Lorain Drive-in's New Concession Stand Opens – April 1958

A lot of the fun of going to a drive-in movie is hitting the concession stand to get some goodies. I'm partial to Sno-Caps, in addition to a glutton-size tub of buttered popcorn (hopefully with free refills).

Sixty-five years ago, the Lorain Drive-in was announcing the Grand Opening of its brand new cafeteria-style concession stand. Above is the full-page ad which ran in the Journal back on April 11, 1958.

According to the article below, which ran in the paper on April 10, 1958, the old concession stand had been destroyed in a fire on November 26, 1957. The new one was capable of handling 1,000 people in 20 minutes – which is pretty good, if you've ever been in a line during intermission.

The ad and the article reveal the names of the key people behind the theater operation: theater manager Richard Kline; concession manager Mary "Dolly" Henry; cashier Jesse Jeffrey; chief projectionist Henry Hoffner; Fieldman Jim Jeffrey; and field manager "AP" Williams.

Besides the movies (Island in the Sun, and The Lonely Man), there were some special incentives to attend the drive-in that night: 100 free pizzas; free flowers for the first 200 ladies; free popcorn and a free gift "for the kiddies"; a $10 cash prize "for the car with the most occupants"; a free treat "for doggie"; and Tricky Harry from WEWS TV "in person for the kids."

Tricky Harry?

Regular readers of this blog know that they're talking about Harry Albacker, who enjoyed a fine career as a professional magician and called Lorain home for a time. (Harry's been featured on this blog a few times.

Anyway, the concession building that was new in 1958 is still out there on the former Lorain Drive-in property. Today, it is the office for Hold-it Self Storage. Click here to visit its website, which has a special 'Drive In Nostalgia' page. (I have a storage unit there; the staff is terrific and the price is more than reasonable.)

Finally, here's a pair of aerial views where you can see the building. The vintage view is courtesy of the Lorain Historical Society; the lower one is from Google Maps.

What was playing at the Lorain Drive-In 50 Years Ago Today?

Fifty years ago today on September 3, 1971, two aging entertainment giants were sharing the bill at the Lorain Drive-In Theater. Even though both performers probably did their best work in the 1950s, they were still hanging on and hugely popular with their fans.

I’m talking about the Duke – John Wayne – and the King – Elvis Presley.

Together, they made one heck of a double bill at the Lorain Drive-In. First up was John Wayne and Richard Boone in Big Jake (1971), followed by the Elvis Presley documentary That’s the Way It Is (1970) at 10:35 p.m. 

 Here’s a color version of the Big Jake movie poster.

In the movie, “Big Jake" McCandles (John Wayne) is enlisted by his estranged wife (played by still-beautiful Maureen O’Hara) to rescue his kidnapped grandson “Little Jake” from some outlaws holding him for ransom. Little Jake is played by John Wayne’s youngest son, Ethan Wayne. Richard Boone (TV’s Paladin of Have Gun Will Travel) plays the head of the outlaw gang.

Big Jake heads out to save his grandson accompanied by his dog (named “Dog”), his trusty Apache Indian companion Sam Sharpnose (played by Bruce Cabot), and his two adult sons (one of which is played by one of John Wayne’s other sons, Patrick Wayne).

Most of what little humor there is in the movie comes from the abrasive relationship between Big Jake and his resentful adult sons, one of whom sarcastically calls him, “Daddy.” Big Jake spends some time punching both of them.

Although the movie was a big hit in 1971, Big Jake is not one of my favorite John Wayne movies. Why? Because of violence and disturbing characterizations. 

I remember watching it at Amherst Theater with my family, and being somewhat upset seeing Dog and Sam Sharpnose both get brutally killed by a big, bearded galoot with a machete. Both victims seem to be forgotten at the movie’s inevitable ‘happy ending’ when Little Jake is rescued.

Two longtime members of John Wayne’s movie ensemble are also in Big Jake and don’t fare much better. John Agar – so good in Fort Apache and She Wore a Yellow Ribbon – has about two minutes of screen time before he is shot and killed in one of the opening scenes. And Harry Carey Jr., who appeared as a good guy in some of John Wayne’s best movies (The Searchers, Red River, 3 Godfathers, Rio Grande, etc.) plays one of the scumbag kidnappers.

The movie review that appeared in the Journal on September 3, 1971 wasn’t exactly glowing.

Want to judge for yourself? Big Jake is on tonight on GRIT TV at 8:00 p.m. So get some popcorn ready!

Lorain Journal Movie Ads – May 1956

Here’s yet another vintage newspaper page, this time from the May 4, 1956 edition of the Lorain Journal. No front page this time; it’s the page with all the movie listings and restaurant ads, and there’s plenty of fun stuff to look at for longtime Lorainites.

Drive-ins were big back then, and all of the local ones were showing historical action movies.

At the Carlisle Drive-in there was John Wayne and Lauren Bacall in Blood Alley (1955). The second half of the double feature was Fort Yuma (1955)  with Peter Graves.

At the Lorain Drive-in, Burt Lancaster was starting in The Kentuckian (1955), with Jack Webb in Pete Kelly’s Blues as the second feature.

And over at the Tower Drive-in on Lake Avenue, The Warriors (1955) a late entry with Errol Flynn, was finishing its run.

Who would have guessed that in 2020, the one local drive-in still around – Aut-o-Rama – would be enjoying renewed popularity, thanks to the coronavirus and the necessities of social distancing? (I wrote about my trip to Aut-o-Rama back here.)

Courtesy Aut-o-Rama website.
Hey, that’s a commercial for Pic on the screen!

Anyway, back to the ads.

The one big ad that stands out on the page is for a movie I’ve never heard of: On The Threshold of Space starring Guy Madison, Wild Bill Hickok himself. It was showing at the Tivoli in Downtown Lorain.

There’s lots of other stars represented on the page, including Audie Murphy in World in My Corner (1956) at the Ohio Theater, and good ol’ Randolph Scott in Thunder Over the Plains (1953) about to open at the Palace as part of a children’s matinee. (I’ve seen so many Randolph Scott westerns on GRIT that he’s become somewhat of a favorite.)

I know I’ve been doing this blog for a long time when I see that I’ve written about most of the restaurants and businesses on this Journal page, including the Pueblo, the Showboat, Ben Hart’s, Evan’s Grill, Crystal Beach Ballroom and 4-Winds Drive-in.

What was playing at the Lorain Drive-in on June 18, 1969?

What was playing at the Lorain Drive-in Theatre on Route 6 on this day, 50 years ago? Why, it was a double feature of Mad Doctor of Blood Island, (in "blood dripping color”) and Blood Demon (which was only in “blood curdling color").

Here’s the over-the-top trailer. Looks like a lot of fun!

Although the human/plant mutants drip green blood in the movie, the stuff splattered all over the monster in the movie poster below looks pretty red to me.

Anyway, I wonder what the “mystic potion” was that was given to all of the Lorain Drive-in patrons? 

By the way, Angelique Pettyjohn (the female lead in Mad Doctor of Blood Island) had an interesting movie and TV career, including appearances on Star Trek and Get Smart (as agent Charlie Watkins).

What was playing at the Drive-ins on June 30, 1956?

Well, let's take a look – shall we?

At the Tower Drive-in on Lake Avenue– the Best Show Bargain in Town – there were three big pictures in the line-up.

Perennial Lorain favorites the Bowery Boys were starring in Jail Busters (1955). In this one, Slip (Leo Gorcey), Satch (Huntz Hall) and the rest of the Boys (in this case, that means Butch) get themselves arrested and sent to prison as part of some undercover work for a newspaper story on prison corruption. Wacky hijinks ensue when they get double-crossed, and as a result become real convicts temporarily.

The second feature was Esther Williams in Easy to Love (1953), filmed at Cypress Gardens. Esther Williams just passed away last year.

The third movie in the triple feature was an oater called The Silver Star (1955), which starred Edgar Buchanan (Uncle Joe from Petticoat Junction) and Lon Chaney Jr. Jimmy Wakely sang the movie's theme song.

Courtesy www.movieposter.com

Over at the Lorain Drive-in on Lake Road, Commanche! (1956) with Dana Andrews was just wrapping up. The film also introduced Linda Cristal.

Also on the bill that night Gentlemen Marry Brunettes (1955), starring Jane Russell and Jeanne Crain. The film was a sequel of sorts to Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (which also starred Jane Russell). Gentlemen Marry Brunettes also featured Alan Young (Wilbur on Mr. Ed)  – who, happily, is still with us.

The third feature that night was another Bowery Boys classic, Master Minds (1949). It was one of their best. In this one, Sach has the ability to predict the future, which attracts the attention of a mad scientist. The mad scientist actually succeeds in temporarily swapping Sach's brain with that of a vicious hairy monster!

The attractions for Sunday night sounded pretty good too.

First up was a Cartoon Carnival consisting of 6 color cartoons. That drawing of Donald Duck in the ad, though, is one of the worst I've ever seen, with his gargantuan duck head and tiny hands. Definitely not the work of Carl Barks!

The first feature for Sunday night was the creepy science fiction B-movie World Without End (1956) which takes place in the futuristic year of 2508. It features Rod Taylor and a race of violent (and hairy) one-eyed mutants, not to mention some space-babes.

Lastly was – what else? – another Bowery Boys hit: Dig that Uranium (1956)! 

Here's a preview clip (sorry, no trailer available for this one).

Dig that Uranium was actually quite topical, with the Bowery Boys trying to strike it rich by prospecting for uranium. (It was a very lucrative enterprise back in the 1950s; click here to find out more.)

Hey, I almost forgot – what about the Carlisle Drive-in? Well, here's its lineup for June 30, 1956: The Racers (1955), Johnny Guitar (1954), and Salome Where She Danced (1945).

Well, whaddaya know, the Bowery Boys were coming there soon! I told you they were pretty popular in Lorain.

Lorain Drive-in Reopens March 1963

Although you wouldn't normally think of going to a drive-in movie in late March, the Lorain Drive-in reopened for the 1963 season with a Dracula triple-feature as advertised in this ad, which ran in the Lorain Journal on Saturday, March 23 – 50 years ago this week.

As you can see, it's not your father's Dracula – Bela Lugosi – featured in these late 1950s/early 60s horror movies. In fact, despite the movie titles, Dracula's not even in two of the three movies!

The Drac 3-pack consisted of Blood of Dracula (1957), Brides of Dracula (1960) and Horror of Dracula (1958).

Blood of Dracula features a woman who turns into a vampire under hypnosis as the villain. She also sprouts some major league eyebrows along with her fangs.

Here's the trailer for it (below).

Brides of Dracula, a British Hammer Film, doesn't have Dracula in it either. It stars Peter Cushing as Dr. Van Helsing and Yvonne Monlaur as a schoolteacher terrorized by a vampire named Baron Meinster. (It's actually the sequel to the third movie, Horror of Dracula.)

Here's the trailer for Brides of Dracula (below).

The third feature – Horror of Dracula (titled just Dracula in England) features Christopher Lee as Count Dracula and Peter Cushing as Van Helsing. The film was so popular that a sequel – Brides of Dracula, as mentioned above – was produced.

Here's the trailer for Horror of Dracula!

At least now you have a pretty good idea of what the people shivering in their cars at the Lorain Drive-in fifty years ago were, uh, enjoying on the big screen.

Hey, I almost forgot my fave-o-rite drive-in movie intermission ad (below). They were still showing it at the Aut-O-Rama out in North Ridgeville the last few years.

Lorain Drive-in Aerial View, Then & Now

Here's a photo scanned from my copy of the Black River Historical Society's Images of America book on Lorain. It's a nice photo of the Lorain Drive-in from 1955. (Click on it for a closer look.) As you can see, the area was still mainly farmland, at least on the south side of US 6.

And here's a Google Earth screen shot of the Hold It Self Storage property today along with the real estate shown in the 1955 photo (roughly).

It's interesting just how much development has sprung up in the last fifty-five years. The lake side hasn't changed too much in that area, but the south side has exploded with apartment complexes, such as the West Lake Apartments (immediately east of the drive-in in the photo) and residences.

Lorain Drive-in Ad 1957

I just can't seem to finish up with this topic – I keep finding more stuff that I want to put up here!

Here's a newspaper ad for the Lorain Drive-in that ran on August 3, 1957. I like it because of the classic ad art. The Lorain Drive-in logo used here is nice in its simplicity, and I really like the old style movie ads, with the bold typography and good use of figure-ground relationship.

It's quite a smorgasbord of movies making up the triple feature: Walt Disney's The Great Locomotive Chase, The Doolins of Oklahoma and Boy on a Dolphin. So you have a western, a civil war story and Sophia Loren – something for everybody!

The next pair of movies are strange bedfellows: the epic Giant, with Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson and James Dean, and Spook Chasers, with the Bowery Boys (a favorite of mine). I have to chuckle at the Spook Chasers ad, because by that time, Leo Gorcey had left the movie series, leaving Huntz Hall to carry on without him for a few more movies.

Believe it or not, Boy on a Dolphin and Spook Chasers were the only current movies. The others were either a year old or older (the Doolins being the oldest – from 1949.)

Lorain Drive-in Pizza

Here's a newspaper ad for the Lorain Drive-in from June 15, 1960. It's interesting because it doesn't list the names of the movies being shown, as it is a special Appreciation Night promotion. It also advertises that every 15th car gets a free pizza.

That got me thinking about transplanted Lorainite Alan Hopewell's blog, which is called Pointing the Cannon, and his story about the first time he ever had pizza – which according to his story was at the Lorain Drive-in. Want to read the story? Then head over to his blog and enjoy this story and many more thoughtful essays about growing up in Lorain.

Lorain Drive-in Site Today

As one of my regular readers pointed out in a posted comment, the Lorain Drive-in property has been the home of Hold It Self Storage since 1990. (Click on the photo at left for a larger view from US 6.) The old drive-in marquee is still there, retrofitted as the company sign, and that's just a hint that the owners of the company realize that the site of their company is something special. But more on that in a minute.

Former drive-in locations, usually surrounded by fences with only one way in and out, must make good storage facilities, because the site of another Lorain County drive-in, the Tower Drive-in over at 6187 Lake Avenue, was also converted into one. Today the Tower Drive-in is now R & M Tower Mini Storage.

But let's get back to Hold It Self Storage. The company website is unique in that it has a nice section entitled Drive in Nostalgia which reveals that the drive-in's concession stand, projection booth, and entrance/exit booth are still part of the property.

Here's a photo of the entrance/exit booth as it looks now. (Give it a click!)

I'm going to have to contact the owners about that sign; if they ever decide to repaint it, they need to get the date right on it! Readers of this blog (you lucky devils) know that it should read 1946 instead of 1956!

Anyway, it's nice that Hold It has decided to maintain a bit of Lorain history and help keep the memories of the Lorain Drive-in 'alive'.

Lorain Drive-in Closing Day, 1986

My last few posts were about opening weekends of the Lorain Drive-in through the years. This one's about the closing weekend.

(Before I could post anything, though, I had to figure out exactly when it did close. There's not exactly a lot of sources for things like this. Even my morgue of newspaper clippings through the years only indicated it was either 1986 or 1987. So I headed back to the microfilm reader at the library and slowly began take note of when the theater was in the theater listings and when it wasn't. One stiff neck later, I had my answer!)

I can now safely say that the Lorain Drive-in's final weekend was September 5, 6 and 7, 1986. Here is the ad that ran in the Journal's entertainment tabloid on Friday, Sept. 5

Actually the double feature for Screen 1 looked like a pretty good one: Armed & Dangerous with John Candy and Eugene Levy, and Back to School with Rodney Dangerfield. I'm not so sure about Screen 2's double feature of No Retreat, No Surrender with Jean-Claude Van Damme and Runaway Train with Jon Voight.

I looked at the Journals from before and after the drive-in's closing to see if there was any sort of article about it. As far as I could see, there wasn't. Which was too bad.

Strangely enough, the Lorain Drive-in did show up the 1987 city directory, seemingly just to make it tougher for me in my research. But the show was definitely over by then. My stiff neck confirms it.

Lorain Drive-in Opening Day, 1948

Here's an ad for the 1948 opening weekend of the Lorain Drive-in. It ran in the newspaper on April 16. (Sorry for the rather crummy quality of the ad, which is from the library's microfilm.) At least the 1948 opener was probably a little bit warmer than it was on the 1955 opening weekend, which I told you about here.

I'm fairly impressed with the marketing that the Lorain Drive-in employed to generate interest two years after it opened. The fireworks are a great idea.

It's easy to forget that drive-ins didn't always show monster flicks and teenage epics as popular culture and nostalgia seem to imply; that came later. In the early days, they showed a lot of B-movies. In this case, the drive-in's feature was The Bachelor's Daughters, a movie that was already 2 years old!)

Lorain Drive-in Opening Day, 1946

As I wrap up this series on local (and regional) drive-in theaters, I thought I would do a little more on the Lorain Drive-in.

Last night at the library, I decided to try and find out the exact date when it actually opened. I was pretty sure it opened in 1946, so I popped in a microfilm reel from June, reasoning that it probably opened after school was out.

Lo and behold, I had only scrolled a little bit through the reel when I hit pay-dirt and found this ad on the movie listings page of June 19, 1946:

This kind of thing makes you happy when you don't feel like sitting and staring like a zombie at microfilm for hours! It was only a few days later when this article appeared on Friday, June 28.

The clipping's kind of nice in that it provides a little information as to who was behind Lorain's 'first' (and only) drive-in theater, namely Wilbur F. Ptak.

And so, on Saturday, June 29, this huge ad appeared in the paper, promoting the grand opening of the Lorain Drive-in Theater with a double feature of Guest Wife (with Claudette Colbert and Don Ameche) and A Thousand and One Nights (with Evelyn Keyes and Phil Silvers). Click on the ad so you can read it!

I like the ad a lot, because it does a great job of introducing what was probably a foreign concept to Lorainites back then. 

1955 Lorain Drive-in Ad

I'm planning on hitting the Aut-O-Rama Drive-in soon, so this ad caught my attention.

It's a newspaper ad for the old Lorain Drive-in on US 6 that ran on Thursday, March 24, 1955 for the upcoming opening weekend for the season. (Click on it for a larger view.) Considering it was only the end of March, I'll bet it was a wee bit chilly at the Drive-in that weekend!

Looks like it was a pretty good double feature, though. If you're a Leo Gorcey and Huntz Hall fan (like I am), then you might enjoy seeing the trailer for Jungle Gents! Here it is – and see you at the drive-in soon!