On Area Movie Screens – July 28, 1954

Here's a snapshot of seventy years ago this week of what was going on in Lorain County, including the movies, the night spots and various happenings, with a few generic ads thrown in. Above is the page from the Lorain Journal of July 28, 1954 depicting these items.

Dominating the page is the huge ad for Gulf gasoline and its Summer Formula No-Nox. 

It's funny thinking how on just about every major corner in Lorain County there used to be a national brand service station, including Sunoco, Shell, Sohio, Gulf, Sinclair, etc. Back then, people really cared about what they put in their gas tanks. Now, many of the major brands have abandoned the smaller markets. We still have a fair number of the major brands in the Lorain area, but we also have a lot of the lesser known goofy ones (such as Raceway). 

But are there still Gulf stations around here? Using the online station locator, I discovered there's only one station within a fifty mile radius of Vermilion – on State Road in Cleveland.

Elsewhere in the page, we have a little slice of cheesecake in the form of the ad for the Miss Lorain County pageant, held at Lorain County El Rey Grotto park on State Route 568. That park sure hosted a lot of social events and picnics over the years. 

Remember the huge sign on the fence facing the highway? It looked like this (below).

I kind of miss seeing that sign when I drive by there. Today the former El Rey Grotto park is home to Vaughn's Auto Repair and 24 Hour Towing.

At the Showboat in Downtown Lorain, famous Mercury recording stars The Crew Cuts were appearing, "direct from Cleveland's Skyway Lounge."

Here they are performing their big hit, "Sh-Boom." I had no idea they were a Canadian group.

According to this Wiki entry, the Crew Cuts' version of Sh-Boom was No. 1 on the Billboard charts for nine weeks during August and September 1954. 

On movie screens, there was Robert Mitchum and Marilyn Monroe in River of No Return at the Tivoli. At the Palace was the science fiction thriller Them! 

(That's one movie that doesn't interest me; I've have giant ants in my kitchen since the spring, and no amount of spraying or traps seem to deter them. They even shrug off my apparently anemic blows.)

At the air conditioned Dreamland Theatre, MGM's Executive Suite was the main feature.

Of course, it pales in comparison to – what else? – Leo Gorcey and Huntz Hall and the rest of the Bowery Boys in Paris Playboys at the Grove.

Yup, Lorain sure loved dem Bowery Boys.