Halsted Twin Outdoor Theatre

I worked there in the early 80’s. I worked as a carhop. I took the money from the cars and gave it to the cashier. I gave them their receipt and told them how to proceed. Highlights of the two years were a molotov cocktail being thrown from over the fence. I put out three car fires. One night the fog rolled in. We had to give rain checks to everyone. Me and a few others had to disassemble the fence so a pregnant lady could get to the hospital. The entrance would flood a couple times a year. Enough people would get stalled. One night a guy drove fast and water was rushing over the hood. He didn’t stall. It was weird seeing headlight underwater.good

Dawn: If you search the Life Magazine archive hosted by Google, you’ll find a few more photos of this drive-in (search term: Drive Ins) and also several night shots (search term: drive-in theatres) of what I think might be the 4-screen drive-in opened at St. Ann, Missouri, in 1951.

On michigandriveins' Flickr page with the photo of this drive-in, there’s a link to an aerial photo from 1952. Click on the 1962 link on its page for an aerial showing the theater after its conversion to a single-screen. The screen in use is at upper left in that photo, and is obviously a CinemaScope replacement, but you can see that one original screen is still standing at lower left, undoubtedly being used as the entrance sign. The other two screens have been removed.

If the disused screens had been moved to new drive-ins in 1952, they’d still have become obsolete soon. The first CinemaScope movie was released in 1953, and by 1955 over half of Hollywood’s product was being released only in wide-screen formats.

The September 2, 1950, issue of Boxoffice Magazine revealed that the 4-Screen Drive-In was designed by Los Angeles architect Lewis Eugene Wilson. Wilson was also the architect of the Baldwin Theatre in Los Angeles, opened in 1949, and in 1951 a second four-screen drive-in of his design began operating in St. Ann, Missouri (Cinema Treasures page here.)

Boxoffice published an item in its December 15, 1951, issue, announcing that Chicago’s 4-Screen Drive-In, operated by the Essaness circuit, would not open for the 1952 season. Edwin Silverman, speaking for the company, blamed “featherbedding” by the projectionists union for the decision to remain closed. He said that the union was “…demanding four men at the highest wage scale in America,” and that the operation of the theater was impossible under those circumstances. Apparently, the company was unable to resolve this conflict with the union, and this drive-in never returned to four-screen operation.

That’s interesting. I wonder why they got rid of the screens, as well as where they went.

NEWS ITEM:
Chicago Tribune, Sunday, December 16, 1962, s. 5, p. 10, c. 1 (item)

FILM NOTES
The Halsted Outdoor theater has completed installation of electric in-car heaters and will be open all winter. The current double feature screen fare is “Assignment Outer Space,” in color, plus “Phantom Planet,” both science-fiction thrillers.

The theater closed for a couple years after 1987 or 1988. It reopened summer of 1991, but then closed after the fatal shooting during Boyz in the Hood, which was summer 1991. It was torn down 1994 or 1995, not sure which. I do know by 1996, the post office was there.