The last Sunset ad I could find in the Fresno Bee was on Sept. 5, 1983. Its final triple feature was “Jaws III”, “What Lies Below”, and “Parasite”.
The Bee’s roundup of local drive-in history, published just nine months later on July 13, 1984, said the Sunset had been “plagued by robberies and eventually went dark.”
The last Sunnyside ad in the Fresno Bee that I could find was on Sept. 5, 1988. The final program was “Die Hard” + “Stealing Home on one screen, “Hot to Trot” + “Hero & The Terror” on the other. Of course, the popular Sunnyside Swap Shop continued for years afterward.
The Starlite’s last night was Sept. 9, 1979, according to listings in the Fresno Bee. (That newspaper also ran a photo of the concession stand’s demolition a few days later.)
The final shows were (north screen) “Up From the Depths” and “Piranha”, and (south screen) “Saturday Night Fever” and “Grease.”
Despite that Boxoffice note, the Firebaugh Drive-In endured a little while longer. Around then, the Fresno Bee ran sporadic rundowns of what was showing at “Valley Theatres.” For Nov. 6, 1961, that included the Firebaugh showing “Two Mexican Features.” The next list I could find, May 18, 1963, did not include the Firebaugh.
That matched the aerial photo record. In June 1957, the drive-in looked intact. In 1961, it showed slight disrepair. In 1965 and 1967, the screen was gone.
This photo is also posted on CT’s entry for the Paulo Drive-In in Costa Mesa CA. Which matches a long-distance view of the same “paulo” screen tower in an Orange County Archives photo.
In short, this photo does not belong in U-less Palo Alto.
In 1979, Lawrence Hennigh wrote a long paper about an Experimental Schools project in the region. The only part that I care about is a reference to the Tri-City Drive-In in the present tense, suggesting that it was still in operation. Since a 1982 aerial photo shows trailer homes parked on the edges, we might be getting close to a closing date.
Hennigh also emphasized that the drive-in was in Tri-City, “an expansive suburb-like unincorporated area between Canyonville and Myrtle Creek.” Google Maps shows that the site is still within Tri-City, which is still its own “census-designated place” with a population of over 4000.
The Auto-See’s official Grand Opening was with “Station West” and “The Countess of Monte Cristo” on Friday and Saturday, May 13-14, 1949. That’s according to its two-page Grand Opening ad in the May 12, 1949 issue of the Yuba City Independent-Herald.
OTOH, the previous week’s newspaper had a front page story and a single full-page ad promising a grand opening set of “Tycoon” and “Isn’t It Romantic” on May 11. That followed an invitation-only night on May 10.
On May 11, 1977, in the same Times-Standard issue as Robert Rickard abandoning the name, another notice said that Sylvan L. Brander and Carol A. Brander of Baldwin Park were doing business as Buzzy’s 299 Drive-In.
Some Facebook users wrote that they remember seeing “ET” and “The Fox and the Hound” at the 299, so the drive-in must have persisted into the 1980s.
I think it’s really nice that the entirety of the old drive-in site is now Tanner Park, with a softball diamond, a baseball diamond, and a soccer field.
It appears that the Showboat’s last show was Oct. 1, 1956. The double feature was “The Grapes of Wrath” and “Tobacco Road.” Five days later, Boxoffice noted, “The Showboat Drive-In at Tracy was closed indefinitely October 1 by Principal Theatres”
The Showboat continued to host Easter sunrise services for a few years. The 1959 announcements called it the former Showboat Drive-In.
I now disagree with my 2019 sentiment. This drive-in is in the middle of Johnstonville, and that’s where it’s going in my book. In other unusual news, 50sSnipes was off by a couple of days.
The Hammer half of this “Siamese twin,” as the Stockton Record indelicately put it, opened on Aug. 1, 1969. It held 700 cars, compared to the West Lane’s 1210 capacity, and cost an extra $150,000 to build. The Hammer’s grand opening movie was “Gone With the Wind.”
Based on the drive-in listings in the San Francisco Examiner, I’d say the El Rancho’s last night was Saturday, Oct. 27, 1979. The final show, with only one active screen, was “The Deer Hunter” and “The Brink’s Job.”
In its final months, the El Rancho sometimes showed “free” programs on its second screen, but it used just one screen for its October weekends. A spot check of Summer 1980 listings in the Examiner did not include the El Rancho.
Using NewspaperArchive.com, which has had some hiccups lately, the last Del-Kern ad I could find in the Shafter Press was on May 8, 1968. In addition to movies for Friday and Saturday, May 10-11, the ad teased other movie titles that were coming soon.
50sSnipes, what’s your source for the Del-Kern’s 1970s activity?
The Star Vue’s “Grand Closing” was the night of Sept. 17, 1978. Unusual but nice to see a drive-in go out with the same fanfare it used when it opened.
It turns out the the Skyview was in the middle of Live Oak, a census-designated place east of Santa Cruz. Its Wikipedia page says that folks there expected to be annexed by Santa Cruz, but that never happened.
John Rice’s excellent coverage of the Richmond area theater history provides a closing date of November 24, 1978, which lines up with the property sale story that ran two days earlier. “Count Dracula and his Vampire Bride” and “Dark Places”, two minor British horror films from 1973 with Christopher Lee, were the Rancho’s final double feature program.
BTW, I’m working on my next book, “Drive-Ins of Northern California,” due out later this year. If rockyroadz or anyone else would like to help give me the real stories of these ozoners, please drop me a line at mkilgore (at) carload.com.
rockyroadz, who knows a lot about the Rancho, is correct that its address was 1220 Connecticut Ave. That was the address given by the San Pablo News, for example, in June 1978 in a story about a security guard there who accidentally shot his manager.
By the way, the theater was apparently still in operation in June 1978 and possibly a few months later. It was sold in November 1978 to be used for single-family homes and was soon referred to as the old Rancho site.
The Connecticut Avenue address is close, but CT style is to use present-day markers for old theater sites. Connecticut Avenue actually dead-ends today before touching where the Rancho had been. Based on HistoricAerials' comparison tool, the screen tower was just south of a cul-de-sac today. The closest house is at 1314 Madrone Ct, San Pablo, CA 94806.
According to Google Maps, the “Former Frontier Village Site” is a historic landmark with the address of 200 Edenvale Ave, San Jose, CA 95136. It’s inside the Edenvale Garden Park.
When was the exact closing date of the Skyview? (One-word name) The short answer is I’m not sure, it’s a little weird. Here’s what I found in the Sacramento Bee.
On Dec. 10, 1988, the Skyview ran an ad showing “Nightmare on Elm Street 4” + “Halloween 4” / “Iron Eagle II + They Live” / Closed for Repairs on screens 1, 2, and 3 respectively.
On Dec. 18, 1988, the Skyview ad changed the second screen to “Young Guns” + “Alien Nation,” but everything else stayed the same. The Bee’s editorial listing showed the same movies as Dec. 10.
On Dec. 22, 1988, there was no Skyview ad, and the listing again showed the same movies as Dec. 10.
I would have chalked it all up to a passive editorial crew that didn’t update listings for a freshly dead drive-in, that the final Screen 2 show was “Alien Nation.” Except that two weeks later a bad crash resulted in a Jan. 2, 1989 Sacramento Union photo (uploaded here) of the (already “old”) Skyview sign showing the same program as Dec. 10.
Did the Skyview really change back for shows on Christmas week? Was its Dec. 18 ad wrong because it had quietly closed earlier? And how did the Union writers discern that the freshly closed Skyview would never open again?
The last Sunset ad I could find in the Fresno Bee was on Sept. 5, 1983. Its final triple feature was “Jaws III”, “What Lies Below”, and “Parasite”.
The Bee’s roundup of local drive-in history, published just nine months later on July 13, 1984, said the Sunset had been “plagued by robberies and eventually went dark.”
The last Sunnyside ad in the Fresno Bee that I could find was on Sept. 5, 1988. The final program was “Die Hard” + “Stealing Home on one screen, “Hot to Trot” + “Hero & The Terror” on the other. Of course, the popular Sunnyside Swap Shop continued for years afterward.
The Starlite’s last night was Sept. 9, 1979, according to listings in the Fresno Bee. (That newspaper also ran a photo of the concession stand’s demolition a few days later.)
The final shows were (north screen) “Up From the Depths” and “Piranha”, and (south screen) “Saturday Night Fever” and “Grease.”
As I mentioned earlier, the Skyline reopened in the spring of 1988 for another full season. Here’s one of its ads later that year.
Two industry sources also mentioned the Roseville Drive-In, though its one-and-done appearance in the Theatre Catalog suggests it didn’t last long.
Theatre Catalog, 1949-50: “Roseville Dr. Exec: General Theatre Co. (UNO). (M12-C250-D7)”
Film Daily Year Book, 1950-56: “Roseville: Roseville Drive-In”
Despite that Boxoffice note, the Firebaugh Drive-In endured a little while longer. Around then, the Fresno Bee ran sporadic rundowns of what was showing at “Valley Theatres.” For Nov. 6, 1961, that included the Firebaugh showing “Two Mexican Features.” The next list I could find, May 18, 1963, did not include the Firebaugh.
That matched the aerial photo record. In June 1957, the drive-in looked intact. In 1961, it showed slight disrepair. In 1965 and 1967, the screen was gone.
This photo is also posted on CT’s entry for the Paulo Drive-In in Costa Mesa CA. Which matches a long-distance view of the same “paulo” screen tower in an Orange County Archives photo.
In short, this photo does not belong in U-less Palo Alto.
Looks like the Midway closed on Sept. 30, 1986 on a “Bargain Nite” with the triple-header of “Haunted Honeymoon,” “Psycho II,” and “Vamp.”
Independent Film Journal, Feb. 20, 1954: “F. S. Hatcher was to close the Dos Palos at Dos Palos on Feb. 13”
The Exhibitor, Feb. 24, 1954: “F. S. Hatcher closed the Dos Palos, Dos Palos, Cal.”
In 1979, Lawrence Hennigh wrote a long paper about an Experimental Schools project in the region. The only part that I care about is a reference to the Tri-City Drive-In in the present tense, suggesting that it was still in operation. Since a 1982 aerial photo shows trailer homes parked on the edges, we might be getting close to a closing date.
Hennigh also emphasized that the drive-in was in Tri-City, “an expansive suburb-like unincorporated area between Canyonville and Myrtle Creek.” Google Maps shows that the site is still within Tri-City, which is still its own “census-designated place” with a population of over 4000.
The Auto-See’s official Grand Opening was with “Station West” and “The Countess of Monte Cristo” on Friday and Saturday, May 13-14, 1949. That’s according to its two-page Grand Opening ad in the May 12, 1949 issue of the Yuba City Independent-Herald.
OTOH, the previous week’s newspaper had a front page story and a single full-page ad promising a grand opening set of “Tycoon” and “Isn’t It Romantic” on May 11. That followed an invitation-only night on May 10.
On May 11, 1977, in the same Times-Standard issue as Robert Rickard abandoning the name, another notice said that Sylvan L. Brander and Carol A. Brander of Baldwin Park were doing business as Buzzy’s 299 Drive-In.
Some Facebook users wrote that they remember seeing “ET” and “The Fox and the Hound” at the 299, so the drive-in must have persisted into the 1980s.
I think it’s really nice that the entirety of the old drive-in site is now Tanner Park, with a softball diamond, a baseball diamond, and a soccer field.
It appears that the Showboat’s last show was Oct. 1, 1956. The double feature was “The Grapes of Wrath” and “Tobacco Road.” Five days later, Boxoffice noted, “The Showboat Drive-In at Tracy was closed indefinitely October 1 by Principal Theatres”
The Showboat continued to host Easter sunrise services for a few years. The 1959 announcements called it the former Showboat Drive-In.
I now disagree with my 2019 sentiment. This drive-in is in the middle of Johnstonville, and that’s where it’s going in my book. In other unusual news, 50sSnipes was off by a couple of days.
The Hammer half of this “Siamese twin,” as the Stockton Record indelicately put it, opened on Aug. 1, 1969. It held 700 cars, compared to the West Lane’s 1210 capacity, and cost an extra $150,000 to build. The Hammer’s grand opening movie was “Gone With the Wind.”
Based on the drive-in listings in the San Francisco Examiner, I’d say the El Rancho’s last night was Saturday, Oct. 27, 1979. The final show, with only one active screen, was “The Deer Hunter” and “The Brink’s Job.”
In its final months, the El Rancho sometimes showed “free” programs on its second screen, but it used just one screen for its October weekends. A spot check of Summer 1980 listings in the Examiner did not include the El Rancho.
Using NewspaperArchive.com, which has had some hiccups lately, the last Del-Kern ad I could find in the Shafter Press was on May 8, 1968. In addition to movies for Friday and Saturday, May 10-11, the ad teased other movie titles that were coming soon.
50sSnipes, what’s your source for the Del-Kern’s 1970s activity?
The Star Vue’s “Grand Closing” was the night of Sept. 17, 1978. Unusual but nice to see a drive-in go out with the same fanfare it used when it opened.
It turns out the the Skyview was in the middle of Live Oak, a census-designated place east of Santa Cruz. Its Wikipedia page says that folks there expected to be annexed by Santa Cruz, but that never happened.
John Rice’s excellent coverage of the Richmond area theater history provides a closing date of November 24, 1978, which lines up with the property sale story that ran two days earlier. “Count Dracula and his Vampire Bride” and “Dark Places”, two minor British horror films from 1973 with Christopher Lee, were the Rancho’s final double feature program.
BTW, I’m working on my next book, “Drive-Ins of Northern California,” due out later this year. If rockyroadz or anyone else would like to help give me the real stories of these ozoners, please drop me a line at mkilgore (at) carload.com.
rockyroadz, who knows a lot about the Rancho, is correct that its address was 1220 Connecticut Ave. That was the address given by the San Pablo News, for example, in June 1978 in a story about a security guard there who accidentally shot his manager.
By the way, the theater was apparently still in operation in June 1978 and possibly a few months later. It was sold in November 1978 to be used for single-family homes and was soon referred to as the old Rancho site.
The Connecticut Avenue address is close, but CT style is to use present-day markers for old theater sites. Connecticut Avenue actually dead-ends today before touching where the Rancho had been. Based on HistoricAerials' comparison tool, the screen tower was just south of a cul-de-sac today. The closest house is at 1314 Madrone Ct, San Pablo, CA 94806.
That’s got to be what became known as the Pico Drive-In in Los Angeles, which looked like that and was California’s first drive-in.
According to Google Maps, the “Former Frontier Village Site” is a historic landmark with the address of 200 Edenvale Ave, San Jose, CA 95136. It’s inside the Edenvale Garden Park.
When was the exact closing date of the Skyview? (One-word name) The short answer is I’m not sure, it’s a little weird. Here’s what I found in the Sacramento Bee.
On Dec. 10, 1988, the Skyview ran an ad showing “Nightmare on Elm Street 4” + “Halloween 4” / “Iron Eagle II + They Live” / Closed for Repairs on screens 1, 2, and 3 respectively.
On Dec. 18, 1988, the Skyview ad changed the second screen to “Young Guns” + “Alien Nation,” but everything else stayed the same. The Bee’s editorial listing showed the same movies as Dec. 10.
On Dec. 22, 1988, there was no Skyview ad, and the listing again showed the same movies as Dec. 10.
I would have chalked it all up to a passive editorial crew that didn’t update listings for a freshly dead drive-in, that the final Screen 2 show was “Alien Nation.” Except that two weeks later a bad crash resulted in a Jan. 2, 1989 Sacramento Union photo (uploaded here) of the (already “old”) Skyview sign showing the same program as Dec. 10.
Did the Skyview really change back for shows on Christmas week? Was its Dec. 18 ad wrong because it had quietly closed earlier? And how did the Union writers discern that the freshly closed Skyview would never open again?