The Sunrise was active until the summer of 2004, when it sort of lost its fight with Sacramento County code enforcement, which said the 70-foot screen was in danger of collapsing. Its final appearance in the Sacramento Bee’s theater listings was on July 27, 2004.
The last listing for the “Airport I & II” in the Oakland Tribune was on the day after Labor Day, Sept. 5, 1978. Screen 1 showed “Jaws 2” and “Grey Lady Down.” Screen 2 had “Smokey and the Bandit” and “The Last Remake of Beau Geste.”
The Moonlite opened on June 29, 1950, based on a story in the next day’s Hollister Advance. “(B)uilt by Hans Severinsen at a cost of $80,000,” the drive-in boasted a 42x56-foot screen. “Opening night feature was “The Outriders,” a first-run MGM technicolor production starring Joel McCrea.”
The drive-in’s last performance was on June 30, 1962, as it made way for a hardware store to be built on the site. The final movies were “GI Blues” and “Too Late Blues.”
The last Motor-In ad I found in the Fresno Bee was on Oct. 21, 1979. The X-rated triple feature was “Love World,” “Runaway Hormones,” & “Bedroom Magic.”
The last Humboldt ad I could find in the Eureka Times-Standard was on Dec. 17, 1977. The movies were “One on One” and “Sorceror”. The Dec. 23 ad read No Show This Weekend / “Merry Christmas”
That housing unit, Brookdale Estates, is completely within the city limits of Menominee Falls, according to Google Maps. The folks who live there now get their mail from the Menominee Falls post office, Zip Code 53051.
IMHO, the Victory should be listed under Menominee Falls.
The Motion Picture Almanac rebooted its drive-in list for its 1977 edition, which included the Del-Mac, still owned by Panero Th. Co., capacity 375 cars. It stayed that way through 1979, then dropped off the 1980 list.
Considering the MPA’s lead time, this suggests that the Del-Mac’s final season may have been 1978.
After reading through old editions of the Coalinga Record (where I couldn’t find any drive-in ads), my guess is that the drive-in opened in 1951. A 1990 retrospective said the opener was “in the early 1950s”, and that Boxoffice note shows it couldn’t have happened any later.
In its final years, Jim Berry owned and ran the drive-in. He failed to reopen in 1986 because of the death of his assistant(?), Vida Sue Scantling. “Vida was my right arm. I could not replace her expertise on short notice, and emotionally I could not handle it alone.” Berry said later.
But Berry reopened the Coalinga for weekends in 1988, probably for just that one season. By the time of that 1990 retrospective, the newspaper wrote that the “Coalinga Drive In Theater is now a derelict that has been an ever worsening eyesore for several years.”
Buckle up, because I’ve got this drive-in’s name changes, all based on listings and ads in the Times of San Mateo.
At first it was consistent, “Starlite Drive-In” through March 1964. On April 1, 1964, the drive-in’s ad was for “Starlite Auto Movie” while the listings cited the “Belmont (Starlite) Automovie”.
On April 4, 1964, the first ad for “Belmont Automovie” appeared. It stayed that way until the summer of 1967, which is missing some editions. By August 1967, the listings had changed to “Starlight Automovie”.
From that point forward, the advertised name was usually Starlite, sometimes Starlight. Drive-In and Automovie appeared about equally often. The Redwood City Tribune of Nov. 27, 1970 referred to it as the “Starlite, a United Artist Automovie,” suggesting what drove the change away from drive-in.
Despite its midlife fling as the Belmont, this drive-in closed the same way it opened, as the Starlite. Whether you want to add an Automovie is up to you.
It looks like United California bought the Tioga in April or May 1955 to shut down its competition with its three other Merced theaters (the Starlight Drive-In, Merced, and Strand).
Looking through back issues of the Merced Sun-Star, the last Tioga ad I could find was for “The Harlem Globetrotters” on Oct. 2, 1954. United California’s other theaters advertised in 1955, but not the Tioga. Although the Motion Picture Almanac’s drive-in list continued to include the Tioga for years, United California’s holdings section did not mention the Tioga.
The Sunrise was active until the summer of 2004, when it sort of lost its fight with Sacramento County code enforcement, which said the 70-foot screen was in danger of collapsing. Its final appearance in the Sacramento Bee’s theater listings was on July 27, 2004.
The last Coliseum Drive-In listing I could find in the Oakland Tribune was on November 27, 1994. The next day’s listing said “Closed for the Winter.”
Coliseum Drive-In final listing Nov 27, 1994 Oakland Tribune (Oakland, California) Newspapers.com
The last listing for the “Airport I & II” in the Oakland Tribune was on the day after Labor Day, Sept. 5, 1978. Screen 1 showed “Jaws 2” and “Grey Lady Down.” Screen 2 had “Smokey and the Bandit” and “The Last Remake of Beau Geste.”
The Moonlite opened on June 29, 1950, based on a story in the next day’s Hollister Advance. “(B)uilt by Hans Severinsen at a cost of $80,000,” the drive-in boasted a 42x56-foot screen. “Opening night feature was “The Outriders,” a first-run MGM technicolor production starring Joel McCrea.”
The drive-in’s last performance was on June 30, 1962, as it made way for a hardware store to be built on the site. The final movies were “GI Blues” and “Too Late Blues.”
The last Motor-In ad I found in the Fresno Bee was on Oct. 21, 1979. The X-rated triple feature was “Love World,” “Runaway Hormones,” & “Bedroom Magic.”
The last Humboldt ad I could find in the Eureka Times-Standard was on Dec. 17, 1977. The movies were “One on One” and “Sorceror”. The Dec. 23 ad read No Show This Weekend / “Merry Christmas”
That housing unit, Brookdale Estates, is completely within the city limits of Menominee Falls, according to Google Maps. The folks who live there now get their mail from the Menominee Falls post office, Zip Code 53051.
IMHO, the Victory should be listed under Menominee Falls.
This 1981 photo by Steve Fitch is included in his 2025 book, “Screen Towers: The Drive-In Theater in America.” He still owns its copyright.
This 1982 photo by Steve Fitch is included in his 2025 book, “Screen Towers: The Drive-In Theater in America.” He still owns its copyright.
This 1975 photo by Steve Fitch is included in his 2025 book, “Screen Towers: The Drive-In Theater in America.” He still owns its copyright.
This 1973 photo by Steve Fitch is included in his 2025 book, “Screen Towers: The Drive-In Theater in America.” He still owns its copyright.
This photo by Steve Fitch is part of his 2025 book, “Screen Towers: The Drive-In Theater in America.” He still owns its copyright.
This photo is on the cover of Steve Fitch’s 2025 book, “Screen Towers: The Drive-In Theater in America”.
Since Steve Fitch says he took his photo of the old Fiesta on Jan. 1, 1981, its move to a new location had to have been later than that.
This 1981 photo by Steve Fitch appears in his 2025 book, “Screen Towers: The Drive-In Theater in America.” He still owns its copyright.
This 1983 photo is by Elisa Leonelli, who still owns its copyright.
This 1981 photo by Steve Fitch appears in his 2025 book, “Screen Towers: The Drive-In Theater in America”. He owns its copyright of course.
This 1973 photo by Steve Fitch appears in his 2025 book, “Screen Towers: The Drive-In Theater in America”. He owns its copyright of course.
The Motion Picture Almanac rebooted its drive-in list for its 1977 edition, which included the Del-Mac, still owned by Panero Th. Co., capacity 375 cars. It stayed that way through 1979, then dropped off the 1980 list.
Considering the MPA’s lead time, this suggests that the Del-Mac’s final season may have been 1978.
After reading through old editions of the Coalinga Record (where I couldn’t find any drive-in ads), my guess is that the drive-in opened in 1951. A 1990 retrospective said the opener was “in the early 1950s”, and that Boxoffice note shows it couldn’t have happened any later.
In its final years, Jim Berry owned and ran the drive-in. He failed to reopen in 1986 because of the death of his assistant(?), Vida Sue Scantling. “Vida was my right arm. I could not replace her expertise on short notice, and emotionally I could not handle it alone.” Berry said later.
But Berry reopened the Coalinga for weekends in 1988, probably for just that one season. By the time of that 1990 retrospective, the newspaper wrote that the “Coalinga Drive In Theater is now a derelict that has been an ever worsening eyesore for several years.”
Buckle up, because I’ve got this drive-in’s name changes, all based on listings and ads in the Times of San Mateo.
At first it was consistent, “Starlite Drive-In” through March 1964. On April 1, 1964, the drive-in’s ad was for “Starlite Auto Movie” while the listings cited the “Belmont (Starlite) Automovie”.
On April 4, 1964, the first ad for “Belmont Automovie” appeared. It stayed that way until the summer of 1967, which is missing some editions. By August 1967, the listings had changed to “Starlight Automovie”.
From that point forward, the advertised name was usually Starlite, sometimes Starlight. Drive-In and Automovie appeared about equally often. The Redwood City Tribune of Nov. 27, 1970 referred to it as the “Starlite, a United Artist Automovie,” suggesting what drove the change away from drive-in.
Despite its midlife fling as the Belmont, this drive-in closed the same way it opened, as the Starlite. Whether you want to add an Automovie is up to you.
It looks like United California bought the Tioga in April or May 1955 to shut down its competition with its three other Merced theaters (the Starlight Drive-In, Merced, and Strand).
Looking through back issues of the Merced Sun-Star, the last Tioga ad I could find was for “The Harlem Globetrotters” on Oct. 2, 1954. United California’s other theaters advertised in 1955, but not the Tioga. Although the Motion Picture Almanac’s drive-in list continued to include the Tioga for years, United California’s holdings section did not mention the Tioga.
From the Sept. 25, 1948 issue of Boxoffice, which is in the public domain.
Actually, it appeared in a Wagner display ad I saw in Boxoffice’s Sept. 11, 1948 issue.