The venerable 183 Drive In opened in Irivng in 1950 designed by architect Raymond Smith. The 450-car drive-in theater was a rarity lasting almost 35 years just into the home video era. Irving Mayor Hans Smith co-owned the drive-in with W.P. Gandy at its opening. The owners of the Uptown Theater in Grand Prairie, Mr. and Mrs. Leroy Fischer, then bought the 183 Drive-In and the Irving Theater in November 1959. In the 1960s, Jerry A. Meagher’s Meagher Theatres Circuit took on the 183 Drive-In and the Irving Theater, created the Chateau indoor theater, Buena Vista, Park Plaza Drive –In and would take on the unique Texas Stadium Drive-In from McLendon.
The theater may be best known for its role in the 1988 documentary, “The Thin Blue Line” by Errol Morris and real-life trial of Randall Dale Adams. Adams was wrongfully convicted of murdering police office Robert W. Wood and sentenced to die by lethal injection. Adams had gone with another man, David Ray Harris who had stolen the car they were in, to the 183 Drive-In where they watched “The Student Body” and “Swinging Cheerleaders.” The investigation would lead to Harris who – in turn – would pin the murder on his 183 Drive-in partner, Adams. There was no doubting the staying power of the 183 Drive-In which closed in 1984 with almost 35 years of ozone service.
The Irving Mall opened August 4, 1971. Following a soft launch open house, the General Cinema Irving Mall I-II opened on the mall’s main level on Nov. 17, 1971 with “Something Big” on the 900-seat screen I and “Doctor Zhivago” on the smaller 450-seat screen II. The 900-screen theater was divided into two at the end of 1976 to form the Irving I-II-III. On October 26, 1984, on the mall’s lower floor at the food court, General Cinema added the Irving Mall IV-V-VI-VII.
General Cinema closed the I-II-III in August 1997 to expand into what would be the its only attempt at approaching a modern-build megaplex in Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW) area before its operations were overtaken by AMC. The 14-screen stadium seating Irving Mall 14 was part of a $20 million renovation of the Simon DeBartolo Irving Mall which was trying to compete against strip shopping centers across the street and across the highway. On September 25, 1998, the Irving Mall IV-V-VI-VII ceased leaving the mall theater-less for almost three months. General Cinema also closed the Collin Creek Mall cinema the same day. Those followed the July 1998’s closing of NorthPark III & IV and Prestonwood Town Center as the megaplexes were decimating General Cinema’s failing multiplex business plan. The Irving Mall 14 would have a free soft launch on December 16, 1998 and then open on Dec. 18, 1998.
The move did prompt AMC to shut down its neighboring six-screen dollar house less than a year later. But by 2000/1, General Cinema was in free fall collapse in Chapter 11 bankruptcy and closing theaters all over the nation including virtually every theater in the DFW area. The theater chain was down to just 73 theaters nationwide from its high of 621 theaters when purchased by AMC in Dec. 2001 (approved in 2002). The General Cinema signage was quickly removed from the Irving Mall location on a Thursday night where moviegoers could choose between AMC “Ticket” cups and bags or General Cinema “Popcorn Bob” cups and popcorn bags. Then on Friday, the theater opened as the AMC Irving Mall 14 which operated thereafter. While other shuttered General Cinemas became home to movie theaters, the Irving was the only continuously operated theater passing from General Cinema to AMC in DFW.
Under Dalian Wanda’s takeover of AMC, the AMC Irving was almost shockingly selected for a $6.1 million transformation including a bar, high end recliner seats which led to theaters having just 50 to 130 seats in them. The adjoining, enclosed game rooms were repurposed. AMC paid two thirds of the remodel and Simon Malls which operates the entire property paid for the other third. Total seating went from 3,056 seats in the 14-screener to just 1,152 seats. In July of 2013, the Irving Planning and Zoning Commission approved the liquor license and the theater operated continuously to its relaunch in October of 2013 with its first nine luxury suites. Despite the remodel, a few of the General Cinema coming attraction lit signs were still being used within the theater unchanged since 1998.
For more than seven years, the New American Cinema began using the Festival for late night Saturday and some Sunday matinees of what were considered “underground films” in December of 1968 and running into 1976. Maurice Levy scheduled the screenings using cult classics (e.g,. “Freaks” and “Reefer Madness”), repertory fare including classic cartoon shows and serials, experimental and independent contemporary films that just wouldn’t get booked elsewhere (e.g, “White House Madness” in 1975). The regular art run for the Festival wasn’t one year; it started in 1965 with first-run, changing to art double feature second-runs in 1968, but bookings change over to Mexican Cinema after a brief hiatus in October of 1971 — other than the New American Cinema special screenings. Not wanting the remodeling to go to waste, Rodriguez used the tagline, “Cine Mexicano de lujo” or “Mexican Cinema of luxury” in ads to provide brand differentiation from the Stevens Theater which had swiped away Rodriguez’s audience when the Panamericano switched to art fare back in the 1960s.
This picture is a shot of a firefighter who entered the theater just days after its March of 1933 relaunch and refurnishing as the Fair Theater. He’s in standing water as the theater suffered major hail damage, shattering the glass doors and windows. Five feet of water flooded the newly remodeled theater closing for a short period.
Phil Isley Circuit opened the Major Theater with “California” on May 28, 1947 with Monte Hale and Chill Wills making a personal appearance. The 1,200 seat theater had a cry room and free parking. At the end of June 1964, the Major closed briefly and became an independent under Ramon Garcia Lence of the Casa View, Arapaho Drive-In and REX cinema. During September of 1965, the Major went from suburban double-features to adult fare. In October of 1965, the theater’s name was changed to the Lido Theater — a very successful and oft-raided adult theater that added live shows in 1966. That theater went into 1970 when operators mulled over the impact of a Texas obscenity law that had survived a legal challenge. It was subleased and had a very brief run as a Hispanic Theater for three months in 1970 and reverted to playing X-rated fare that same year.
On March 18, 1971, it rebranded as more of an XXX adult house under new ownership and rediscovering its audience. With the neighboring Tamlo Club and Show Lounge which had live shows and some XXX films, the neighborhood drew crowds. The Lido continued all the way into the 1980s until city restrictions were placed on adult theaters within 1,000 feet of a city park. With the home video revolution occurring, it could have been a challenging marketplace for the Lido moving forward with or without the restrictions.
In 1991, the Lido reverted back to its original name, the Major Theater. It started with live shows and then mixed in films with many fewer seats. It made a little news by showing Dial M for Murder in 3-D. Since the film had been shown flat at the Majestic in 1954, it was Dallas' first chance to see the Hitchcock film in 3D. The theater closed in 1992 and re-opened in 1993 showing classic films. The lineage was that the Edison Theater had opened as a revival house that moved to the Granada Theater. The Major was the follow-up location after the Granada changed its operation. Partners Rob Clements and Bryce Gonzalez changed from retro movies to live shows beginning July 15, 1995. That appears to have lasted just over a year. In 1998, the Propel Group doing web development and digital media opened and was still in the space as of the 2010s. As for the Lido name, the tradition carried on and was in used into the 2010s as the name of an adult theater at 7035 W. John W. Carpenter Freeway in Dallas.
The Ritz Theater operated for five decades at 105 E. Main Street in downtown Richardson. As the city grew, the theater tried to adapt. In 1948, owner J.B. Roberts invested $42,000 in the theater to expand seating and modernize the theater. The theater closed briefly in 1961 the theater’s image including a name change. But the last ten years saw the theater struggling to stay relevant with audiences before subsiding in 1972.
The Ritz was first rebranded in 1961 as the Electra Theater showing double features of second-run content. In 1965, the Electra tried to become an art house and only allowed adult-aged patrons. The experiment had its moments so the theater decided to rebrand once again in 1966 becoming the Holiday Art Theatre (often just referred to in marketing as the “Holiday”) showing repertory films from the “vaults.” The Holiday closed and that was it for film exhibition for the former Ritz. It became home to the Richardson Community Theater retitled the theater as the Richardson Playhouse in 1969. For three years, the theater put on live stage plays. When that ended in 1972, the theater passed to owners who as of the 2010s still held the theater. Elements of the theater are still present in the building which has been totally retrofitted. The balcony is still present as is the screen and rigging. But the days of presentation are behind the Ritz/Electra/Holiday Art/Richardson Playhouse as the building was home to business including Fluid Power Supply into the 2010s used as a business office by Stone Associates.
While I love the site and agree with everything said on behavior, the usability needs addressing. The notion that you can put in the name of a theater that you’re presumably doing research on (e.g, Dal-Sec) and the site’s search engine returns “no movie theaters found”, that’s not too user friendly… especially when the theater is actually in the database. A response of “no open theaters found; one closed theater found” or similar might be more approachable for users. But when the database consists of 80% closed items, to default to “open” seems counter to first-time or even veteran users. Few newbie users would venture to the tiny bar and know to hit the greyed-out “closed” if the theater was in that space. Again, love the site and appreciate the contributions of all.
Hunt Properties built the Dallas North Shopping Center in Plano which with an announced grocery store in 1962 at the corner of North Central Expressway and 15th Street. But the Center wouldn’t officially officially open until August 1967 when additional businesses including Mott’s Five and Dime and Illinois fast-food chain Mr. Quick joined the shopping complex connected with a climate-controlled sidewalk. Fifth grader Vickie Wesch then wrote a letter to Interstate Theater Circuit’s John Q. Adams saying that the shopping center and Plano needed a movie theater gathering 83 signatures on a petition to persuade the circuit. Kismet. Hunt Properties would build a movie theater in its North Shopping Center and leased it to Interstate Theaters. In 1969, Jack H. Morgan was the architect and drew plans. But ABC and Interstate would merge operations becoming ABC-Interstate necessitating a minor change and second set of architectural drawings. Construction began on May 4, 1970 with a ceremonial ground breaking using a shovel made of film reels and canisters. Plano Mayor Connor Harrington and Interstate President John Q. Adams were among the featured guests.
The delayed project would finally open as a stand-alone building in the Center technically on Janwood St. It was ABC-Interstate’s 84th Texas theater beginning service November 18, 1971 with the film “Scrooge.” Wesch, the student who had suggested the concept of the theater, received a one year’s free pass. The grand opening featured the burying of a time capsule in a crypt to be opened in 2005 on ABC Interstate’s 100th anniversary. (Spoiler alert: maybe they should have moved that date up by 20 or so years.) While the population was growing in Plano, picking a successful spot within the sprawling suburb proved challenging.
The Cameo was not a success story for Interstate. Fifth grader Wesch had apparently not done enough demographic research or crafted policies that would lead to success for the theater chain. During a showing of “The Cross and the Switchblade” in 1971, the blades were out as young patrons slashed theater seats. Another boy lit a sparkler during a show and underage smoking was a problem for the theater. Patrons complained that loud talking made movie-going a chore at the Cameo. ABC Interstate apologized for the six-month old theater which even they admitted now looked many, many years old. This forced the manager to quit and the city council to look into the situation. Even with a new manager on board, the theater was not profitable and was closed by the chain.
On June 7, 1974, ABC Interstate decided to give the Cameo property second life opening with “American Graffiti.“ The rebirth was not a success and ABC Interstate closed the property again. But by decade’s end, the population trends had improved. In 1979, Plitt Theaters which had acquired the Interstate circuit reopened the Cameo for the third time in the same decade with a grand re-re-opening on April 6, 1979 showing “The Deer Hunter” in the renamed Palisades Shopping Center. The circuit under its revised name of Plitt Southern decided to close the theater a fourth time — this time temporarily — to twin the theater and rebrand it as the Collin Creek Cameo.
The twin-screen theater launched with a grand re-re-re-opening in the shadow of the Collin Creek Mall whose first store had opened back on October 20, 1980. The theater’s longest stretch of being opened happened under Plitt Southern as they operated the Collin Creek Cameo to what appears to be the end of a 15-year, disappointing lease cycle that wasn’t renewed. The theater was shuttered as a downgraded, second-run discount house. Neither the Interstate Circuit nor the Cameo Theater had survived long enough to open the time capsule on the overly-optimistic 2005 date stated during the theater’s grand opening. In the realm of DFW film exhibition luminaries, the Collin Creek Cameo had but a cameo. Among its distinctions was having been closed four times by the same operator (not including the one for remodeling) and four celebrated openings. A rarity in this area. Its exit came via demolition as the Collin Creek’s footprint grew with many non-descript strip shopping centers supplanting the Palisades Shopping Center. The good news was that local moviegoers could go across the street and down a dead-end road if they had an awareness that General Cinema Corp. had constructed a six-screen theater well-hidden from the mall for which the circuit’s theater was named: the GCC Collin Creek VI.
The Little Theater was built in 1922 as an adobe 2-story live theatre. WW-2 found community theater in decline and the theater went dark. It was renamed the El Panamericano by new operator J.J. Rodriguez in October 1943 showing Spanish language films. Rodriguez then closed Cine Azteca, Dallas' first Spanish language movie theatre which had launched in 1937 because the diminutive theater was often well above capacity. Rodriguez operated this mega-successful movie theater appealing to what was known as the Little Mexico neighborhood in Dallas. But in 1965, Rodriguez got some business advice and rebranded the property to appeal to a more upscale audience. The Panamericano owner rolled the dice closing the theater temporarily and moved itself from middle class Hispanic theater to a high-end Festival Theater art house with adjoining Festival Lounge and Buccaneer Terrace. It opened Sept. 20, 1965 to sold out audiences. That didn’t last.
Meanwhile, Rodriguez took over the flagging Chisolm Trail Drive-In in Grand Prairie to continue his Spanish language film exhibition rebranding the ozoner as the Auto Vista opening March 29, 1965 with “La Bandida” and “Suenos de Oro.” (The Weisenburg Circuit would take over the short-lived Auto Vista and re-rebrand it as the East Main Drive-In, returning it to English language films.)
Rodriguez admitted that the high risk remodeling of his Panamericno to the Festival proved to be a mistake as the Hispanic population was moving out of the area and Oak Cliff audiences gravitated to the Stevens Theatre which had changed to Spanish language film and not the Auto Vista. The Buccaneer Terrace was closed shortly into its run. In 1968, Rodriguez tried changing to double feature adult art content and reopened the Terrace. But the property struggled and Rodriguez reverted to Spanish language film. But even that marketplace had changed with the Stevens king and – by the late 1970s – several more Spanish language theaters entered the DFW market and Little Mexico was virtually gone. The Festival was on life support and though Rodriguez managed to make it into July of 1981 he sold the Festival to real estate investors. A final live play was staged at the theatre as a last hoorah for the property in Oct. and Nov. of 1981 rekindling its roots as the Little Theater. The theater was demolished but is one of Dallas' most important cinema treasures for serving generations of Hispanic moviegoers.
United Artists purchased four acres of a 12-acre tract at the southeast corner of Beltline and what was once part of North Star Road in Garland in 1984 to build a multiplex. MPM Development would then build a 68,000 sq. ft. strip shopping center around the theater called North Star Crossing bringing additional traffic to the complex. The UA 8 North Star (often fused as Northstar 8 in ads) opened December of 1984 and, in its operation of just over 21 years, the theater remained a first-run house under the aegis of UA/Regal through its entire existence. The UA 8 South, the UA 8 Las Vegas Trail and UA 8 North Star were built much like the “second-generation” UA 8’s around the country: fairly non-descript but serviceable locations that weren’t destination multiplexes like the UA Plaza or the UA Galaxy but more neighborhood-centric and understated.
Unlike its first era of multiplexes, these UA 8’s had more soothing color palettes and indirect lighting. The smallest houses were 280 seaters with fairly uncomfortable chairs. At the 16-year mark, the North Star got some good news in that General Cinema closed its Richardson location in 2000 just 3.5 miles away which led to an uptick in customers at the North Star. For patrons, good news occurred when the UA MacArthur Marketplace megaplex mega-flopped in less than five years of service from 1999 to 2004. When the Regal shut the theater, the North Star was the recipient of the MacArthur seating. It was a nice improvement. Despite the new seating, the North Star wasn’t given a ringing endorsement from the chain. As Regal ramped up its digitally projected pre-show “2wenty” in most auditoriums in 2003/4, the North Star was largely left out of the transition which was a portent of things to come.
Regal shuttered aging UA multiplexes all over the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex and beyond shortly after taking over United Artists. And when AMC opened its Firewheel Town Center Mall 18-screener in far east Garland on December 14, 2005, the North Star UA 8 was looking quite aged. Just one month after the AMC launch, the North Star closed for good on January 29, 2006. Few people bothered to show up for the final shows that evening. The property was updated for new business owners. First into the location in its post-theatrical life was a sports bar closing in 2011, then it was Legends Jumpin House closing in 2013, then it was briefly Quinceanera Reception Halls event center, then it was…. well, you get the idea. The theater’s conversion away from a multiplex – like so many others – has proven to be a challenge to the shopping center. And unlike the UA 8 Vegas Trails or UA 8 South that didn’t have the adjoining shopping center to be concerned with, those 8-plexes were more readily converted into stand-alone non-profit churches.
Veteran theater owner Bob Davis constructed the single screen Plano Drive-In in 1969. The theater was at the northeast corner of Parker Road and Central Expressway / U.S. 75. That caught the eye of the McLendon Theater Circuit which had recently purchased the Downs Drive-In in Grand Prairie and would convert it to the renamed, multi-screen Century Drive-In in 1970. The circuit had also converted the single screen Garland Road Drive-In into the three-screen Apollo Drive-In. McClendon took over the Plano retaining its moniker but converted it to a three-screen operation. At that point, McLendon also operated the Astro, Apollo, Gemini, Century, and East Main in Grand Prairie as their DFW ozoners.
This appears to be a 15-year lease situation common to land speculation of that era as Dallas' suburbs were moving northward. When former department chain Mervyn’s expanded into Dallas in 1984, they hosted a big event at the Plano Drive-In, the last major event at the Plano Drive-In. In 1985, the drive-in became home to overflow parking for the nearby Collin Creek Mall and the Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) Park ‘n’ Ride allowing commuters to take express busses into Dallas. DART was working on building a mud-free / paved and modern transit center across the street on the southeast corner. Under their aegis, the drive-in was damaged in 1986 and actually repaired despite the fact that the facility would never be used for theatrical purposes again.
The DART center finally was completed in 1989 and the Drive-in was vacated. It was demolished and became home to a nondescript strip shopping center at 3300 N. Central Expressway that in the 2010s housed stores such as Ross Clothes for Less, Petsmart, and Sports Authority. To go back in time, a visit to historicalaerials.com and inputting the 3300 Central Expressway in Plano, TX in 1979 gives you a great look at the former three screen operation.
M.C. Cole opened the $3,000,000 Ridgewood Shopping Center in 1959 with 141,000 square feet of business space occupied by stores including Wyatt’s Grocery Store, Woolworth’s, and M.L. Green. Cole planned to add a second phase consisting of 141,000 square feet if the center succeeded. It did. The Ridgewood Theater was late in the second stage of the Center. Ground was broken in May of 1967 and the theater was architected by Kynn Cole and built by M.C. Cole’s Ranco Development Company for $350,000 for the Interstate Circuit. The 866-seat theater would be patterned after the Westwood in Richardson and Hurst’s Bellaire theaters for Interstate. The interior of the Ridgewood was Mediterranean style used antique brick and had floors with a basketweave design, quarry tile. Wall to wall screen with an overhead vertical lift curtain with automatically controlled maskings along with stereo sound and auto dimmers in lighting made for a modern, versatile theater. The exterior also used antique brick.
The theater launched on December 21, 1967 with Disney’s “The Happiest Millionaire.” Interstate created a 10-minute film on the city of Garland that ran prior to the show. The theater became the 85th for Interstate. Hal Burreson was the first manager of the Ridgewood. The theater was community-minded booking local live acts occasionally and allowing benefit screenings periodically. Under Burreson, only G rated films were booked with only one exception: “Midnight Cowboy.” Burreson moved to the Medallion in Dallas when it opened in 1969 and was replaced by William L. Moyer. With a new sheriff in town, the Ridgewood changed fairly quickly. Moyer decided he didn’t want to be Garland’s babysitter and eliminated G-rated films. The adult-only R-rated policy was put in because of damage kids were causing to Ridgewood’s seating, the high volume of underage smoking, the cutting of electrical cords and general rowdiness. On Friday nights, Moyer said that “adults couldn’t even hear the movies.”
But in Garland, that sort of anti-family policy didn’t sit too well. So a public meeting was scheduled to deal with the vandalism issue at the theater and Moyer reversed course on the theater’s adults-only policy. (And Moyer said it had nothing to do with a short-term downturn of ticket sales.) The theater hosted a private advance screening of “Living Free” with stars Elsa the lion in attendance and the World Premiere of Semi-Tough with author Dan Jenkins in attendance happened at the Northtown Six, Ridgewood and Village on Nov. 13, 1977. The large lobby space allowed Interstate to take advantage of a pinball craze to install pinball machines bringing additional revenue. Entering the 1980s, the pinball machines would be replaced by video games as pinball lost favor. By the end of 1977, Interstate (then ABC-Interstate) had contemplated downgrading the Ridgewood to discount, dollar status. But it said that wasn’t the right play for the theater or the community.
In 1978, ABC-Interstate sold the theater to Plitt group. The theater began a minor descent thereafter as the theater was relegated to discount, dollar status by Plitt, then it was twinned, and – most embarrassingly – closed by the fire marshal for life-threatening fire exit problems on October 14, 1984. Then theater manager Timothy Langevin was arrested on three counts of fire code violations. Though it reopened shortly thereafter, the Ridgewood halcyon days were over as it soldiered onward as a twin discount house existing in a multiplex world. It would finally close. The Ridgewood’s days were not over as it was used for live theater in two years for religious plays and functions in 2001 and 2002. It was booked as a special events center during the 2000s. And late in the 2000s, it became a club featuring live music which was not a success. As of the 2010s, the Westwood was vacant but seemingly ready for the next potential tenant with a dream.
Interstate reached the finish line with its Highland Park Village shopping center in 1935 with the name scheduled to be the Tower Theater named after its beacon tower. But that theater was ultimately named the Village using the shopping center’s namesake. But Interstate picked up the name for its modestly-priced $125,000 W. Scott Dunne architected final count 1,320 leather trimmed seat Tower Theater. An intriguing project found within the Tower Petroleum Building and extending beyond it. A wrecking ball was taken to one existing portion of the Tower Building with a few parts of the walls used in the theater which received a new steel frame construction. George P. O’Rourke Construction built the entrance right through the just- vacated Webb Waffle House in the Tower Building beginning in August of 1936. The auditorium was constructed thereafter opening February 19, 1937. The lobby of the theater had a giant aquarium by Irwin Waite with tropical fish, aquatic plants, wall to wall mirrors, and neon-lighted handrails. Eugene Gilboe painted the murals to match. Interior of the theater’s auditorium, however, was not close to matching. It was downright spartan as the themed palace days were ending. And the diminutive budget for such a downtown theater was clearly spent elsewhere.
The Tower opened with the film, “Rainbow on the River” with star Bobby Breen in attendance and reverted to being the second-week run for pictures leaving the Majestic or Palace after one week. It got a refresh when it was closed for nine months while a building extension to the larger Tower Petroleum Building was made called the Corrigan Tower above and around the theater beginning on March 14, 1951. When it reopened on Christmas of that year, the 1930s were gone replaced by new murals and cleaner look along with an air conditioning system. The lack of thematic movie palace elements helped the theater stay contemporary as did innovation. The new Tower agot into closed circuit sporting events staring with the Rocky Marciano Roland La Starza fight. It was a $50,000 experiment by Interstate. Theater Network Television (TNT) also played operas and symphonies via closed circuit which continued through 1955.
But the Tower hit its stride updating its projection in the 1950s and 1960s allowing for large format screenings with 70mm projection, stereo sound, exclusive sneak previews, and roadshows such as El Cid, The Happiest Millionaire, Patton, and Ben Hur. In fact, to many locals, the Tower was the “Ben Hur” theater. In November of 1959, William Wyler came to Dallas to show a sneak preview of the film. The Tower would go on to have Ben Hur for almost one full year. But as the Central Zone took off with Interstate’s Medallion and Wilshire, as well as General Cinema’s NorthPark, UA’s Ciné 150, and others, downtown theaters took a precipitous turn as population shifts and free parking at suburbans were in favor. Rather abruptly, the Tower was closed just after July 4, 1971 with the last feature of “The Seven Minutes.” Since that times out almost precisely to 35 years from the date of the previous tenant leaving the Tower Building and Interstate beginning, it would likely indicate an end of lease situation. The Tower’s lobby was retrofitted for a business soon thereafter. The auditorium stayed boarded up until December of 1978 when the spot below the Corrigan Tower was finally deconstructed.
The 100,000 square foot Eastgate Shopping Center opened in September of 1972 just off of Interstate 635 at 1450 Northwest Highway at Saturn Road. The twin-screen theater was an original tenant and began life with its moniker of “The Movies” officially at 1430 Northwest Highway. That wasn’t a hit so the theater closed and reopened on September 6, 1974 as Eastgate Cinemas 2 with “The Bootlegger” and “Thunderbolt and Lightfoot” on screen two. The theater was still not a hit and was downgraded to dollar house status entering the 1980s.
Operated by William B. Boren’s fledgling circuit consisting of the Eastgate, Westgate Cinema in McKinney, Wilshire Showcase I & II in Euless, Cineworld 4 and Lancaster Showcase in Fort Worth and two theaters in Blackwell, OK, the writing was on the wall when nine film companies sued Boren in February of 1983 for not providing enough of the owed admission receipts for the period beginning in 1978 forward. The twin-screen era was ending in the multiplex world anyway and the Eastgate was a dead duck in May of 1984. Or was it?
On June 22d of 1984, the Eastgate became a twin screen adult theater and suddenly the theater had the attention of what had been an indifferent populace. Scoring with X-rated hits including Emanuelle and Caligula, the Eastgate was drawing audiences and raised eyebrows. Garland’s first adult theater was a hit! But clientele at nearby family establishments including Furr’s Cafeteria, a Hallmark card store, and a Christian book store launched a petition drive backed by the Garland Church of Christ. The complaints reached the owner of Eastgate Shopping Center, Hank Dickerson Realators.
The attention lead to great business and picketers protesting the operation. Members of Rev. Daniel Hicks' Four Square Gospel Church prayed for the future of morality in the city of Garland. And the sentiments of one city councilman summarized the situation, “I wouldn’t want my wife to go to a shopping center where there are customers of this type of facility.” On July 17th, the city of Garland hastily passed an ordinance banning X-rated films within 500 feet of a church, park, school, or residential area (or where oxygen is present) to zone the theater out of existence. On July 18th, Hank Dickerson sent an eviction notice. And within two weeks, the Eastgate and operator M&B Cinema of Houston with George Marules were in court facing immediate eviction. Eastgate manager Rick “X” explained the difference between X-rated fare originating in the adult art porno chic era and the more lewd XXX fare that the Eastgate would never show. Manager Rick pledged to show more art, foriegn and R-Rated films in the future and understood why a zoning ordinance would apply to an XXX theater.
The initial suit was dismissed because even to the Garland Justice of the Peace, the speed of the process was far too brisk to be fair to the operators of the cinema. But refiled a month later, the Emanuelle (Eastgate Cinema) v. Goliath (Garland) situation was back. Emanuelle’s slingshot was the First Amendment and marketplace of ideas v. the Goliath of overwhelming public sentiment and legal standing on public nuisance attributable to movie posters in public view and a very dubiously worded zoning ordinance. Goliath took down Emanuelle as the realtor and city of Garland got their way in a court ordered eviction of M&B and Eastgate Cinema. “I think it was a victory for the Lord Jesus in that darkness was dealt a destructive blow,” Rev. Hicks said, “I think it was a case of God hearing the prayers of his people.” What followed were police raids of adult video and novelty stores that sought to rid Garland of filth. And the controversial theater would close advertising as the slightly rebranded Eastgate Adult Cinema in its final days for clearer marketing purposes. The Eastgate was offered to anyone who wanted to bring some good-old family entertainment to the shopping center and the cleansed Garland citizenry. Of course, nobody wanted to do that and the Eastgate was history: a sleepy first 11.75 years and a rambunctious legally-challenged final .5 years.
The Big Town Mall was the Texas' first enclosed air conditioned mall opening in 1959. Big Town’s original open-air design was changed in a final architectural revision which meant that later buildings would be left out of the mall. One of those later buildings was General Drive-In’s first theater in Dallas-Fort Worth, Big Town Cinema. The $208,000, 900-seat theater was designed by Maurice Sornik of New York with Don Speck the local supervising architect. Ten Eyck & Shaw was the contractor with Herman Blum & Associates as engineers. The theater launched with “Cleopatra” on Feb. 27, 1964 coinciding with Big Town’s fifth anniversary. Just two months later in April 1964, General Drive-In Corp. stockholders changed the company’s name to General Cinema Corp. and all future GCC properties in Dallas were built under that moniker.
In 1972, General Cinema twinned the Big Town along with its Lochwood and Park Plaza theaters. Competition came in the form of another nearby mall, the Town East Mall. General Cinema built a first theater outside of the theater. When AMC opened a multiplex in 1974 (later followed by a UA multiplex, a dividing of General Cinema’s Town East into five screens, and an additional General Cinema Town East 6), the Big Town was reduced to discount, dollar house status which it would remain until its closure in 1999.
The longevity of the discount Big Town took a turn for the better when Cinemark took over Big Town Cinema. To get more life out of the aging property, it twinned the twins and built a five-screen addition onto the property making it the Big Town Cinema 9. As a discount house, the Big Town thrived. But when the Big Town Mall went into rapid decline shedding stores, Big Town merely survived to its final closure on January 31, 1999. Because the timing works out to exactly 25 years, this was very likely an end-of-lease closure. The Big Town Mall eventually lost all of its stores and was demolished in 2006 taking the Big Town Farmer’s Market and the – then – decaying Big Town Cinema with it. The Big Town Lanes somehow soldiered on until 2009 before its owners retired, thus, closing and being demolished. The only remnant of the complex was the “Big Town Event Center” that housed frequent gun shows into the 2010s.
The Garland Road Drive-In kicked off on April 7th, 1950 with searchlights and a circus calliope band wagon featuring Charla. Opening feature was “Oh You Beautiful Doll”. Dallas-Fort Worth was in a drive-in boom period with the Garland, Hines Blvd. and South Loop opening within a week of each other. And this was the first of three drive-ins to be opened by C.D. Leon’s fledgling Leon Theatres Circuit that season proceeded by the Hampton Road Drive-In on May 12th and the Denton Road Drive-In on June 23, 1950. The Garland Drive-in got a boost when the Briley Heights addition brought 400 homes in 103 acre tract just west of the ozoner adding potential customers. Some notables: While playing the film, “Once a Thief” on May 9, 1952, the theater was robbed of $350. In the early 1950s, the First Methodist Church held their Sunday morning services at the drive-in. In 1957, Leon applied to show first-run movies into Garland homes in early pay television experiments.
At the end of the 1958 drive-in season, Leon subleased the Hampton and Denton Road locations to Claude C. Ezell’s newly-reformed Ezell Theater Circuit / Bordertown Theaters Inc. But Leon held on to his Hampton Road location. The Garland Road closed at the end of February 1966. Garland residents wouldn’t be without an ozoner for long as Tri-State Theaters / McLendon Theaters continued its space-aged theme of multiscreen drive-ins at the location. The operators of Gemini and Astro drive-in also opened the Apollo Twin Drive-In.
The Apollo was a $1.8 million location designed by H.A. Jordan on a 31.5 triangular acre lot for a reported 1,800 cars and could accommodate another 175 walk-ins at the patio. The curved 132 foot by 80 foot screens were dubbed by McClendon as “Specturama screens” that were more than 10 stories high. A candy cane-striped 7,000 square foot air conditioned restaurant. Two separate patios with speakers at the tables allowed walk-ups. The twin had two entrances, one on Shiloh Road and the other at Garland Road. The Apollo Twin Drive-in launched with a two-day Grand Opening on October 3, 1968 with “The Lost Continent” and “The Vengeance of She” on the North Screen and “The Detective” and “Come Spy with Me” on the South Screen. Actor Big John Hamilton was there with KLIF AM radio. The “Motion Picture Herald” said that people were amazed at the opening calling the ‘big double A’ the “ultimate of ultimate” in drive-ins.
The theater ran into trouble with the Garland City Council in 1972. The city approved a ban of nude scenes shown at a drive-in if the screen could be seen by passing cars. McLendon had been voluntarily cutting offensive portions from films shown at the Apollo but said mandating the cutting of the films gravitated the situation from self-censorship to censorship. One film sent “by mistake” had lesbian love scenes and had led to the action. A classic court line occurred when a medical doctor testifying n behalf of the City of Garland said, “It is hard for almost any man to go by the theater without being distracted.”
In the 1980s, the Apollo added a new sound system so that patrons could listen to the sound track on the car’s AM radio instead of the speakers. After B.R. McLendon died, the estate of B.R. McLendon sold the Apollo outright to Tri-State Theatres Ltd. Partnership at the end of 1986. That was also the last year of the Apollo Drive-In as the theater was demolished to make way for a new retail superstore. On December 28, 1988 Hypermart – a superstore combining Wal-Mart and local grocery store chain Tom Thumb into a large 24-hour concept store, the first of two built in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and five in the nation. Walmart would go it alone on future 24-hour superstores. The Garland store fulfilled its 20-year lease transitioning to a Wal-Mart prior to closing in 2008 and the company followed its standard practice of abandoning the property to build another nondescript location elsewhere; the Hypermart remained empty into the 2010s. But to some locals, that spot will remain a drive-in destination that produced around 35 years of memories.
Richardson Square Mall was an Edward J. DeBartolo single level, 739,000 square foot shopping complex. And General Cinema was an original tenant of the mall opening one day after the Mall’s October 20, 1977 launch. General Cinema opened two theaters within a week of each other. First up was the Red Bird Mall Cinema I-II-III-IV in Oak Cliff which sat just outside of the mall. And inside of the Richardson Square Mall and opening a week later was the Richardson Square I-II-III opening October 21, 1977 with “Oh God!”, “The Other Side of Midnight” and “Young Frankenstein.” The theater was General Cinema’s ninth at that point in Dallas and its immediate suburbs with Big Town, NorthPark 1 & 2, NorthPark “East” aka 3 & 4, Valley View, Town East, Irving Mall, Treehouse (formerly Lochwood), Red Bird and Richardson Sq. The three auditoriums were equal in size with 325 seats in each auditorium. One of the biggest hits for the theater was “Saturday Night Fever” which played more than 20 weeks.
Reviled from the outset as being cramped, ill-sized, and totally lacking any charm, Richardson residents got a break ten years later when General Cinema provided a better designed theater across the street with the Richardson 6 theater. As one newspaper critic said, the theaters were an improvement over the Richardson Square Mall Cinema but “almost anything would be.” General Cinema tried to wring ever dollar it could from the Richardson Square Mall property converting it to second run and running it into the mid-1990s. When General Cinema shuttered the location, it was repurposed into a Barnes and Noble. When Barnes and Noble moved to the Firewheel shopping complex, the mass exodus was already on and the Richardson Square Mall, itself, became a casualty falling to the wrecking ball though leaving its major anchors standing and in business.
The Kaufman Pike was a 600-car capacity drive-in opened July 1, 1949 for Charles W. Weisenburg. The Kaufman Pike opened with “Montana Mike” the same day that the Hi-Vue Drive-In opened by W.P. Moran. Weisnburg’s first drive-in was the Palo Duro in Amarillo but he would add five drive-ins to the Dallas Fort Worth area during the drive-in boom of the late 1940s and early 1950s. He also owned the Crest Theater, an indoor operation less than 15 miles away in Seagoville. While playing mostly second run double features, throughout the 1950s, the Kaufman Pike exhibited first-run B films, as well. John William “Wild Bill” Tucker brought his cowboy shooting and sound effects touring show to the Kaufman in 1953. The President of Jacksonville College hosted an Easter sunrise service at the drive-in in 1954. In the 1960s, the Kaufman would also get some first-run films from major studios in what were termed “saturation releases.”
in 1978, Weisenburg auctioned off his Kaufman Pike, Linda Kay, Bruton Road, and Lewisville 121 Twin drive-ins as he was retiring from his circuit that had 38 theaters at its apex. The Kaufman Pike closes in 1979. It has a grand re-opening by its new operator, Global Pictures Ltd., on June 6, 1981 showing “Texas Lightning,” “Graduation Day”, and “Bobbie Jo and the Outlaw”. The theater made it to its 35th anniversary on July 1, 1984. When it closed for the season at the end of 1984, it didn’t appear to re-open in 1985.
Interstate Theatres built the Medallion in 1968 opening with Butch Cassidy on October 30th, 1969. Notable exclusives there were The Godfather, The Sting, MASH, American Graffiti, Deliverance, and Chinatown. Downtown theatres struggled as the Central Zone (NorthPark, UA 150 (later Cine) and Medallion) thrived. Medallion held sneak of Jaws and Steven Spielberg cited the Medallion as his “good luck theater” and one of his most memorable moments. He also sneaked Close Encounters and 1941 before moving his sneaks to the nearby NorthPark I & II.
In 1978, Plitt acquired many of Interstate theatres and the Medallion became a Plitt property. Competition became fierce in what was known as the Central Zone as multiplexes opened nearby in the 1980s.
The Medallion was sold to United Artists, in 1986. UA closed the Medallion for two months on March 20, 1986 converted it to three auditoriums. The original screen remained intact on the south side of the theatre and two smaller screens were located on the north side, adjacent to the newly remodeled and expanded concession stand. The two northern houses remained until its closure, holding 300 and 140 patrons. When the high tech UA Plaza opened in May of 1989, the Medallion became a second run bargain theatre and the nearby UA Cine became an art house.
The Central Zone was negatively impacted in the mid-1990s when the megaplex era began. UA gave up the Medallion in 1993. Dallas-based Trans-Texas Theatre Company took over the Medallion and two other failing movie houses, Cinemark’s NorthTown and Skillman 6. Trans-Texas turned the three-screen house Medallion into a five-screen house as the original silver-beaded screen was split three ways. The move proved somewhat successful prior to the theatre being sold to the Hollywood Theatre chain in 1997.
Under Hollywood Theatres management, the theatre experimented with second run art house movies and attracted the Vistas Hispanic-oriented film festival. The owners noting the down-turned discount movie environment deleted weekday matinees before abandoning the DFW area temporarily in early 2000.
Premiere Cinema Corporation became the next owner of the Medallion. Premiere brought back matinees, regularly showed classic films and experimented with midnight films aimed at the nearby SMU college audience. It continued its connection with the Vistas Film Festival before closing the theatre.
The seventh and final operator was an independent under the management of George Jones. It became an outlet for low-budget, locally produced films, promotional showmanship (including live hypnotists, clowns, and other gimmicks used to attract moviegoers in the 1930s and 1940s) along with second run features. The theater was given a minor updating in its concession area, including a party area and paintings of movie stars.
The Medallion’s last day was December 13th, 2001 ending a 32-year run. In a nice touch, one of the Medallion’s last films was the very first film shown there, Butch Cassady and the Sundance Kid. The theater sat deserted for three and a half years until being torn down in May of 2005 to make room for a Kohl’s Department Store.
If the trivia question were to be asked, “What Dallas drive-in theater had the longest run?” the documentable answer is none other than the Lone Star. The Lone Star Drive-In Theaters circuit run by E.L. Pack had opened Lone Star named drive-ins in El Paso, Houston, Lubbock and Waco before opening the 650-car Lone Star Drive-In at 5506 Military Parkway (though advertised as 5500 Military) in Dallas on November 3, 1951. Fireworks opened the evening followed by the main feature of “Broken Arrow.” On March 23, 1961, the Lone Star’s address was 4600 Lawnview Avenue where it was advertised until its closure.
The Lone Star’s traditional fare gravitated to adult content in 1966 where it continued successfully for more than twenty years into the home video revolution. Locals often referred to the operation as “The Porn Star.” Totally lacking in marketing, nostalgia or publicity, the Lone Star and Linda Kay were the final two adult drive-ins in Dallas into the mid-1980s with the higher-visibility Astro as the last remaining traditional ozoner in the city. The L-K went down in 1986. And the end of the line was coming for the Lone Star but it was the city that was calling and not necessarily lack of patrons.
In November of 1987, the city of Dallas filed suit seeking a temporary injunction against the Lone Star because its sexually-oriented business license expired. The operator said that it had applied for a renewal. A December 18th hearing took place and that appears to be the end the drive-in’s run. At just past 36 years of operation, the Lone Star was Dallas' winner for longest-running drive-in theater. The Astro was the last drive-in to be in operation in Dallas surviving 30 years to 1998. And arguably the Jefferson was the last standing drive-in tower torn down in 2004 after years of inactivity with the Lone Star and its brethren demolished much earlier.
On March 21, 1956, Mr. and Mrs. J.B. Roberts opened the Arapaho Road Drive-In. The Roberts had owned the Ritz since 1942 and expanded to the Arapaho with Desi and Lucy’s feature, “Forever Darling.” Trouble came early when Mrs. Roberts reported and testified about spikes were thrown maliciously to damage tires at her drive-in. The Roberts decided against hiring a union projectionist and spikes were thrown in 1957 at both the Arapaho and the Linda Kay Drive-In, which also didn’t hire a union projectionist. The perpetrators were jailed but the sentence was reduced when the overall tire damage was estimated at just $75. The theater was home to an annual Easter sunrise service each year through 1971 which appears to be the drive-in’s last year.
The drive-in’s number was up when the land owners decided to request and received a zoning change to allow a multiple residence dwelling on the site of the drive-in. The Arapaho would be demolished and the site would house a senior citizen complex in the future. It’s also possible that the Roberts had a 15-year lease on the drive-in property since it times out to 15 years of bookings.
Frank Gillespie launched the Linda Kay in Dallas' incorporated town of Kleberg near Rylie on June 29, 1956 with “The Last Hunt” and “Red Sundown.” (The drive-in would later be listed as being in Rylie, TX followed by Dallas in ads.) The Linda Kay was another drive-in on the Kaufman Pike (Highway 175). With the main drive-in spurt in Dallas being 1948-1951, the Linda Kay had the advantage of opening as a CinemaScope enabled screen at the outset. A nasty incident in 1957 reportedly led to 75 cars with wrecked tires when an activist spiked the drive-in because Gilespie refused to hire a union projectionist. The perpetrators were found guilty but got a reduced sentence when the actual tire damage was said to have been just $75.
Charles Weisenburg bought the theater adding it to his circuit. In 1978, Weisenburg auctioned off his Kaufman Pike, Bruton Road, Lewisville 121 Twin and Linda Kay drive-ins as he was retiring from his circuit that had 38 theaters at its apex. The Linda Kay under new ownership would turn to porn and survive into the home video era. It earned its stripes as an adult theater by being raided by the police on February 19, 1982 with the film, “The Starlets” seized and 40 customers sent home. (Given that one could see the screen from the road – and after showing over a hundred adult films – this one must’ve had a particular scene that just outraged someone nearby.) As the adult film industry was decimated by home video in the mid-1980s, the Linda Kay would be denied a happy ending though surviving a very impressive 30 years. She outlasted many other area drive-ins that had far more publicity but not the longevity. The L-K was demolished at a listed address – though perhaps incorrect – of 11950 CF Hawn Freeway.
Phil Isley Enterprises theater circuit opened the Crest at 2603 Lancaster Road in the Cedar Crest Shopping Center on March 30, 1948 with the film, “Cass Timberlane.” T.N. Childress was the manager of the 1,200-seat suburban in Oak Cliff. Two nights later, the Isley Circuit launched its new Avenue Theater at 4923 Columbia Avenue. Youth stage and talent shows along with matinees connected with the audiences. The Crest showed mostly second-run films, horror films, and westerns. Art Dorner brought his traveling Frankenstein stage show to the Crest on October 22, 1948. Dorner was the stand in for Boris Karloff in “Frankenstein” and “Bride of Frankenstein.”
In 1965, Rowley United acquired the Isley Circuit but would eventually divest itself of Isley’s Avenue, Kiest Drive-In, Big D Drive-In, subleased the Heights Theater, and would sublease The Crest. Big Tex Theatres, Inc. took on the Crest which operated the it through 1971. Rowley United stepped back in and appears to have completed the Crest’s run on June 8, 1973 with a double-feature of horror films. The Crest appears to have ended as a film theater in 1978 operating as an independent and showing chopsocky and Blaxploitation double features as a grindhouse. Because that works out almost exactly to 30 years, it could have been an end-of-lease closure and the double bill of “Dragon Squad” and “Super Weapon” could be the final films. From that point forward, The Crest was used as a nightclub and special event house sporadically and was vacant for many years prior to its demolition in 2008.
The original Grand Opening for the Cinderella Drive-In was held December 16, 1950. It was the last of the Dallas' area drive-ins to open in the year 1950. The boom year saw the opening of the Hines Blvd. D-I, Jefferson D-I, Hampton Road D-I, South Loop D-I, Garland Road D-I, Denton Road D-I and – just four days earlier – the Samuell Boulevard D-I. At the Cinderella, the kids got free Lash LaRue comic books and they opened with “Return of the Frontiersman.” They say that they had 2,000 parking spaces and sported a five-story high theater. Another pledge was to be a family friendly drive-in. While it didn’t end that way for the Cinderella when it became the King, the original owners stuck to that business plan.
The Cinderella did play its first world premiere film in 1952 with the exploitation Tower Films' release, “Teen-age Menace.” New owners Ed Bowen and Ted Lewis took on the theater in January of 1958 equipping the Cinderella with its 50x100 panoramic screen with relatively new speakers and had a grand re-opening of the “new” Cinderella with “Baby Face Nelson,” “Running Target,” and “Gun Glory.” Appears as though new owners were in place in March of 1959. The theater closes in the 1960s as the neighboring Starlite, an African American drive-in, just continued to draw audiences.
The Cinderella would go after the Starlite audience relaunching as the King Drive-In and is taken on by the McLendon circuit re-opening July 29, 1970 with Jim Brown’s “The Grasshopper.“ McLendon dropped the King after a Dec. 1975 double-feature of “TNT Jackson” and “The Big Bird Cage.” It becomes an independent who adds a second screen and transforms from Blaxploitation to an adult theater at its end. The King would be abdicated with its closure and demolition.
The Starlite theater was a true survivor in the history of Dallas cinema exhibition. It was Dallas' first African American drive-in theater and therefore was not covered or listed in the local Dallas newspaper movie clock listings or ads until a few studio ads for Blaxploitation films listed the Starlite in the mid-1970s. With its 60' screen and labeled as the “Southwest’s finest for colored entertainment,” the theater played films for more than 25 years. With no ads, passerbys probably knew it best for its jet mural or its red and blue neon.
The theater also survived nearby competition from the Cinderella Drive-In which was opened in 1950 and re-launched with panoramic screen and grand re-opening in 1958. Owner Ed Bowen and his Starlite survived a major fire associated with its neon lights. A hailstorm broke the neon lights and were likely responsible for a Friday the 13th April 1962 blaze at the screen tower. The Cinderella was demolished and replaced by a state of the art twin-screen King Drive-In. When the Blaxploitation genre began and martial arts films were big, the nearby King Twin and Starlite battled it out for the best bookings. And, yet, the Starlite — with just one screen and an undersized 350-car lot (though listed at 500) just kept co-existing with the nearby King until finally ending its successful run and being demolished. The Starlite is probably one of the most historically important drive-ins in the history of Dallas.
The venerable 183 Drive In opened in Irivng in 1950 designed by architect Raymond Smith. The 450-car drive-in theater was a rarity lasting almost 35 years just into the home video era. Irving Mayor Hans Smith co-owned the drive-in with W.P. Gandy at its opening. The owners of the Uptown Theater in Grand Prairie, Mr. and Mrs. Leroy Fischer, then bought the 183 Drive-In and the Irving Theater in November 1959. In the 1960s, Jerry A. Meagher’s Meagher Theatres Circuit took on the 183 Drive-In and the Irving Theater, created the Chateau indoor theater, Buena Vista, Park Plaza Drive –In and would take on the unique Texas Stadium Drive-In from McLendon.
The theater may be best known for its role in the 1988 documentary, “The Thin Blue Line” by Errol Morris and real-life trial of Randall Dale Adams. Adams was wrongfully convicted of murdering police office Robert W. Wood and sentenced to die by lethal injection. Adams had gone with another man, David Ray Harris who had stolen the car they were in, to the 183 Drive-In where they watched “The Student Body” and “Swinging Cheerleaders.” The investigation would lead to Harris who – in turn – would pin the murder on his 183 Drive-in partner, Adams. There was no doubting the staying power of the 183 Drive-In which closed in 1984 with almost 35 years of ozone service.
The Irving Mall opened August 4, 1971. Following a soft launch open house, the General Cinema Irving Mall I-II opened on the mall’s main level on Nov. 17, 1971 with “Something Big” on the 900-seat screen I and “Doctor Zhivago” on the smaller 450-seat screen II. The 900-screen theater was divided into two at the end of 1976 to form the Irving I-II-III. On October 26, 1984, on the mall’s lower floor at the food court, General Cinema added the Irving Mall IV-V-VI-VII.
General Cinema closed the I-II-III in August 1997 to expand into what would be the its only attempt at approaching a modern-build megaplex in Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW) area before its operations were overtaken by AMC. The 14-screen stadium seating Irving Mall 14 was part of a $20 million renovation of the Simon DeBartolo Irving Mall which was trying to compete against strip shopping centers across the street and across the highway. On September 25, 1998, the Irving Mall IV-V-VI-VII ceased leaving the mall theater-less for almost three months. General Cinema also closed the Collin Creek Mall cinema the same day. Those followed the July 1998’s closing of NorthPark III & IV and Prestonwood Town Center as the megaplexes were decimating General Cinema’s failing multiplex business plan. The Irving Mall 14 would have a free soft launch on December 16, 1998 and then open on Dec. 18, 1998.
The move did prompt AMC to shut down its neighboring six-screen dollar house less than a year later. But by 2000/1, General Cinema was in free fall collapse in Chapter 11 bankruptcy and closing theaters all over the nation including virtually every theater in the DFW area. The theater chain was down to just 73 theaters nationwide from its high of 621 theaters when purchased by AMC in Dec. 2001 (approved in 2002). The General Cinema signage was quickly removed from the Irving Mall location on a Thursday night where moviegoers could choose between AMC “Ticket” cups and bags or General Cinema “Popcorn Bob” cups and popcorn bags. Then on Friday, the theater opened as the AMC Irving Mall 14 which operated thereafter. While other shuttered General Cinemas became home to movie theaters, the Irving was the only continuously operated theater passing from General Cinema to AMC in DFW.
Under Dalian Wanda’s takeover of AMC, the AMC Irving was almost shockingly selected for a $6.1 million transformation including a bar, high end recliner seats which led to theaters having just 50 to 130 seats in them. The adjoining, enclosed game rooms were repurposed. AMC paid two thirds of the remodel and Simon Malls which operates the entire property paid for the other third. Total seating went from 3,056 seats in the 14-screener to just 1,152 seats. In July of 2013, the Irving Planning and Zoning Commission approved the liquor license and the theater operated continuously to its relaunch in October of 2013 with its first nine luxury suites. Despite the remodel, a few of the General Cinema coming attraction lit signs were still being used within the theater unchanged since 1998.
For more than seven years, the New American Cinema began using the Festival for late night Saturday and some Sunday matinees of what were considered “underground films” in December of 1968 and running into 1976. Maurice Levy scheduled the screenings using cult classics (e.g,. “Freaks” and “Reefer Madness”), repertory fare including classic cartoon shows and serials, experimental and independent contemporary films that just wouldn’t get booked elsewhere (e.g, “White House Madness” in 1975). The regular art run for the Festival wasn’t one year; it started in 1965 with first-run, changing to art double feature second-runs in 1968, but bookings change over to Mexican Cinema after a brief hiatus in October of 1971 — other than the New American Cinema special screenings. Not wanting the remodeling to go to waste, Rodriguez used the tagline, “Cine Mexicano de lujo” or “Mexican Cinema of luxury” in ads to provide brand differentiation from the Stevens Theater which had swiped away Rodriguez’s audience when the Panamericano switched to art fare back in the 1960s.
This picture is a shot of a firefighter who entered the theater just days after its March of 1933 relaunch and refurnishing as the Fair Theater. He’s in standing water as the theater suffered major hail damage, shattering the glass doors and windows. Five feet of water flooded the newly remodeled theater closing for a short period.
Phil Isley Circuit opened the Major Theater with “California” on May 28, 1947 with Monte Hale and Chill Wills making a personal appearance. The 1,200 seat theater had a cry room and free parking. At the end of June 1964, the Major closed briefly and became an independent under Ramon Garcia Lence of the Casa View, Arapaho Drive-In and REX cinema. During September of 1965, the Major went from suburban double-features to adult fare. In October of 1965, the theater’s name was changed to the Lido Theater — a very successful and oft-raided adult theater that added live shows in 1966. That theater went into 1970 when operators mulled over the impact of a Texas obscenity law that had survived a legal challenge. It was subleased and had a very brief run as a Hispanic Theater for three months in 1970 and reverted to playing X-rated fare that same year.
On March 18, 1971, it rebranded as more of an XXX adult house under new ownership and rediscovering its audience. With the neighboring Tamlo Club and Show Lounge which had live shows and some XXX films, the neighborhood drew crowds. The Lido continued all the way into the 1980s until city restrictions were placed on adult theaters within 1,000 feet of a city park. With the home video revolution occurring, it could have been a challenging marketplace for the Lido moving forward with or without the restrictions.
In 1991, the Lido reverted back to its original name, the Major Theater. It started with live shows and then mixed in films with many fewer seats. It made a little news by showing Dial M for Murder in 3-D. Since the film had been shown flat at the Majestic in 1954, it was Dallas' first chance to see the Hitchcock film in 3D. The theater closed in 1992 and re-opened in 1993 showing classic films. The lineage was that the Edison Theater had opened as a revival house that moved to the Granada Theater. The Major was the follow-up location after the Granada changed its operation. Partners Rob Clements and Bryce Gonzalez changed from retro movies to live shows beginning July 15, 1995. That appears to have lasted just over a year. In 1998, the Propel Group doing web development and digital media opened and was still in the space as of the 2010s. As for the Lido name, the tradition carried on and was in used into the 2010s as the name of an adult theater at 7035 W. John W. Carpenter Freeway in Dallas.
The Ritz Theater operated for five decades at 105 E. Main Street in downtown Richardson. As the city grew, the theater tried to adapt. In 1948, owner J.B. Roberts invested $42,000 in the theater to expand seating and modernize the theater. The theater closed briefly in 1961 the theater’s image including a name change. But the last ten years saw the theater struggling to stay relevant with audiences before subsiding in 1972.
The Ritz was first rebranded in 1961 as the Electra Theater showing double features of second-run content. In 1965, the Electra tried to become an art house and only allowed adult-aged patrons. The experiment had its moments so the theater decided to rebrand once again in 1966 becoming the Holiday Art Theatre (often just referred to in marketing as the “Holiday”) showing repertory films from the “vaults.” The Holiday closed and that was it for film exhibition for the former Ritz. It became home to the Richardson Community Theater retitled the theater as the Richardson Playhouse in 1969. For three years, the theater put on live stage plays. When that ended in 1972, the theater passed to owners who as of the 2010s still held the theater. Elements of the theater are still present in the building which has been totally retrofitted. The balcony is still present as is the screen and rigging. But the days of presentation are behind the Ritz/Electra/Holiday Art/Richardson Playhouse as the building was home to business including Fluid Power Supply into the 2010s used as a business office by Stone Associates.
While I love the site and agree with everything said on behavior, the usability needs addressing. The notion that you can put in the name of a theater that you’re presumably doing research on (e.g, Dal-Sec) and the site’s search engine returns “no movie theaters found”, that’s not too user friendly… especially when the theater is actually in the database. A response of “no open theaters found; one closed theater found” or similar might be more approachable for users. But when the database consists of 80% closed items, to default to “open” seems counter to first-time or even veteran users. Few newbie users would venture to the tiny bar and know to hit the greyed-out “closed” if the theater was in that space. Again, love the site and appreciate the contributions of all.
Hunt Properties built the Dallas North Shopping Center in Plano which with an announced grocery store in 1962 at the corner of North Central Expressway and 15th Street. But the Center wouldn’t officially officially open until August 1967 when additional businesses including Mott’s Five and Dime and Illinois fast-food chain Mr. Quick joined the shopping complex connected with a climate-controlled sidewalk. Fifth grader Vickie Wesch then wrote a letter to Interstate Theater Circuit’s John Q. Adams saying that the shopping center and Plano needed a movie theater gathering 83 signatures on a petition to persuade the circuit. Kismet. Hunt Properties would build a movie theater in its North Shopping Center and leased it to Interstate Theaters. In 1969, Jack H. Morgan was the architect and drew plans. But ABC and Interstate would merge operations becoming ABC-Interstate necessitating a minor change and second set of architectural drawings. Construction began on May 4, 1970 with a ceremonial ground breaking using a shovel made of film reels and canisters. Plano Mayor Connor Harrington and Interstate President John Q. Adams were among the featured guests.
The delayed project would finally open as a stand-alone building in the Center technically on Janwood St. It was ABC-Interstate’s 84th Texas theater beginning service November 18, 1971 with the film “Scrooge.” Wesch, the student who had suggested the concept of the theater, received a one year’s free pass. The grand opening featured the burying of a time capsule in a crypt to be opened in 2005 on ABC Interstate’s 100th anniversary. (Spoiler alert: maybe they should have moved that date up by 20 or so years.) While the population was growing in Plano, picking a successful spot within the sprawling suburb proved challenging.
The Cameo was not a success story for Interstate. Fifth grader Wesch had apparently not done enough demographic research or crafted policies that would lead to success for the theater chain. During a showing of “The Cross and the Switchblade” in 1971, the blades were out as young patrons slashed theater seats. Another boy lit a sparkler during a show and underage smoking was a problem for the theater. Patrons complained that loud talking made movie-going a chore at the Cameo. ABC Interstate apologized for the six-month old theater which even they admitted now looked many, many years old. This forced the manager to quit and the city council to look into the situation. Even with a new manager on board, the theater was not profitable and was closed by the chain.
On June 7, 1974, ABC Interstate decided to give the Cameo property second life opening with “American Graffiti.“ The rebirth was not a success and ABC Interstate closed the property again. But by decade’s end, the population trends had improved. In 1979, Plitt Theaters which had acquired the Interstate circuit reopened the Cameo for the third time in the same decade with a grand re-re-opening on April 6, 1979 showing “The Deer Hunter” in the renamed Palisades Shopping Center. The circuit under its revised name of Plitt Southern decided to close the theater a fourth time — this time temporarily — to twin the theater and rebrand it as the Collin Creek Cameo.
The twin-screen theater launched with a grand re-re-re-opening in the shadow of the Collin Creek Mall whose first store had opened back on October 20, 1980. The theater’s longest stretch of being opened happened under Plitt Southern as they operated the Collin Creek Cameo to what appears to be the end of a 15-year, disappointing lease cycle that wasn’t renewed. The theater was shuttered as a downgraded, second-run discount house. Neither the Interstate Circuit nor the Cameo Theater had survived long enough to open the time capsule on the overly-optimistic 2005 date stated during the theater’s grand opening. In the realm of DFW film exhibition luminaries, the Collin Creek Cameo had but a cameo. Among its distinctions was having been closed four times by the same operator (not including the one for remodeling) and four celebrated openings. A rarity in this area. Its exit came via demolition as the Collin Creek’s footprint grew with many non-descript strip shopping centers supplanting the Palisades Shopping Center. The good news was that local moviegoers could go across the street and down a dead-end road if they had an awareness that General Cinema Corp. had constructed a six-screen theater well-hidden from the mall for which the circuit’s theater was named: the GCC Collin Creek VI.
The Little Theater was built in 1922 as an adobe 2-story live theatre. WW-2 found community theater in decline and the theater went dark. It was renamed the El Panamericano by new operator J.J. Rodriguez in October 1943 showing Spanish language films. Rodriguez then closed Cine Azteca, Dallas' first Spanish language movie theatre which had launched in 1937 because the diminutive theater was often well above capacity. Rodriguez operated this mega-successful movie theater appealing to what was known as the Little Mexico neighborhood in Dallas. But in 1965, Rodriguez got some business advice and rebranded the property to appeal to a more upscale audience. The Panamericano owner rolled the dice closing the theater temporarily and moved itself from middle class Hispanic theater to a high-end Festival Theater art house with adjoining Festival Lounge and Buccaneer Terrace. It opened Sept. 20, 1965 to sold out audiences. That didn’t last.
Meanwhile, Rodriguez took over the flagging Chisolm Trail Drive-In in Grand Prairie to continue his Spanish language film exhibition rebranding the ozoner as the Auto Vista opening March 29, 1965 with “La Bandida” and “Suenos de Oro.” (The Weisenburg Circuit would take over the short-lived Auto Vista and re-rebrand it as the East Main Drive-In, returning it to English language films.)
Rodriguez admitted that the high risk remodeling of his Panamericno to the Festival proved to be a mistake as the Hispanic population was moving out of the area and Oak Cliff audiences gravitated to the Stevens Theatre which had changed to Spanish language film and not the Auto Vista. The Buccaneer Terrace was closed shortly into its run. In 1968, Rodriguez tried changing to double feature adult art content and reopened the Terrace. But the property struggled and Rodriguez reverted to Spanish language film. But even that marketplace had changed with the Stevens king and – by the late 1970s – several more Spanish language theaters entered the DFW market and Little Mexico was virtually gone. The Festival was on life support and though Rodriguez managed to make it into July of 1981 he sold the Festival to real estate investors. A final live play was staged at the theatre as a last hoorah for the property in Oct. and Nov. of 1981 rekindling its roots as the Little Theater. The theater was demolished but is one of Dallas' most important cinema treasures for serving generations of Hispanic moviegoers.
United Artists purchased four acres of a 12-acre tract at the southeast corner of Beltline and what was once part of North Star Road in Garland in 1984 to build a multiplex. MPM Development would then build a 68,000 sq. ft. strip shopping center around the theater called North Star Crossing bringing additional traffic to the complex. The UA 8 North Star (often fused as Northstar 8 in ads) opened December of 1984 and, in its operation of just over 21 years, the theater remained a first-run house under the aegis of UA/Regal through its entire existence. The UA 8 South, the UA 8 Las Vegas Trail and UA 8 North Star were built much like the “second-generation” UA 8’s around the country: fairly non-descript but serviceable locations that weren’t destination multiplexes like the UA Plaza or the UA Galaxy but more neighborhood-centric and understated.
Unlike its first era of multiplexes, these UA 8’s had more soothing color palettes and indirect lighting. The smallest houses were 280 seaters with fairly uncomfortable chairs. At the 16-year mark, the North Star got some good news in that General Cinema closed its Richardson location in 2000 just 3.5 miles away which led to an uptick in customers at the North Star. For patrons, good news occurred when the UA MacArthur Marketplace megaplex mega-flopped in less than five years of service from 1999 to 2004. When the Regal shut the theater, the North Star was the recipient of the MacArthur seating. It was a nice improvement. Despite the new seating, the North Star wasn’t given a ringing endorsement from the chain. As Regal ramped up its digitally projected pre-show “2wenty” in most auditoriums in 2003/4, the North Star was largely left out of the transition which was a portent of things to come.
Regal shuttered aging UA multiplexes all over the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex and beyond shortly after taking over United Artists. And when AMC opened its Firewheel Town Center Mall 18-screener in far east Garland on December 14, 2005, the North Star UA 8 was looking quite aged. Just one month after the AMC launch, the North Star closed for good on January 29, 2006. Few people bothered to show up for the final shows that evening. The property was updated for new business owners. First into the location in its post-theatrical life was a sports bar closing in 2011, then it was Legends Jumpin House closing in 2013, then it was briefly Quinceanera Reception Halls event center, then it was…. well, you get the idea. The theater’s conversion away from a multiplex – like so many others – has proven to be a challenge to the shopping center. And unlike the UA 8 Vegas Trails or UA 8 South that didn’t have the adjoining shopping center to be concerned with, those 8-plexes were more readily converted into stand-alone non-profit churches.
Veteran theater owner Bob Davis constructed the single screen Plano Drive-In in 1969. The theater was at the northeast corner of Parker Road and Central Expressway / U.S. 75. That caught the eye of the McLendon Theater Circuit which had recently purchased the Downs Drive-In in Grand Prairie and would convert it to the renamed, multi-screen Century Drive-In in 1970. The circuit had also converted the single screen Garland Road Drive-In into the three-screen Apollo Drive-In. McClendon took over the Plano retaining its moniker but converted it to a three-screen operation. At that point, McLendon also operated the Astro, Apollo, Gemini, Century, and East Main in Grand Prairie as their DFW ozoners.
This appears to be a 15-year lease situation common to land speculation of that era as Dallas' suburbs were moving northward. When former department chain Mervyn’s expanded into Dallas in 1984, they hosted a big event at the Plano Drive-In, the last major event at the Plano Drive-In. In 1985, the drive-in became home to overflow parking for the nearby Collin Creek Mall and the Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) Park ‘n’ Ride allowing commuters to take express busses into Dallas. DART was working on building a mud-free / paved and modern transit center across the street on the southeast corner. Under their aegis, the drive-in was damaged in 1986 and actually repaired despite the fact that the facility would never be used for theatrical purposes again.
The DART center finally was completed in 1989 and the Drive-in was vacated. It was demolished and became home to a nondescript strip shopping center at 3300 N. Central Expressway that in the 2010s housed stores such as Ross Clothes for Less, Petsmart, and Sports Authority. To go back in time, a visit to historicalaerials.com and inputting the 3300 Central Expressway in Plano, TX in 1979 gives you a great look at the former three screen operation.
M.C. Cole opened the $3,000,000 Ridgewood Shopping Center in 1959 with 141,000 square feet of business space occupied by stores including Wyatt’s Grocery Store, Woolworth’s, and M.L. Green. Cole planned to add a second phase consisting of 141,000 square feet if the center succeeded. It did. The Ridgewood Theater was late in the second stage of the Center. Ground was broken in May of 1967 and the theater was architected by Kynn Cole and built by M.C. Cole’s Ranco Development Company for $350,000 for the Interstate Circuit. The 866-seat theater would be patterned after the Westwood in Richardson and Hurst’s Bellaire theaters for Interstate. The interior of the Ridgewood was Mediterranean style used antique brick and had floors with a basketweave design, quarry tile. Wall to wall screen with an overhead vertical lift curtain with automatically controlled maskings along with stereo sound and auto dimmers in lighting made for a modern, versatile theater. The exterior also used antique brick.
The theater launched on December 21, 1967 with Disney’s “The Happiest Millionaire.” Interstate created a 10-minute film on the city of Garland that ran prior to the show. The theater became the 85th for Interstate. Hal Burreson was the first manager of the Ridgewood. The theater was community-minded booking local live acts occasionally and allowing benefit screenings periodically. Under Burreson, only G rated films were booked with only one exception: “Midnight Cowboy.” Burreson moved to the Medallion in Dallas when it opened in 1969 and was replaced by William L. Moyer. With a new sheriff in town, the Ridgewood changed fairly quickly. Moyer decided he didn’t want to be Garland’s babysitter and eliminated G-rated films. The adult-only R-rated policy was put in because of damage kids were causing to Ridgewood’s seating, the high volume of underage smoking, the cutting of electrical cords and general rowdiness. On Friday nights, Moyer said that “adults couldn’t even hear the movies.”
But in Garland, that sort of anti-family policy didn’t sit too well. So a public meeting was scheduled to deal with the vandalism issue at the theater and Moyer reversed course on the theater’s adults-only policy. (And Moyer said it had nothing to do with a short-term downturn of ticket sales.) The theater hosted a private advance screening of “Living Free” with stars Elsa the lion in attendance and the World Premiere of Semi-Tough with author Dan Jenkins in attendance happened at the Northtown Six, Ridgewood and Village on Nov. 13, 1977. The large lobby space allowed Interstate to take advantage of a pinball craze to install pinball machines bringing additional revenue. Entering the 1980s, the pinball machines would be replaced by video games as pinball lost favor. By the end of 1977, Interstate (then ABC-Interstate) had contemplated downgrading the Ridgewood to discount, dollar status. But it said that wasn’t the right play for the theater or the community.
In 1978, ABC-Interstate sold the theater to Plitt group. The theater began a minor descent thereafter as the theater was relegated to discount, dollar status by Plitt, then it was twinned, and – most embarrassingly – closed by the fire marshal for life-threatening fire exit problems on October 14, 1984. Then theater manager Timothy Langevin was arrested on three counts of fire code violations. Though it reopened shortly thereafter, the Ridgewood halcyon days were over as it soldiered onward as a twin discount house existing in a multiplex world. It would finally close. The Ridgewood’s days were not over as it was used for live theater in two years for religious plays and functions in 2001 and 2002. It was booked as a special events center during the 2000s. And late in the 2000s, it became a club featuring live music which was not a success. As of the 2010s, the Westwood was vacant but seemingly ready for the next potential tenant with a dream.
Interstate reached the finish line with its Highland Park Village shopping center in 1935 with the name scheduled to be the Tower Theater named after its beacon tower. But that theater was ultimately named the Village using the shopping center’s namesake. But Interstate picked up the name for its modestly-priced $125,000 W. Scott Dunne architected final count 1,320 leather trimmed seat Tower Theater. An intriguing project found within the Tower Petroleum Building and extending beyond it. A wrecking ball was taken to one existing portion of the Tower Building with a few parts of the walls used in the theater which received a new steel frame construction. George P. O’Rourke Construction built the entrance right through the just- vacated Webb Waffle House in the Tower Building beginning in August of 1936. The auditorium was constructed thereafter opening February 19, 1937. The lobby of the theater had a giant aquarium by Irwin Waite with tropical fish, aquatic plants, wall to wall mirrors, and neon-lighted handrails. Eugene Gilboe painted the murals to match. Interior of the theater’s auditorium, however, was not close to matching. It was downright spartan as the themed palace days were ending. And the diminutive budget for such a downtown theater was clearly spent elsewhere.
The Tower opened with the film, “Rainbow on the River” with star Bobby Breen in attendance and reverted to being the second-week run for pictures leaving the Majestic or Palace after one week. It got a refresh when it was closed for nine months while a building extension to the larger Tower Petroleum Building was made called the Corrigan Tower above and around the theater beginning on March 14, 1951. When it reopened on Christmas of that year, the 1930s were gone replaced by new murals and cleaner look along with an air conditioning system. The lack of thematic movie palace elements helped the theater stay contemporary as did innovation. The new Tower agot into closed circuit sporting events staring with the Rocky Marciano Roland La Starza fight. It was a $50,000 experiment by Interstate. Theater Network Television (TNT) also played operas and symphonies via closed circuit which continued through 1955.
But the Tower hit its stride updating its projection in the 1950s and 1960s allowing for large format screenings with 70mm projection, stereo sound, exclusive sneak previews, and roadshows such as El Cid, The Happiest Millionaire, Patton, and Ben Hur. In fact, to many locals, the Tower was the “Ben Hur” theater. In November of 1959, William Wyler came to Dallas to show a sneak preview of the film. The Tower would go on to have Ben Hur for almost one full year. But as the Central Zone took off with Interstate’s Medallion and Wilshire, as well as General Cinema’s NorthPark, UA’s Ciné 150, and others, downtown theaters took a precipitous turn as population shifts and free parking at suburbans were in favor. Rather abruptly, the Tower was closed just after July 4, 1971 with the last feature of “The Seven Minutes.” Since that times out almost precisely to 35 years from the date of the previous tenant leaving the Tower Building and Interstate beginning, it would likely indicate an end of lease situation. The Tower’s lobby was retrofitted for a business soon thereafter. The auditorium stayed boarded up until December of 1978 when the spot below the Corrigan Tower was finally deconstructed.
The 100,000 square foot Eastgate Shopping Center opened in September of 1972 just off of Interstate 635 at 1450 Northwest Highway at Saturn Road. The twin-screen theater was an original tenant and began life with its moniker of “The Movies” officially at 1430 Northwest Highway. That wasn’t a hit so the theater closed and reopened on September 6, 1974 as Eastgate Cinemas 2 with “The Bootlegger” and “Thunderbolt and Lightfoot” on screen two. The theater was still not a hit and was downgraded to dollar house status entering the 1980s.
Operated by William B. Boren’s fledgling circuit consisting of the Eastgate, Westgate Cinema in McKinney, Wilshire Showcase I & II in Euless, Cineworld 4 and Lancaster Showcase in Fort Worth and two theaters in Blackwell, OK, the writing was on the wall when nine film companies sued Boren in February of 1983 for not providing enough of the owed admission receipts for the period beginning in 1978 forward. The twin-screen era was ending in the multiplex world anyway and the Eastgate was a dead duck in May of 1984. Or was it?
On June 22d of 1984, the Eastgate became a twin screen adult theater and suddenly the theater had the attention of what had been an indifferent populace. Scoring with X-rated hits including Emanuelle and Caligula, the Eastgate was drawing audiences and raised eyebrows. Garland’s first adult theater was a hit! But clientele at nearby family establishments including Furr’s Cafeteria, a Hallmark card store, and a Christian book store launched a petition drive backed by the Garland Church of Christ. The complaints reached the owner of Eastgate Shopping Center, Hank Dickerson Realators.
The attention lead to great business and picketers protesting the operation. Members of Rev. Daniel Hicks' Four Square Gospel Church prayed for the future of morality in the city of Garland. And the sentiments of one city councilman summarized the situation, “I wouldn’t want my wife to go to a shopping center where there are customers of this type of facility.” On July 17th, the city of Garland hastily passed an ordinance banning X-rated films within 500 feet of a church, park, school, or residential area (or where oxygen is present) to zone the theater out of existence. On July 18th, Hank Dickerson sent an eviction notice. And within two weeks, the Eastgate and operator M&B Cinema of Houston with George Marules were in court facing immediate eviction. Eastgate manager Rick “X” explained the difference between X-rated fare originating in the adult art porno chic era and the more lewd XXX fare that the Eastgate would never show. Manager Rick pledged to show more art, foriegn and R-Rated films in the future and understood why a zoning ordinance would apply to an XXX theater.
The initial suit was dismissed because even to the Garland Justice of the Peace, the speed of the process was far too brisk to be fair to the operators of the cinema. But refiled a month later, the Emanuelle (Eastgate Cinema) v. Goliath (Garland) situation was back. Emanuelle’s slingshot was the First Amendment and marketplace of ideas v. the Goliath of overwhelming public sentiment and legal standing on public nuisance attributable to movie posters in public view and a very dubiously worded zoning ordinance. Goliath took down Emanuelle as the realtor and city of Garland got their way in a court ordered eviction of M&B and Eastgate Cinema. “I think it was a victory for the Lord Jesus in that darkness was dealt a destructive blow,” Rev. Hicks said, “I think it was a case of God hearing the prayers of his people.” What followed were police raids of adult video and novelty stores that sought to rid Garland of filth. And the controversial theater would close advertising as the slightly rebranded Eastgate Adult Cinema in its final days for clearer marketing purposes. The Eastgate was offered to anyone who wanted to bring some good-old family entertainment to the shopping center and the cleansed Garland citizenry. Of course, nobody wanted to do that and the Eastgate was history: a sleepy first 11.75 years and a rambunctious legally-challenged final .5 years.
The Big Town Mall was the Texas' first enclosed air conditioned mall opening in 1959. Big Town’s original open-air design was changed in a final architectural revision which meant that later buildings would be left out of the mall. One of those later buildings was General Drive-In’s first theater in Dallas-Fort Worth, Big Town Cinema. The $208,000, 900-seat theater was designed by Maurice Sornik of New York with Don Speck the local supervising architect. Ten Eyck & Shaw was the contractor with Herman Blum & Associates as engineers. The theater launched with “Cleopatra” on Feb. 27, 1964 coinciding with Big Town’s fifth anniversary. Just two months later in April 1964, General Drive-In Corp. stockholders changed the company’s name to General Cinema Corp. and all future GCC properties in Dallas were built under that moniker.
In 1972, General Cinema twinned the Big Town along with its Lochwood and Park Plaza theaters. Competition came in the form of another nearby mall, the Town East Mall. General Cinema built a first theater outside of the theater. When AMC opened a multiplex in 1974 (later followed by a UA multiplex, a dividing of General Cinema’s Town East into five screens, and an additional General Cinema Town East 6), the Big Town was reduced to discount, dollar house status which it would remain until its closure in 1999.
The longevity of the discount Big Town took a turn for the better when Cinemark took over Big Town Cinema. To get more life out of the aging property, it twinned the twins and built a five-screen addition onto the property making it the Big Town Cinema 9. As a discount house, the Big Town thrived. But when the Big Town Mall went into rapid decline shedding stores, Big Town merely survived to its final closure on January 31, 1999. Because the timing works out to exactly 25 years, this was very likely an end-of-lease closure. The Big Town Mall eventually lost all of its stores and was demolished in 2006 taking the Big Town Farmer’s Market and the – then – decaying Big Town Cinema with it. The Big Town Lanes somehow soldiered on until 2009 before its owners retired, thus, closing and being demolished. The only remnant of the complex was the “Big Town Event Center” that housed frequent gun shows into the 2010s.
The Garland Road Drive-In kicked off on April 7th, 1950 with searchlights and a circus calliope band wagon featuring Charla. Opening feature was “Oh You Beautiful Doll”. Dallas-Fort Worth was in a drive-in boom period with the Garland, Hines Blvd. and South Loop opening within a week of each other. And this was the first of three drive-ins to be opened by C.D. Leon’s fledgling Leon Theatres Circuit that season proceeded by the Hampton Road Drive-In on May 12th and the Denton Road Drive-In on June 23, 1950. The Garland Drive-in got a boost when the Briley Heights addition brought 400 homes in 103 acre tract just west of the ozoner adding potential customers. Some notables: While playing the film, “Once a Thief” on May 9, 1952, the theater was robbed of $350. In the early 1950s, the First Methodist Church held their Sunday morning services at the drive-in. In 1957, Leon applied to show first-run movies into Garland homes in early pay television experiments.
At the end of the 1958 drive-in season, Leon subleased the Hampton and Denton Road locations to Claude C. Ezell’s newly-reformed Ezell Theater Circuit / Bordertown Theaters Inc. But Leon held on to his Hampton Road location. The Garland Road closed at the end of February 1966. Garland residents wouldn’t be without an ozoner for long as Tri-State Theaters / McLendon Theaters continued its space-aged theme of multiscreen drive-ins at the location. The operators of Gemini and Astro drive-in also opened the Apollo Twin Drive-In.
The Apollo was a $1.8 million location designed by H.A. Jordan on a 31.5 triangular acre lot for a reported 1,800 cars and could accommodate another 175 walk-ins at the patio. The curved 132 foot by 80 foot screens were dubbed by McClendon as “Specturama screens” that were more than 10 stories high. A candy cane-striped 7,000 square foot air conditioned restaurant. Two separate patios with speakers at the tables allowed walk-ups. The twin had two entrances, one on Shiloh Road and the other at Garland Road. The Apollo Twin Drive-in launched with a two-day Grand Opening on October 3, 1968 with “The Lost Continent” and “The Vengeance of She” on the North Screen and “The Detective” and “Come Spy with Me” on the South Screen. Actor Big John Hamilton was there with KLIF AM radio. The “Motion Picture Herald” said that people were amazed at the opening calling the ‘big double A’ the “ultimate of ultimate” in drive-ins.
The theater ran into trouble with the Garland City Council in 1972. The city approved a ban of nude scenes shown at a drive-in if the screen could be seen by passing cars. McLendon had been voluntarily cutting offensive portions from films shown at the Apollo but said mandating the cutting of the films gravitated the situation from self-censorship to censorship. One film sent “by mistake” had lesbian love scenes and had led to the action. A classic court line occurred when a medical doctor testifying n behalf of the City of Garland said, “It is hard for almost any man to go by the theater without being distracted.”
In the 1980s, the Apollo added a new sound system so that patrons could listen to the sound track on the car’s AM radio instead of the speakers. After B.R. McLendon died, the estate of B.R. McLendon sold the Apollo outright to Tri-State Theatres Ltd. Partnership at the end of 1986. That was also the last year of the Apollo Drive-In as the theater was demolished to make way for a new retail superstore. On December 28, 1988 Hypermart – a superstore combining Wal-Mart and local grocery store chain Tom Thumb into a large 24-hour concept store, the first of two built in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and five in the nation. Walmart would go it alone on future 24-hour superstores. The Garland store fulfilled its 20-year lease transitioning to a Wal-Mart prior to closing in 2008 and the company followed its standard practice of abandoning the property to build another nondescript location elsewhere; the Hypermart remained empty into the 2010s. But to some locals, that spot will remain a drive-in destination that produced around 35 years of memories.
Richardson Square Mall was an Edward J. DeBartolo single level, 739,000 square foot shopping complex. And General Cinema was an original tenant of the mall opening one day after the Mall’s October 20, 1977 launch. General Cinema opened two theaters within a week of each other. First up was the Red Bird Mall Cinema I-II-III-IV in Oak Cliff which sat just outside of the mall. And inside of the Richardson Square Mall and opening a week later was the Richardson Square I-II-III opening October 21, 1977 with “Oh God!”, “The Other Side of Midnight” and “Young Frankenstein.” The theater was General Cinema’s ninth at that point in Dallas and its immediate suburbs with Big Town, NorthPark 1 & 2, NorthPark “East” aka 3 & 4, Valley View, Town East, Irving Mall, Treehouse (formerly Lochwood), Red Bird and Richardson Sq. The three auditoriums were equal in size with 325 seats in each auditorium. One of the biggest hits for the theater was “Saturday Night Fever” which played more than 20 weeks.
Reviled from the outset as being cramped, ill-sized, and totally lacking any charm, Richardson residents got a break ten years later when General Cinema provided a better designed theater across the street with the Richardson 6 theater. As one newspaper critic said, the theaters were an improvement over the Richardson Square Mall Cinema but “almost anything would be.” General Cinema tried to wring ever dollar it could from the Richardson Square Mall property converting it to second run and running it into the mid-1990s. When General Cinema shuttered the location, it was repurposed into a Barnes and Noble. When Barnes and Noble moved to the Firewheel shopping complex, the mass exodus was already on and the Richardson Square Mall, itself, became a casualty falling to the wrecking ball though leaving its major anchors standing and in business.
The Kaufman Pike was a 600-car capacity drive-in opened July 1, 1949 for Charles W. Weisenburg. The Kaufman Pike opened with “Montana Mike” the same day that the Hi-Vue Drive-In opened by W.P. Moran. Weisnburg’s first drive-in was the Palo Duro in Amarillo but he would add five drive-ins to the Dallas Fort Worth area during the drive-in boom of the late 1940s and early 1950s. He also owned the Crest Theater, an indoor operation less than 15 miles away in Seagoville. While playing mostly second run double features, throughout the 1950s, the Kaufman Pike exhibited first-run B films, as well. John William “Wild Bill” Tucker brought his cowboy shooting and sound effects touring show to the Kaufman in 1953. The President of Jacksonville College hosted an Easter sunrise service at the drive-in in 1954. In the 1960s, the Kaufman would also get some first-run films from major studios in what were termed “saturation releases.”
in 1978, Weisenburg auctioned off his Kaufman Pike, Linda Kay, Bruton Road, and Lewisville 121 Twin drive-ins as he was retiring from his circuit that had 38 theaters at its apex. The Kaufman Pike closes in 1979. It has a grand re-opening by its new operator, Global Pictures Ltd., on June 6, 1981 showing “Texas Lightning,” “Graduation Day”, and “Bobbie Jo and the Outlaw”. The theater made it to its 35th anniversary on July 1, 1984. When it closed for the season at the end of 1984, it didn’t appear to re-open in 1985.
Interstate Theatres built the Medallion in 1968 opening with Butch Cassidy on October 30th, 1969. Notable exclusives there were The Godfather, The Sting, MASH, American Graffiti, Deliverance, and Chinatown. Downtown theatres struggled as the Central Zone (NorthPark, UA 150 (later Cine) and Medallion) thrived. Medallion held sneak of Jaws and Steven Spielberg cited the Medallion as his “good luck theater” and one of his most memorable moments. He also sneaked Close Encounters and 1941 before moving his sneaks to the nearby NorthPark I & II.
In 1978, Plitt acquired many of Interstate theatres and the Medallion became a Plitt property. Competition became fierce in what was known as the Central Zone as multiplexes opened nearby in the 1980s.
The Medallion was sold to United Artists, in 1986. UA closed the Medallion for two months on March 20, 1986 converted it to three auditoriums. The original screen remained intact on the south side of the theatre and two smaller screens were located on the north side, adjacent to the newly remodeled and expanded concession stand. The two northern houses remained until its closure, holding 300 and 140 patrons. When the high tech UA Plaza opened in May of 1989, the Medallion became a second run bargain theatre and the nearby UA Cine became an art house.
The Central Zone was negatively impacted in the mid-1990s when the megaplex era began. UA gave up the Medallion in 1993. Dallas-based Trans-Texas Theatre Company took over the Medallion and two other failing movie houses, Cinemark’s NorthTown and Skillman 6. Trans-Texas turned the three-screen house Medallion into a five-screen house as the original silver-beaded screen was split three ways. The move proved somewhat successful prior to the theatre being sold to the Hollywood Theatre chain in 1997.
Under Hollywood Theatres management, the theatre experimented with second run art house movies and attracted the Vistas Hispanic-oriented film festival. The owners noting the down-turned discount movie environment deleted weekday matinees before abandoning the DFW area temporarily in early 2000.
Premiere Cinema Corporation became the next owner of the Medallion. Premiere brought back matinees, regularly showed classic films and experimented with midnight films aimed at the nearby SMU college audience. It continued its connection with the Vistas Film Festival before closing the theatre.
The seventh and final operator was an independent under the management of George Jones. It became an outlet for low-budget, locally produced films, promotional showmanship (including live hypnotists, clowns, and other gimmicks used to attract moviegoers in the 1930s and 1940s) along with second run features. The theater was given a minor updating in its concession area, including a party area and paintings of movie stars.
The Medallion’s last day was December 13th, 2001 ending a 32-year run. In a nice touch, one of the Medallion’s last films was the very first film shown there, Butch Cassady and the Sundance Kid. The theater sat deserted for three and a half years until being torn down in May of 2005 to make room for a Kohl’s Department Store.
If the trivia question were to be asked, “What Dallas drive-in theater had the longest run?” the documentable answer is none other than the Lone Star. The Lone Star Drive-In Theaters circuit run by E.L. Pack had opened Lone Star named drive-ins in El Paso, Houston, Lubbock and Waco before opening the 650-car Lone Star Drive-In at 5506 Military Parkway (though advertised as 5500 Military) in Dallas on November 3, 1951. Fireworks opened the evening followed by the main feature of “Broken Arrow.” On March 23, 1961, the Lone Star’s address was 4600 Lawnview Avenue where it was advertised until its closure.
The Lone Star’s traditional fare gravitated to adult content in 1966 where it continued successfully for more than twenty years into the home video revolution. Locals often referred to the operation as “The Porn Star.” Totally lacking in marketing, nostalgia or publicity, the Lone Star and Linda Kay were the final two adult drive-ins in Dallas into the mid-1980s with the higher-visibility Astro as the last remaining traditional ozoner in the city. The L-K went down in 1986. And the end of the line was coming for the Lone Star but it was the city that was calling and not necessarily lack of patrons.
In November of 1987, the city of Dallas filed suit seeking a temporary injunction against the Lone Star because its sexually-oriented business license expired. The operator said that it had applied for a renewal. A December 18th hearing took place and that appears to be the end the drive-in’s run. At just past 36 years of operation, the Lone Star was Dallas' winner for longest-running drive-in theater. The Astro was the last drive-in to be in operation in Dallas surviving 30 years to 1998. And arguably the Jefferson was the last standing drive-in tower torn down in 2004 after years of inactivity with the Lone Star and its brethren demolished much earlier.
On March 21, 1956, Mr. and Mrs. J.B. Roberts opened the Arapaho Road Drive-In. The Roberts had owned the Ritz since 1942 and expanded to the Arapaho with Desi and Lucy’s feature, “Forever Darling.” Trouble came early when Mrs. Roberts reported and testified about spikes were thrown maliciously to damage tires at her drive-in. The Roberts decided against hiring a union projectionist and spikes were thrown in 1957 at both the Arapaho and the Linda Kay Drive-In, which also didn’t hire a union projectionist. The perpetrators were jailed but the sentence was reduced when the overall tire damage was estimated at just $75. The theater was home to an annual Easter sunrise service each year through 1971 which appears to be the drive-in’s last year.
The drive-in’s number was up when the land owners decided to request and received a zoning change to allow a multiple residence dwelling on the site of the drive-in. The Arapaho would be demolished and the site would house a senior citizen complex in the future. It’s also possible that the Roberts had a 15-year lease on the drive-in property since it times out to 15 years of bookings.
Frank Gillespie launched the Linda Kay in Dallas' incorporated town of Kleberg near Rylie on June 29, 1956 with “The Last Hunt” and “Red Sundown.” (The drive-in would later be listed as being in Rylie, TX followed by Dallas in ads.) The Linda Kay was another drive-in on the Kaufman Pike (Highway 175). With the main drive-in spurt in Dallas being 1948-1951, the Linda Kay had the advantage of opening as a CinemaScope enabled screen at the outset. A nasty incident in 1957 reportedly led to 75 cars with wrecked tires when an activist spiked the drive-in because Gilespie refused to hire a union projectionist. The perpetrators were found guilty but got a reduced sentence when the actual tire damage was said to have been just $75.
Charles Weisenburg bought the theater adding it to his circuit. In 1978, Weisenburg auctioned off his Kaufman Pike, Bruton Road, Lewisville 121 Twin and Linda Kay drive-ins as he was retiring from his circuit that had 38 theaters at its apex. The Linda Kay under new ownership would turn to porn and survive into the home video era. It earned its stripes as an adult theater by being raided by the police on February 19, 1982 with the film, “The Starlets” seized and 40 customers sent home. (Given that one could see the screen from the road – and after showing over a hundred adult films – this one must’ve had a particular scene that just outraged someone nearby.) As the adult film industry was decimated by home video in the mid-1980s, the Linda Kay would be denied a happy ending though surviving a very impressive 30 years. She outlasted many other area drive-ins that had far more publicity but not the longevity. The L-K was demolished at a listed address – though perhaps incorrect – of 11950 CF Hawn Freeway.
Phil Isley Enterprises theater circuit opened the Crest at 2603 Lancaster Road in the Cedar Crest Shopping Center on March 30, 1948 with the film, “Cass Timberlane.” T.N. Childress was the manager of the 1,200-seat suburban in Oak Cliff. Two nights later, the Isley Circuit launched its new Avenue Theater at 4923 Columbia Avenue. Youth stage and talent shows along with matinees connected with the audiences. The Crest showed mostly second-run films, horror films, and westerns. Art Dorner brought his traveling Frankenstein stage show to the Crest on October 22, 1948. Dorner was the stand in for Boris Karloff in “Frankenstein” and “Bride of Frankenstein.”
In 1965, Rowley United acquired the Isley Circuit but would eventually divest itself of Isley’s Avenue, Kiest Drive-In, Big D Drive-In, subleased the Heights Theater, and would sublease The Crest. Big Tex Theatres, Inc. took on the Crest which operated the it through 1971. Rowley United stepped back in and appears to have completed the Crest’s run on June 8, 1973 with a double-feature of horror films. The Crest appears to have ended as a film theater in 1978 operating as an independent and showing chopsocky and Blaxploitation double features as a grindhouse. Because that works out almost exactly to 30 years, it could have been an end-of-lease closure and the double bill of “Dragon Squad” and “Super Weapon” could be the final films. From that point forward, The Crest was used as a nightclub and special event house sporadically and was vacant for many years prior to its demolition in 2008.
The original Grand Opening for the Cinderella Drive-In was held December 16, 1950. It was the last of the Dallas' area drive-ins to open in the year 1950. The boom year saw the opening of the Hines Blvd. D-I, Jefferson D-I, Hampton Road D-I, South Loop D-I, Garland Road D-I, Denton Road D-I and – just four days earlier – the Samuell Boulevard D-I. At the Cinderella, the kids got free Lash LaRue comic books and they opened with “Return of the Frontiersman.” They say that they had 2,000 parking spaces and sported a five-story high theater. Another pledge was to be a family friendly drive-in. While it didn’t end that way for the Cinderella when it became the King, the original owners stuck to that business plan.
The Cinderella did play its first world premiere film in 1952 with the exploitation Tower Films' release, “Teen-age Menace.” New owners Ed Bowen and Ted Lewis took on the theater in January of 1958 equipping the Cinderella with its 50x100 panoramic screen with relatively new speakers and had a grand re-opening of the “new” Cinderella with “Baby Face Nelson,” “Running Target,” and “Gun Glory.” Appears as though new owners were in place in March of 1959. The theater closes in the 1960s as the neighboring Starlite, an African American drive-in, just continued to draw audiences.
The Cinderella would go after the Starlite audience relaunching as the King Drive-In and is taken on by the McLendon circuit re-opening July 29, 1970 with Jim Brown’s “The Grasshopper.“ McLendon dropped the King after a Dec. 1975 double-feature of “TNT Jackson” and “The Big Bird Cage.” It becomes an independent who adds a second screen and transforms from Blaxploitation to an adult theater at its end. The King would be abdicated with its closure and demolition.
The Starlite theater was a true survivor in the history of Dallas cinema exhibition. It was Dallas' first African American drive-in theater and therefore was not covered or listed in the local Dallas newspaper movie clock listings or ads until a few studio ads for Blaxploitation films listed the Starlite in the mid-1970s. With its 60' screen and labeled as the “Southwest’s finest for colored entertainment,” the theater played films for more than 25 years. With no ads, passerbys probably knew it best for its jet mural or its red and blue neon.
The theater also survived nearby competition from the Cinderella Drive-In which was opened in 1950 and re-launched with panoramic screen and grand re-opening in 1958. Owner Ed Bowen and his Starlite survived a major fire associated with its neon lights. A hailstorm broke the neon lights and were likely responsible for a Friday the 13th April 1962 blaze at the screen tower. The Cinderella was demolished and replaced by a state of the art twin-screen King Drive-In. When the Blaxploitation genre began and martial arts films were big, the nearby King Twin and Starlite battled it out for the best bookings. And, yet, the Starlite — with just one screen and an undersized 350-car lot (though listed at 500) just kept co-existing with the nearby King until finally ending its successful run and being demolished. The Starlite is probably one of the most historically important drive-ins in the history of Dallas.