also a neat little triple feature at the Lorain Drive-in. All three movies have a 'bride' theme: Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954), Brides of Dracula and The 30 Foot Bride of Candy Rock (1959). That last movie is an odd one, a solo effort by comedian Lou Costello without his longtime partner Bud Abbott. Sadly, Costello passed away shortly after finishing the movie.