Christmastime at the movie houses, part 2

A selection of movies playing in Columbus during Christmas week 60 years ago (1959).

The Ohio Theater downtown was showing the animated Mr. Magoo movie 1001 Arabian Nights and a circus drama, The Flying Fontaines, which seems to have dropped out of sight.

Two ads for Disney's Third Man on the Mountain--one beefcakier than the other. James MacArthur tries to conquer a dangerous Swiss mountain, The Citadel. It's Disney adventure but it's got some good effects.

Another downtown house had a double bill of the family-friendly Journey to the Center of the Earth and the somewhat less wholesome war thriller Blood and Steel.

Porgy and Bess, playing a downtown roadshow engagement in Columbus on Christmas day. Supposedly this is a very good film, but legal problems have kept it mostly unseen for many years.


Below, movies that were playing 50 years ago (1969):

Two of the movies that were trying to keep the big movie musicals alive. Hello, Dolly was miscast and too lumbering, but even though it lost money, it did play for several weeks in Columbus. The musical version of Goodbye Mr. Chips lost even more money that Dolly. I can't quite bring myself to watch a musical with Peter O'Toole after the debacle of Man of La Mancha.

James Bond at Christmas! But not Sean Connery. George Lazenby was a one-and-done Bond, but both he and the movie are better than their reputations.

An art house Christmas consisted of 2 second-run cult films, Goodbye Columbus (based on Philip Roth) and Barbarella (with an almost nude Jane Fonda). Neither movie is a masterpiece, but it's interesting counter-programming during the holidays.

The Disney reissue that season was 101 Dalmatians from 1961. This was one of the first movies I saw in a theater (I would have been 5 in 1961) and I loved it, but I don't know how I'd feel about it now.

Christmastime at the movie houses, part 1

I had planned to spend much of December posting movie ads from various Christmas weeks between the 40s and the 70s but life got in the way. Not even anything sad or happy or weird, just everyday living around the holidays. So I'll post a handful over the next few days.

Christmas of 1943 saw the fabulous Technicolor musical The Gang's All Here playing in New York City. The movie is really nothing special in terms or story or acting, but the production numbers are fun, and the opening number with Carmen Miranda and her Phallic Bananas is justly famous.

In 1947 Los Angeles, this cool double feature was playing, a throwback to the first classic horror era of the 30s--Son of Frankenstein ('39) and Bride of Frankenstein ('35).

A forgotten live-action Disney movie, Westward Ho, the Wagons, was probably relying on the fame of Fess Parker as Davy Crockett on TV to grab Christmas audiences in Atlanta in 1956.

The release of Ray Harryhausen's fantasy The 7th Voyage of Sinbad seems more attuned to holiday family audiences at Christmas of 1958. Seen today, it's a little old-fashioned storywise but the effects are still awfully fun.