Chief Auto Movies

I was stationed at TAFB in the early 1990’s and we used to frequent this theater. At that time the Chief Auto Movies lot was still there it was to the left of the indoor theater. The screen was gone but the ticket booth, concession stand, and ramps were still intact. I think the indoor theater was built before the drive in theater lost its screen and they operated together for a time.

In September 1954, manager Robert Retzer became understandably perturbed at the remarks on a Cliff’s Dwelling section of the Daily Republic page that resembles the safeness of littering. After Solano Drive-In employees immediately gathered more than 400 discarded beer cans in 1/8th of a mile from Highway 40 to the County Hospital in a single day alongside crates of broken glass, cartons, and paper, Retzer received an idea by flashing a homemade slide on the theater screen reading “Don’t Be A Litterbug” as an appeal for discontinuance of the nuisance. He immediately rushed down at the board of directors meeting of the Fairfield-Suisun Chamber of Commerce and Agriculture seeking action on the problem which he points out in his letter is not confined to the highway’s adjacent to the theater. Retzer angrily read a statement while pointing the finger in front of the Daily Republic’s Cliff’s Dwelling section from the previous week.

The “Litterbug” idea that he came up became very helpful for his theater. It became so helpful that in October 1954, Retzer received a letter from the Filmack Trailer Company in Chicago saying that the staff at Filmack really liked his Litterbug idea and asking if they want to steal his idea without any objection. Retzer accepted the deal and Filmack immediately started creating snipes that came through his idea.