Cinema 360 Drive-In
1501 Huffman Road,
Anchorage,
AK
99515
1501 Huffman Road,
Anchorage,
AK
99515
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The Cinema 360 Drive-In was an auto-scope operation with 120 individual screens. It opened on August 23, 1972 with Ryan O'Neal in “Love Story”. It was not a success and closed in late-1973.
Contributed by
Bryan Krefft
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Recent comments (view all 6 comments)
Opened in 1975. Autoscope type drive-in, 120 cars, each with ithere own screen, in a circle shape. Address is Seaward Highway at Huffman Road, Date of closure and demolition unknown? Site is now a retail shopping plaza(name unknown?).
Address is south east corner of Old Seaward Highway and Huffman Road. Site is now Huffman Square Shopping Center.
article posted.
I wish I could dig up as many newspaper clips as rivest266. What was the source this time?
To verify, I did find another article, written by local historian David Reamer and published in the Oct. 11, 2020 issue of the Anchorage Daily News. Reamer wrote that the Cinema 360 opened on Aug. 23, 1972 and closed “in late 1973, just over a year after opening.” He also added a note I hadn’t seen about those autoscopes: “If you parked slightly off-center from the screen, the image would blur.”
Reamer said the site was now a Carrs grocery store, so its address could be listed as 1501 Huffman Rd, Anchorage, AK 99515.
Boxoffice, Oct. 18, 1971: “Anchorage, AK. - Plans for a drive-in that features individual screens at a cost of approximately $250,000, were announced by Frank Desiderio, president of Cinema 360 of Alaska. Located on the Seqard Highway at Huffman Road, the circular ozoner is expected to be operational by year’s end … Jim Harron, vice-president of Cinema National Corp., parent company of Cinema 360, … who was chiefly responsible for the development of the "circular drive-in” concept while president of Theatre Research and Development Co., said the theatre will have a central projection area beaming pictures to 120 screens around the circumference of the area … Each screen is 165 feet from the center of the projection area and the soundtrack is transmitted via low-power signals on an FCC frequency directly to the patron’s car radio."
Grand opening ad posted.