Lamont Drive-In
11800 Main Street,
Lamont,
CA
93241
11800 Main Street,
Lamont,
CA
93241
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Additional Info
Previously operated by: Sero Enterprises
Architects: J. Arthur Drielsma
Previous Names: South Lamont Drive-In, Thunderbird Drive-In
Nearby Theaters
The Lamont Drive-In opened on May 19, 1950 with Dan Dailey in “When Willie Comes Marching Home”. In 1955 it was renamed South Lamont Drive-In was owned by Jim Banducci, who also operated theaters in the San Joaquin Valley towns of Arvin and Oildale.
Los Angeles architect J. Arthur Drielsma designed the theater to include a restaurant, located under the screen tower, which could serve both theater patrons and outside customers, who were provided with a separate parking lot. By 1963 it had been renamed Thunderbird Drive-In. It was still open in 1966 operating as the Lamont Drive-In. It was closed in 1976.
Contributed by
Joe Vogel
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Recent comments (view all 7 comments)
Drive-ins.com notes that the theater was demolished to make way for a housing development.
Approx. address for this drive-in was 11800 Main Street.
I’m not 100% sure, but I think this may also have operated under the name Thunderbird Drive-In. Can anyone from the area confirm this?
Boxoffice, Nov. 14, 1966: “The Lamont Drive-In Theatre, Lamont, Calif., has been taken over by Cecil Carlton, who has been operating the Crest Drive-In, Bakersfield, for the past 15 years. Also in his chain are the Mount Baldy Drive-In, Pomona; Magnolia Drive-In, Riverside, and others in Arizona and California.”
NYozoner is right. We need to add Thunderbird Drive-In as a previous name. Plus, its final name was the no-direction Lamont Drive-In, so CT style says that should be the name for this page.
The 1963 Los Angeles film exchange directory included the Thunderbird Drive-In in Lamont, run by Sero Amusement.
The drive-in was advertising in the Bakersfield Californian as the Thunderbird by September 1960, and those ads continued into September 1966. By December 1966, it was advertising as the Lamont Drive-In. The last Lamont ad I could find in the Californian was Nov. 1, 1968. That one featured Spanish-language films, so it’s possible that the drive-in continued to operate without advertising in an English-language newspaper.
The Motion Picture Almanac was often slow to respond to changes. The MPA drive-in list entries serving Lamont changed from Lamont (1950-54), to South Lamont (1955-62), to Thunderbird (1963-76). When the MPA rebooted its list in 1977, there was nothing active in Lamont.
The MPA listed owners as Karr & Kendig (1950-55), then spelled Karr & Kendic (1956-61), then C. E. Langford & Assoc. (1962), then Los Angeles Drive-In Thea. Co. (1963-66). MPA did not include owner info in its 1967-76 drive-in lists. All of these entries showed a capacity of 450 cars.
Actual opening date is May 19, 1950 with Dan Dailey in “When Willie Comes Marching Home” along with an unnamed featurette and a few unnamed shorts.
By 1984, the screen had come down.
Today, it is private property and does not appear to be a business. But there are quite a few trailers, pallets, and general stuff scattered about the property.
A house sits where the screen once stood. All traces of the ramps and outline are gone. It’s difficult to tell, but it appears the projection booth/concession stand is still present. I say “difficult to tell” because both structures look like smaller houses. But they do resemble from the overhead view the same building(s).
The marquee, old and rusted, is still in place.