
Summer Quartet Drive-In
5310 Summer Avenue,
Memphis,
TN
38122
5310 Summer Avenue,
Memphis,
TN
38122
4 people
favorited this theater
Showing 26 - 29 of 29 comments
Now I’m wondering if there used to be another drive-in in the same neighborhood, that got replaced by this one. The one I remember going to was on the north side of Summer, right around White Station, just west of I-240 (which was still under construction back then). This one seems to be east of I-240.
On the other hand, the article appears pretty sure of itself, and I suppose I could be wrong…it does happen occasionally.
I’m pretty sure it was operating in the early 1960s. I didn’t have a car then so I couldn’t go there, but I remember seeing ads for it as early as 1963-64. If so, it was only a twin (at most) at the time because I know it was years later that it became briefly a trio and then a quad. In the late 70s/early 80s on Sunday mornings I used to bicycle from the MSU area up Southern to White Station past the Paramount, then down White Station to Summer to the Fare 4, turn around in the Summer Drive-In entryway, then down Summer to Riverside Drive to Beale, make my “ritual circumnavigation of the Orpheum,” and then go back up Beale, Union, and Peabody to MSU; this took about 2 hours. Saw Angie Dickinson, Joan Prather, William Shatner, and Tom Skerritt in “Big Bad Mama” at the Summer. Also Stella Stevens and Stuart Whitman in “Las Vegas Lady” and James Ryan in a South African Martial-Arts movie called “Kill or Be Killed,” which was a cut above the usual “Chop-Opera.” Best wishes.
Legend has it that this was one of MALCO’s greatest business coups. The land – then at the far east side of Memphis – was purchased at a reasonable price. Supposedly, MALCO then sold off about half the property to the government as a highway right-of-way making enough profit to pay off the original debt and pay for the entire construction of the huge drive in. Basically they got it for free. That may be why the Summer is still operating.
Originally one screen, then two screens and now four, the sound system is now radio rather than the ever troublesome speakers-on-standards. Seeing all thos projection beams blazing from the centrally located concession building can still bring a smile.
The entrance drive winds into the lot between colorful neon (?) light fixtures straight out of “The Jetsons.” The projection/concession house is fairly unremarkable, but always a line to get more popcorn.