Studio Drive-In
5250 Sepulveda Boulevard,
Culver City,
CA
90230
5250 Sepulveda Boulevard,
Culver City,
CA
90230
11 people
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Showing 26 - 39 of 39 comments
I remember this place, boy was it an eyesore to look at, it was just an ugly big wall standing in the middle of nowhere… yet it amazes me how such a place can become so popular with the local, well it did play great movies and this after was a place of great memories… many people who have told me stories of first kisses, guys/girls/family night out, marriage proposals, birthdays, and so many other great memories under the moonlight, all in front of a big ugly wall, which played great movies.
It’s gone now, and so is the ugly wall, a housing development took over. Nowadays, Culver City’s got the Bridge, The Mann, and The Pacific 14, nice date places, too bad you can’t propose to your lover here, or make side-comments on the movie here, without people shushing Beautiful Culver City unobstructed.
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I drove by this theater shortly after it closed. The marquee stated “Closed Forever”. Too bad.
the last movie i saw there was with my dad in his old 65 fairlane,the movie was ghost and it was a double feature,i remember going to sleep right after the credits.but i did get a chance to play on the old swing set,which was really rusty and dangerous.we broke into the theatre in 96 i think,and that was cool.afterward we went to denneys then ice skating.for a while they use to have a swap meet there ,dont think it was sucessful,i was real hurt when they tore it down.that was the last drive in in the area ,stupid people with money i tell you!
Something about this drive-in really got to me. Though I had never been there it just really broke my heart they tore it down. I saw it in the movie Jawbreaker and the scene was extremely sad. the sun is setting but the lot is empty and no one is coming for the show. The movie was made several years after the Studio closed in 93 and it looked like it was in great shape and could have easily been restored. Ofcourse, being owned by that greedy Pacific Theatre crap, it’s no wonder it got closed down. It was also in Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure and in this drive-in scene the Studio is alive and doing well and I wish it was still around. I think there could have been hope for this drive-in it had a beautiful screen and the most amazing marquee. Though I’ve never been to Studio I feel like Im missing out on something wonderful and that hurts a lot. I wish i could have some pictures of it. If anyone reading this, most likely Daria or anyone else with pictures, can you please please send them to ? Thank you so much. RIP Studio,
Gaelyn A.K.A “Drive-in GiRL"
http://i_love_drive_ins.tripod.com
I used to have friends who lived just over the fence on the right side of the Studio. They had a deck with the speaker set ups so they could watch the movies. I always envied them, but they were kind of tired of it all. They probably had more fun spying on the crowd with their binoculars.
I remember taking photos of the screen tower at the Studio a few months before it was demolished. The people at the old folks home across the street stared at me like I was nuts! I recall that they were still lighting the neon name on the screen long after the theater closed; it was a nice, reassuring view from the 405 Fwy. I knew that the theater wasn’t long for this world when I saw the president of Pacific Theaters on TV one night talking about how their modern cash crop was as a real estate company. “Our properties didn’t earn any money before sundown,” he said, right before mentioning all of the shopping malls, condos and shoebox theaters they were going to be building. He had a point…but it still hurt to hear it.
He was at the Picwood Theatre around 1981.
I visited him at The Avco many times, that was a class house. The Picwood I am not familiar with.
I worked with him at the Picwood Theatre and then the Avco Theatre in Westwood. I saw him a few times over at the Studio Drive-In.
ah cool you knew him too? I couldent remember which way it was spelled.
RobertR, His name was Paul Marks.
A friend of mine Paul Marx was one of the last projectionists here. A few times when I was in LA I would go visit him at the Studio. The place seemed to still be doing a good business even at the end, but I guess the real estate was worth more. I have pictures I took of him in the projection booth and of the marquee. So sad all of this is becoming history.
Here’s to the heyday of the drive-in movie theater – the Studio was one of the finest examples of postwar Art Deco Moderne drive-in architecture, alas now a thing of the past, like its neighbors the Century Drive-In and the Centinela where many childhood dreams came true, screening the cinema dreams and dramas cranked out by mighty MGM and other studios nearby… where a piece of the American Dream was realized in the mid-20th Century and then rapidly forgotten 30 years later with the arrival of video and Cable TV. I recall fondly staring up at the monumental screen tower of the Studio Drive-In as a boy of 10 years and dreaming of rocketships and big cars with tailfins and pastel two-tones flashing by in the night, while doo-wop singers echoed “In the still of the night” off the perimeter walls. Man, you just had to be there!