Friday the 13th, 60 years ago

In mid-May of 1960, the 13th fell on a Friday, back in the heyday of ballyhoo-type programs at theaters aimed at the younger crowd, from kiddies to mid-20s. I was pleased to run across several ads around the country for some Friday the 13th-themed shows.

The above bill from Sacramento featured two second-run films, The Revenge of Frankenstein (1958), which was the second of the Hammer revival Frankensteins (to be followed by at least four more) and the cut-rate monster movie The Giant Claw (1957)

The above 4-movie drive-in bill from Sacramento was not advertised as a Friday the 13th show, but the two films chosen for the ad focus (both 1959 releases which were probably at the end of their first-run engagements) are appropriate: Hammer's The Mummy with Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, and the sci-fi thiller The Angry Red Planet. The other two movies (Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much and the Civil War-era melodrama Three Violent People) were four years old at this point

This theater in Butte, Montana was just running one film for their late show, The Werewolf (1956)

Tarantula (1955) was brought back after five years for a spook show in Sandusky, Ohio, but it's a good one. Blood of the Vampire, despite being called "all new" in the ad, had been in release for a year and a half at this point. Still, if I had a choice of any of the above theaters to visit, it would be the one in Sandusky.

In Reno, the first-run Circus of Horrors would provide the "thrills" and "chills" promised in the ad, while the second feature, The Screaming Skull (1958) might have provided some "laffs" from bored kids.  Below is a color ad for The Giant Claw, promising way more that it could deliver on.