Of course, the movie that leaps out at you is No Greater Sin (1941), showing at the Tower Drive-In on Lake Avenue. While the ad layout reminds me of one of those Dr. Silkini horror shows, the movie was apparently a drama about the dangers of venereal disease – hardly the kind of jolly drive-in movie fare that I'd like to see.
Another disappointment on the movie page: no Bowery Boys! Instead, we get Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis in You're Never Too Young.
I was born too late to see Martin & Lewis as a team, but I remember that Jerry Lewis epitomized comedy to many of us growing up in the 1960s. But one of the few Jerry Lewis flicks I remember seeing at the movies was The Nutty Professor (at the Lorain Drive-in).
There's not too many Westerns on the page. One good one is James Stewart in Bend of the River at the Grove Theater.
It's one of Stewart's collaborations with director Anthony Mann, so you know it's good. But poor Arthur Kennedy once again has to play a wretched, weaselly jerk – his trademark role. (Watch for a young Harry Morgan – Dragnet's Officer Bill Gannon – in the trailer, playing a roughneck, about 56 seconds in.
Another good Western playing on the screen at that time was Randolph Scott in Ten Wanted Men.
I've come to appreciate Randolph Scott as a Western star, since his movies seem to play all the time on GRIT and OUTLAW. He's kind of funny in that his cowboy hat always has that little chin strap. But he's in one of my favorite movies, Ride the High Country with Joel McCrea.
Elsewhere on that Journal page, we get ads for Musicarnival, Tedders Grill, Ben Hart's Show Bar and the Fifth Annual Lorain Home and Better Living Show at the Lorain Arena.
We also get a little cheesecake photo. I remember a Mad Magazine reprint paperback from the 1950s, in which they did a parody of a typical newspaper. Their parody page included a photo of a gal in a swimsuit sitting by a dock (very much like the one shown here), with the photo caption acknowledging that she really wasn't doing anything newsworthy but the newspaper included it anyway.
"Gordon Hale" (or someone using that name) was showing these Thirties "hygiene films" in theaters and drive -ins all across the country, well into the Seventies. For clarification, Google a fellow named Kroger Babb.
ReplyDeleteI'm a great admirer of Dino, but no power on earth could get me to watch a film with Jerry Lewis in a shorty sailor suit.
ReplyDeleteDon't forget "Apache" with Burt Lancaster was playing at the Carlisle Drive In.Apache also featured Charles Bronson in one of his early roles before he changed his name because of the McCarthy scare.
ReplyDeleteGood point! Plus "Apache" had one of my favorites in it: Jean Peters!
DeleteWas never a big Lewis *or* Martin fan. Though Dino's variety show was tolerable because it was only an hour long. Looking back at it on youtube, it has its charm, mostly based on Dean being lost most of the time because he never rehearsed.
ReplyDeleteAs an aside, I knew an old guy, who literally "wrote the book" for banks on autoleasing, who repossessed one of Dean's cars for non-payment. He said "three mafia guys" showed up to pay the outstanding amount and retrieve the car from impound.
Seeing babies being born at the drive-in. Likely cut down on in-car canoodling.