Sunrise Drive-In

Hi there;
Gaudy neon, apparently you don't remember the Sunrise Drive In of the 1960s. The first movie I saw there was Barefoot in the Park. I remember going to that drive in, which was the first in New York State, and opened in the 1930s. When we lived in Brooklyn, to be specific East 40 Street between Church Avenue and Linden Boulevard, we knew we were going to that drive in when we said "Sunrise". When we visited where I live now, it was the Patchogue Sunrise. However, I recall the neon sign to be a flashing spectacle that was added some time after the theater opened. If you ask me they were wrong to tear it down. We need flashy neon, and the stuff drive ins brought to the landscape.

I used the term gaudy neon with affection. I went to this theatre since I was a toddler. When I found out they were going to close it I took ektachrome super-8 film of the marquee.

Sorry Robert,
I guess I was wrong. The neon was nice. It's one of the few things I remember about the theater.

Robert;
I just thought,they don't have a picture of the theater on this site, maybe you should send a frame of the film to them. I don't have any photos. They could use a picture.

I will as soon as the add a photo feature is back.

The Sunrise Drive-In opened in August 1938 and as someone already posted, it was the first Drive-In in New York.

I found two listings for this theater. One calls it the Sunrise-Drive-In and lists the owner as E. M. Loew Drive-In Theatres, Inc. The second listing has it as the Valley Stream Drive-In owned by Century Theaters. The car capacity is listed as 750 cars.

Before the giant curved screen, the Sunrise Drive-In of course had a smallish flat standard-ratio screen, the reverse side of the gaudy neon wall that faced the Sunrise Highway. In the late 40s, its film fare was pretty dreary: third-runs and second-rate revivals, largely because RKO and Loew's cornered the market on first-run showings. After months of questioning my carless parents about what a "drive-in movie" might be, I was taken by a car-owing aunt and uncle. The feature was "The Prairie," a film so minor that it's not even listed in Leonard Maltin's admirably inclusive guide. After a scene about a dustbowl storm, I fell asleep, but woke up toward the end when flood-lights above the screen flashed on and off to alert patrons keen on leaving before the picture was over so as to beat the traffic rush. Some time later, my father borrowed his brother's car and took me there to see "Pitfall," a film-noir already many, many months (perhaps even a year) past its first-run (release date: 25 August '48; so likely I'm referring to the following summer). The Sunrise had a mate, the Whitestone Drive-In, on the Bronx side of the bridge it was named after (the site today of a giant multiplex). Newspapers carried their ads in tandem. The Sunrise received its films a week after they played at the Whitestone. The Sunrise (but not the Whitestone) closed during the winter months, a nod (I suppose) to its rural location outside of the city limits and to the chill factor on Lawn Guyland. The great post-war development of LI had just begun, and Valley Stream seemed barely a spot on the map. In later years (and after the Whitestone was torn down), the Sunrise edged up to first-run films and stayed open year-round. Have LI folk developed into a hardier stock, or has increased body-heat made the place warmer?

It's not a great picture but you can see the drive-in on this site

www.boxoff.com/issues/mar01/na.html

You'll get a pretty good view of this theater in the 1974 film, "The Lords of Flatbush". Actually, you'll the side neon side that faced Sunrise Highway.

I just bought THE LORDS OF FLATBUSH on DVD, and some of the action takes place in there. I would not be surprised if it was filmed at that location because I saw them filming it on some of the streets of Brooklyn (though not that scene). Did it have neon above the screen also? That's how they represent it in the movie.

Is there anyone out there who remembers when the drive in first opened? When drive ins first started they had huge speakers by the screen instead of those little inside speakers. (By the time the sound got to the back of the drive in it was out of synchronization because light travels faster than sound so the in car speaker was invented to help it keep up). Was the Sunrise like that?

The exact date that this drive-in opened was August 10, 1938. I don't know if it had the speakers next to the screen or if they were in car speakers.

Here is a pic of the awesome neon marquee
http://www.drive-ins.com/pictures/nytsunr01.jpg

I have so many wonderful memories of the Sunrise Drive In Theatre from the 1960s and early 1970s. I used to go there with my dad, mom, brother and friends. Children under 12 got in free. Their was a playground under the screen, a huge fast food stand (that sold Burgers, Franks, chicken, french fries--long before there was McDonalds or Burger King in our area.)The popcorn was great! Their was a baby REAL CLOTH diapper service (no such thing as pampers!)and they also sold baby bottles of regular milk! I remember the projectionist used to make annoucements! They gave out placemat flyers with all the neighborhood information on it(like you would get in a dinner!!!). Amoung the milestone features I saw there were, MCHALES NAVY JOINS THE AIRFORCE, MUNSTER GO HOME, HURRY SUNDOWN, MRS BROWN YOU;VE GOT A LOVELY DAUGHTER (HERMANS HERMITS), TICK TICK TICK, HARPER, PROMISE HER ANYTHING (warren beatty), THE SILCENCERS, THE WRECKING CREW, THE AMBUSHERS (ALL DEAN MARTIN). It was an experience to watch a movie in your car. Bring back the Sunrise Drive In!!!

Mitchellk
I had forgotten all about the milk bottles, you jogged another memory in my brain. I too have so many great memories of going here. Many times in the bitter cold of Winter those heaters kept you nice and warm. I remember a few times it started snowing. Great times.

lostmemories;
The in car speaker was not invented until the 1940s. Chances are they either had speakers next to the cars, or, as you mentioned before, two speakers by the screen. A little drive in trivia;

THE IN CAR DRIVE IN SPEAKER WAS INVENTED FOR TWO REASONS, SOUND SYNCHRONIZATION AND NOISE POLLUTION. WHEN THEY HAD TWO SPEAKERS BY THE SCREEN THEY PLAYED SO LOUD THAT PEOPLE IN COMMUNITIES SURROUNDING DRIVE INS COMPLAINED OF THE NOISE. LIGHT TRAVELS FASTER THEN SOUND. THE QUESTION IS ALWAYS ASKED "IF A TREE FALLS IN THE FOREST IS THERE A SOUND?" IF YOU WERE IN THE FRONT OF THE DRIVE IN THE THUMP WOULD COME AS THE TRUNK FELL, BUT IN THE BACK YOU WOULD HEAR THE THUMP LATER THEN SEEING THE TRUNK HIT THE GROUND. IN CAR SPEAKERS WERE DESIGNED TO MAKE SOUND TRAVEL AT THE SPEED OF LIGHT.

I FIGURED THAT LITTLE PIECE OF TRIVIA COULD BE FOR EVERYONE.

The neon marque is also shown in the 1970 film The Honeymoon Killers, as the killers and their victim drive down Sunrise Hgwy to their house on Adeline Place.

I saw a few films here while we lived in nearby Laurelton, Queens when I was a pre-teen. I remember seeing The Omen here in '76 as well as The Golden Voyage of Sinbad in '74. I wish I could remember the names of the supporting features. If I'm not mistaken, the 2nd film with Sinbad was a movie with Kirk Douglas where he played a pirate who was stranded on a tropical isle somewhere... Very hazy memories. I remember playing in the small playground at the base of the screen and then the sound of car-horns honking to summon us back to our parents when the movie started to play. Sometimes they'd start those movies before the sky was dark enough - particularly deep in the summer. I can recall straining to see what was going on for the first 5 or 10 minutes of The Omen.

I also remember a re-release of The Exorcist being among the last films to play here.

My last memory of this place is of the partially demolished structure that had the screen on one side and the neon signage on the other. Someone had scrawled "Goodbye Cruel World" in large letters with a can of spray paint on the side that faced Sunrise Highway. The Flea Market that had been held by day in the Drive-In parking lot for years and years is still taking place every weekend, last I knew.

Flea Market, well at least there is some remnant.

This drive in, built by Michael Redstone, was the beginning of what would become National Amusements.

EdSolero--

I wonder whether your memory of a movie with Kirk Douglas was of "Ulysses," with Sylvana Mangano and Tonyt Quinn-- that would have been a great Sunrise Drive-In movie!

B. O. Bill... No it wasn't "Ulysses." It was set in the 18th or 19th century and was made on a more modest scale and budget then that much older film. Actually, I just flipped over to IMDB.COM to figure it out (don't know why I didn't think of that earlier) and the film is "Scalawag" from 1973 (which makes sense on the bottom of a double bill with 1974's "Golden Voyage of Sinbad"). The movie is described as Treasure Island set in the Wild West -- "He's Long John Silver and Jesse James rolled into one!!!" Apparently, it was also a musical -- not that I recollect any one breaking out into song, but as I said, my memories are fuzzy. And odds are I was fast asleep in the backseat long before the film was over.

The Sunrise always ran these
http://youtube.com/watch?v=x3N_ELRw7ZI&search=%20intermission

This one is awesome !!
http://youtube.com/watch?v=ts7F9sNfXM8&search=%20intermission

The one I just posted above is demented if you think about putting cartoons about people breaking into houses. Your at the drive-in to relax and then you start thinking about your house LOL

My first experience with a drive-in theater was during the summer of '61. Neighbors on the block were bigtime movie aficianados and knew that the Sunrise was just over the Queens line in Valley Stream. We got to see the sprawling re-make of Edna Ferber's "Cimarron," with Glenn Ford and Maria Schell. (Was Whit Bissell in THIS one, too??? He may have been!) A bit on the long side, and too lengthy a timespan (these epics were Ferber's forte in novels, such as "Giant" and "Ice Palace"), it still held my interest overall. And the Sunrise was a fun place for all the nuances involved. (The URL posted just above is a hoot! Large thx, RobertR!)

I later learned the downside of drive-ins in '64, out Port Jefferson way. Never trust any theater's car heaters, especially in March. Our breath condensed on the windshield and instantly froze!

Here's a '64 vintage ad, BklynJim, to compliment your last post:
LOA - LI Star Journal 5/18/64

So, "Lawrence of Arabia" hit the drive-in circuit 18 months after its initial release. "Amazon Trader" is listed on imdb.com as a 41 minute short feature. Was the general release print of LOA significantly shorter than the roadshow version? Even with teh 20 minutes edited after the London premier, the film ran over 200 minutes. That makes for over 4 hours at the drive-in for this particular show.

"Free Elec. Heaters" advertised at the bottom of the ad.

Some other ads from the early '60's... Any of these jog your memory Jim?
Daily News 9/21/63
LI Star Journal 11/23/63
LI Star Journal 11/25/63

And for good measure, at the bottom of this 1978 clipping, the Sunrise is listed as showing Neil Simon's PG-rated romantic comedy "The Goodbye Girl" paired with the sordid R-rated 1975 adaptation of Jacqueline Susanne's "Once is Not Enough":
Daily News 1/25/78

Love those ads, Ed! The only ones to jumpstart my brain were "Parrish" (Troy Donahue, last seen as Merle, the pathetic boyfriend of Connie Corleone in "Godfather II"), "Village of the Damned" (well done chiller by the Brits) and "Flipper" (whom I always remember whenever I order Mahi Mahi). "Larry of Batavia" (almost 4 hours of it) was excellent in any format, but I preferred to see that in NYC upon its initial release.

I cannot recall the name of that Port Jeff Drive-In, but I suspect any heaters they may have had were on the fritz. Never went back...

[Rats! I hit the #@%&!?* "Submit" button too soon...]

Ed, last month in a local paper was a superb re-cap of drive-ins in San Diego County, all but two of which are gone. Author Jay Allen Sanford has provided The Reader's archive link on the Campus Drive-In page (10460) for anyone who'd care to read it. More importantly, he also listed his e-mail addy for the nationwide timeline history of drive-ins, which was not included in the paper's link. He'll send the text to anyone who requests it. The Quebec/Catholic Church story alone is worth the effort.

EdSolero, while I still have a copy of Jay Allen Sanford's "Intermission" handy, I thought I'd post several generic excerpts here for the Drive-In aficianados and perhaps whet your appetite for the complete timeline:

1932: Richard Milton Hollingshead Jr., a chemical engineer and oil and grease salesman, conducts his first experiment in outdoor viewing by nailing a bedsheet between two trees and putting a 1928 16mm movie projector on the hood of his car. He designs a ramp system to angle parked cars upward and tests the effects of rain on the windshield by using lawn sprinklers. By August, Hollingshead is ready to patent his idea (#1,909,537).

1938: Hollingshead sells his patent to Willis W. Smith, who franchises it and requires drive-ins to pay royalties. However, Loew's Theaters (owned by MGM pictures) convinces a Boston circuit court that a ramp built into the ground isn't an invention, it's landscaping, and Hollingshead's patent becomes unenforceable. With drive-ins now public domain, the industry now undergoes a growth spurt.

1955: RCA sells a complete drive-in package (with its own financing), including a sound system, projection equipment, and lights to mark the parking-lot pathways.

1957: Concession stands generate important revenue, as do "free for children" admission policies (the latter heavily protested by the film industry, which feels this "cheapens" their prestigious product). Most drive-ins utilize fondly recalled intermission films featuring singing snacks, dancing hot dogs, and countdown clocks, popularized by filmmakers at the Filmack Company.

1958: The U.S. has approximately 4000 drive-ins, while Canada has around 40. Quebec has none because the province has banned them on the advice of the Catholic Church, which calls ozones "pits of iniquity and sinful excess."

1960: In Texas, a few drive-ins have horseback hitching posts. The Theater Motel in Brattleboro, Vermont, rents rooms facing the screen and wired for sound.

[Lots more through present day. Enjoy! Thx, Jay!]

Thanks B'kylnJim... Appetite whetted! Poor Willis W. Smith! The little man - as ever - trampled under the corporate foot. I hope Hollingshead cashed in to his satisfaction. I fondly remember those intermission films! Sometimes that countdown clock wouldn't move nearly as fast as I wanted. By the time I remember going to the Sunrise in the 1970's those little films were chewed up pretty badly - I bet the countdown clock was off by more than just a few minutes due to the amount of dropped frames over the years. I remember the pizza at the Sunrise concession stand was about the worst slice of crap I'd ever tasted in my life! It consisted of a rectangular crust that seemed to be made of sheetrock, a dollop of brownish sauce and a smattering of shredded mozzarella. Sometimes the crust was so brittle, that a single bite would cause the slice to crack in half resulting in sauce spilt in your lap and the rubbery cheese topping hanging from your mouth after having slid off the sauce in one piece. Oh wait, was that the pizza in the Jamaica High School lunch room? My memories are so fuzzy!

Check out this block ad for Sunrise & Whitestone Drive-Ins. They were not open all winter like they were later on when they advertised electric heaters. Plus they bragged about letting the car in for free
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a13/ChmnofBrd/Movie%20Ads/MoonisBlue.jpg

I saw this double bill here
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a13/ChmnofBrd/Movie%20Ads/TrueGritLawyer.jpg

I love how a G-rated main feature was paired with an R-rated supporting film. As I recall, this was quite customary in the '70's - particularly at Drive-In theaters. At least at the Drive-Ins you might reasonably expect the kiddies to fall asleep in the backseat before the 2nd feature got too risque!

Ad for Drive In on Sunrise Highway in 1964:
http://snackbar-confidential.blogspot.com/

All members of my family were movie fans, but one of the most special times I had with my family was at the Sunrise, my father had a huge 63 Chrysler Newport, with an equally huge trunk, and of course a large backseat.The Sunrise was a comfortable drive in, and only one of two I ever visited. My experience there was when I was young, and have so many fond memories of it. My mother, who would make food, especially fried chicken,and stow it in the trunk, along with canned soda and those cheese wafer snacks that they still make today. I remember those tin can speakers, the large hill the car would sit on,the intermission ads for the concession stand, which were somewhat campy,and my favorite,the playground in front of the screen.

When the Sunrise first opened in August, 1938, it was reported to be the first drive-in theatre in all of New York State. In its first week, the Sunrise grossed about $3,100, including $700 on opening night, according to the 8/17/38 issue of Variety. Admission was 35 cents per passenger, with no extra charge for the car. Kids got in free. A staff of 20 ushers, some of them on bicycles, led cars to their spots. Capacity was 500 cars. Starting at dusk, there were two showings nightly of a single feature and short subjects. Programs changed three times per week. Variety predicted that the Sunrise would have a difficult time because the features were in their fourth or fifth runs. The Sunrise's screen was 48 feet high, 65 feet wide, and 30 feet above ground level. Variety said that the image was about twice the size of the largest indoor screen.

Thank you Warren for that interesting posting of The former Sunrise drive in, you are quite correct about the movies shown there, many of them were in their fourth or fifth runs. I recall seeing all of The Planet of the Apes series there. Despite that, it was always a treat to visit the drive in and see a movie with the family in the familiar surroundings of our car.
Ed Solero, Re:, The second feature being risque, being a pre teen at that time, If I was lucky to stay awake towards the end of the first feature, my mother would pass back the blankets and pillow, great memories indeed.

Here's an opening night ad from the Long Island Daily Press. The premiere attraction was the late-run Columbia musical comedy, "Start Cheering," which starred Jimmy Durante and had a guest appearance by the Three Stooges. The same movie was running as second feature to "Crime School" at the Carlton in Jamaica and other nabes in Queens, Brooklyn, and Nassau County:
www.i8.photobucket.com/albums/a18/Warrengwhiz/sunriseopener.jpg

Nice ad Warren.
I loved the sentence,
"$0.35 per person, your auto free"
I wonder how many people arrived in the trunk?

This site has some information. Address given is 750 West Sunrise Highway

It looks like the drive-in's final film was The Exorcist on the weekend of May 18th-20th, 1979, less than seven months before the Sunrise Multiplex opened for business.

Here is a 1966 aerial image.

I wish someone, ANYONE had a photo of the small amusement park that was directly under the screen at the Sunrise Drive-In at Valley Stream. There were about five or six small rides and rocking horses on a spring that parents got to use with their kids BEFORE the movie began. Once the movie was ready to start the amusement section was closed and everyone had to return to their cars or concession stand. How about it guys and gals from my era, anyone have a picture of this? Email me at Islandersb@aol.com if you do. John

In Sumner Redstone's biography he mentions running the concession stand here for his dad who owned the drive-in. It was the beginning of his interest in movies and real estate.