Leo Gorcey and Huntz Hall were starring in "Crashing Las Vegas" at the Ohio
Seventy years ago today – April 14, 1956 – was a Saturday. And since Lorain was a real Saturday night town back then, no doubt many of the residents were thinking about going out to see a movie. As usual, there were a lot of choices, and judging by the incredible selection on the Lorain Journal entertainment page below, there was something for everyone. Perhaps you'll recognize one of your favorite movies or stars.
The one that leaps out at me of course is Crashing Las Vegas – the last Bowery Boys movie featuring Leo Gorcey as Slip Mahoney, the leader of the gang. Gorcey would retire from the movies after this, as he was struggling with personal issues and still mourning the untimely death of his father (who had starred in the Bowery Boys films as Louie, the proprietor of the ice cream shop where they hang out).
I have this film on DVD, and it's a funny finale for Gorcey. It's somewhat appropriate that Leo Gorcey is in the back seat of the car driven by Huntz Hall in the movie poster. With Gorcey's exit, Hall became the star of the series, which would limp along for another six films with Stanley "Duke" Clements as the leader of the gang.
The big film of the Journal page is probably Pic-a-NicPicnic, starring William Holden and Kim Novak and showing at the Tivoli. I've seen it a couple times and enjoyed it. It's a nice look at how various lives in a small town are disrupted by the arrival of, well, a handsome bum played by William Holden.
Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis were starring in Artists and Models, which was about to begin a run at Tower Drive-in on Lake Avenue. Martin and Lewis would break up only a couple of months later.
I looked for a big Western on the page, and one of the few that I've seen is Destry (1955) with Audie Murphy, showing at Lorain Drive-in. It's a pretty good movie, a remake of Destry Rides Again with James Stewart. I liked Audie's version better.
Perhaps the most interesting thing on the page is not a movie; it's the Hot From Harlem Revue, featuring "Kings & Queens of Swing • Boogie • Bebop and Jazz" live on stage at the Palace.
Here's a great poster from a similar appearance in Oakville, Ontario that same year, providing a clearer look at the night's entertainment. It looks like it was quite a production, with exotic costumed dancers.
Many now-classic movies were showing on area drive-in movie screens back on October 26, 1955 – 70 years ago this week, including a double feature of From Here to Eternity and On the Waterfront at the Carlisle Drive-in Theatre. (I've seen From Here to Eternity once and thought it was pretty intense.)
There was also East of Eden showing at the Lorain Drive-in (although I would have been more interested in the other film on the bill, Tall Man Riding featuring Randolph Scott and Dorothy Malone. It's a great flick that shows up on GRIT TV and the OUTLAW channel a lot. Scott picked his movie roles carefully and has a well-defined screen image not unlike John Wayne.
The big film on the page for me is To Hell and Back, the true life story of Audie Murphy, the most decorated American combat soldier of World War II.
As a result of his war experience, Audie was very convincing in all of his movie roles in which he had to project confidence and fearlessness. He made some great Westerns, and GRIT TV seems to regularly schedule Audie Murphy marathons.
And as expected, for the lowbrow crowd (people like me) there was a Bowery Boys movie playing: Jail Busters, at the Ohio.
In addition to the wide variety of movies available, there was an incredible amount of choices locally when it came to live entertainment. June Anthony and Babe Sutherland's Musicales were about to open at Ben Hart's Show Bar; The Hoosier Wranglers were appearing nightly at El Pueblo; Los Chicanos with Their South American Revue were featured at the Showboat Restaurant and Lounge on Broadway; and the Aristocrats were appeared weekly at the Castle-On-The-Lake.
Sixty years ago, there was a lot of spying going on when it came to area movie screens. One of the very best in the James Bond series – Goldfinger – was playing at both the Palace in Lorain and the Avon Lake Theater, thus dominating the Journal movie page above from January 13, 1965. (Remember when the release of a new James Bond film was a major event? And when it eventually was shown on TV, it was something you stayed up all the way to 11 o'clock to see.)
Meanwhile, the "Carry On" gang had their spoof of the James Bond films: Carry On Spying, which was playing at the Ohio Theatre. (I'm always a little surprised to see the 'Carry On' films playing in Lorain.
Meanwhile, Cary Grant was starring in his next-to-last film, the classic Father Goose, showing at the Tivoli.
Elsewhere on the page: a group calling themselves The Ink Spots was performing at Benny's on West Erie Ave., but it wasn't the original group (which disbanded in the 1950s) and most likely had no original members at all; there were still some Hoop Restaurants that hadn't been converted to Manners Restaurants; and a nice story about three generations of an Avon Lake family all bowling on the same Ladies' League at Aquamarine Lanes.
There's plenty of things of interest on this movie page from the Lorain Journal of April 3, 1954 – seventy years ago today.
Reaffirming my observation that Lorain moviegoers loved the Bowery Boys, there's two of their movies on the big screen : Paris Playboys (1954) at the Ohio, and Loose in London (1953) at the Tower Drive-in.
I've mentioned before how our first exposure to the Bowery Boys movies was on Sunday mornings in the mid-1970s on Channel 43 (billed as the Dead End Kids). Soon my brothers and I were walking around with baseball caps with the brim turned up, trying to work up a good vocal imitation of Huntz Hall's "Sach" character. "Hey Chief!"
What really leaps out at me on the page is the article and photo of Judy Holliday, as well as the ad for her movie It Should Happen to You! at the Tivoli. She was such a pretty and appealing actress, with a natural flare for comedy and an irresistible vulnerability. It's so sad that she had such a short career, passing away in 1965.
It's odd to see future Rat Pack member Peter Lawford as the male lead in It Should Happen to You! The movie also is the first for actor Jack Lemmon.
Surprisingly, there aren't too many Westerns playing. There's Gun Fury with Rock Hudson and Donna Reed at the Avon Lake Theater.
Conquest of Cochise was at the Tower Drive-in, and The Great Sioux Uprising with Jeff Chandler (who's always good) at the Grove. GRIT-TV does a Jeff Chandler marathon once in a while.
Grandma Brady's favorite actor, Robert Taylor, was in Above and Beyond, also at the Tower Drive-in.
Elsewhere on the same page are ads for Castle-on-the-Lake, Vians, and Avon Isle Park.
We'll close out the week (and September as well) with a look at what was playing on local movie screens seventy years ago this month. Above is the movie page from the September 30, 1953 Lorain Journal.
Opening the next day at the Ohio Theatre were perennial Lorain favorites Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall and the Bowery Boys in Loose In London.
In this installment of the popular movie comedy series, the gang travels to London so that Sach (Huntz Hall) can claim his inheritance.
(I remember the first time I saw the Bowery Boys was in the early 1970s, when Channel 43 showed the old comedies on Sunday mornings, billing them as the Dead End Kids. My brothers and I were soon imitating Huntz Hall, wearing our baseball caps with the brim turned up as we shouted, "Hey, Chief!")
For theater goers who preferred more mature movie fare, there was Gentlemen Prefer Blondes at the Tivoli with Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell. (Contrary to the movie title, and I'm probably in the minority, but I prefer Jane Russell to Marilyn, especially since Miss Russell made a lot of appearances in Westerns.)
It's interesting that Howard Hawks was the movie's director. He was also the director of some of John Wayne's best films, including Red River, Rio Bravo and El Dorado, as well as Hatari and Rio Lobo.
Elsewhere on the movie page, we had Audie Murphy (another GRIT TV favorite of mine) in The Duel at Silver Creek (1952) playing at the Lorain Drive-in. It was a pretty good Don Siegel-directed movie – with Lee Marvin in it too! (BTW, during her last few years living at home, Mom was a real Audie Murphy fan too, watching all of his movies on GRIT.)
But what about the Duke?
Contrary to his normal Western roles, at that time John Wayne was starring as The Quiet Man at the Dreamland. It's one of my favorite John Wayne movies, and I watch it on DVD (or TV if it's on) every St. Patrick's Day like a true Irishman.
We'll kick off August with a look back at what was playing at local theaters fifty years ago today on August 1, 1973. Above is the page from the Journal from that day.
Regular readers of this blog know by now that this feature provides a shameless reason for me to write about John Wayne, and – sure enough – the Duke was starring in Cahill, United States Marshall at the Palace Theatre.
Here's a lobby card for your perusal, Pilgrim.
Although I generally like all John Wayne movies, this one's not on my list of favorites. Its plot (Cahill's sons feel neglected by their pa and end up becoming involved in a bank robbery) seems to have been conceived to interest younger viewers. Gary Grimes, fresh from his appearance in Summer of '42 is one of the Cahill boys.
Gravel-voiced Neville Brand plays an old Indian buddy of Cahill. That's him on the left in the photo below.
The Journal wasn't crazy about the movie either. Here's the review from the August 3, 1973 edition of the paper.
Although the Bradys didn't see Cahill, United States Marshall at the Palace, we did see it at Amherst Theatre (where else?). And amazingly,itwas the last film of the Duke that I remember seeing first run in a movie theater. I missed The Train Robbers, both of his non-Westerns (McQ and Brannigan), as well as his last movies, Rooster Cogburn and The Shootist – all of which I saw on TV.
In fact, with the exception of The Sound of Music, which my family saw in Cleveland when it first came out in its 'road show' version, I don't think I've seen any of the other movies shown on the page. We had the Sound of Music record, which Mom played occasionally on the stereo that was in the living room (which we never used and generally stayed out of). That record was played so often that I can 'play' much of it in my head to this day.
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Of particular interest to me on the page, however, is the ad for the Lorain County Fair appearance of Danny Davis and the Nashville Brass. Since the Bradys loved the sound of trumpets and brass (we had all the Herb Albert albums), Mom and Dad took us to the fair to catch the show. I'll be doing several Lorain County Fair posts when it gets closer to Fair Week.
Click here to learn more about Danny Davis and his band.
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.
Looking at the Journal's movie page from June 1, 1963 makes me feel a little wistful.
Not just because you can't see a first run movie in Lorain, Avon Lake, or Vermilion these days (although that's bad enough). It's because Hollywood no longer has the kind of producers and directors who would envision a movie; get the financing or backing of a studio (or produce it on their own) so they could make it; assemble a group of talented actors and actresses, including stars and a supporting cast, to act in it; hire a cinematographer to photograph it; find a composer to write a memorable musical score for it; and ultimately create cinematic magic.
Nowadays, a movie doesn't get greenlighted unless it can predictably be a monster hit. Which is why we see mostly superhero movies (and their endless sequels) consisting almost entirely of CGI.
Anyway, sixty years ago this month, there was an incredible selection of movies playing in the area. The one that leaps out at me on the page is the area showing of the first James Bond film, Dr. No, at the Palace in Lorain. The film had only been released in the United States in early May 1963. I like the graphic design and use of color on the top poster.
For John Wayne fans, two of his latest – The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and Hatari were still making the rounds at the drive-ins as a double feature. Both Tower Drive-in and the Lorain Drive-in invited their patrons to saddle up with the Duke.
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is a great film (and Lee Marvin is terrific in it), but it isn't one of my favorite John Wayne films. That's because I'm not too crazy about the wimpy James Stewart character, who steals the Duke's girl and becomes a pompous windbag by the end of the film. Meanwhile, Wayne ends up in a pine box.
The Lorain Drive-in also had a Jerry Lewis double feature comprising The Sad Sack and The Delicate Delinquent, as well as a Bob Hope oldie from 1950, Fancy Pants. It's kind of odd seeing Old Ski Nose and Lucille Ball on the big screen in a movie that was already thirteen years old.
For horror movie fans (like Alan), at the Ohio Theater there was The Day of the Triffids, about man-eating plants from outer space. Although the Journal gave it a good review, it looks rather nauseating to me. And I keep thinking of cute, lovable tribbles instead of disgusting triffids.
There were plenty of other now well-known films being shown locally, including the original West Side Story at Avon Lake Theater. But it just doesn't seem right that there wasn't a feature-length Three Stooges epic in local distribution at that particular time.
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