Sunset Drive-In
7320 N. McCormick Boulevard,
Skokie,
IL
60076
7320 N. McCormick Boulevard,
Skokie,
IL
60076
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Showing 17 comments
Update: A print of “A Night at the Sunset” has finally turned up in the David Szabo collection at the Chicago Film Archive. Will try to rent a copy and post more info.
Opened In 1951, Grand Opening Ad Already Posted 6 Years Ago.
Nice looking grand opening ad!! ChrisB
Opening night ad added to Photo section.
Aerial from 1962
If you to this website http://www.historicaerials.com/ and enter Touhy & McCormick, Skokie in the box it’ll bring up aerial views-drive in visible from 1952 to 1974.
I saw Smokey and the Bandit there! And Young Frankenstein! I was born in 1971, for what it’s worth. Later I worked at the M&R Evanston.
In 1987, in the middle of the night, I worked cleaning some M&R drive-in way out west (from Evanston). I drunk lots of warm beer that was left behind. It wasn’t fun work.
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This M&R theatre opened July 22, 1951 with “Follow the Sun” (bio of golfer Ben Hogan with Glenn Ford & Anne Baxter) as the featured attraction. Other bits from the grand opening ad in the Tribune include:
The world’s largest screen! 48% Larger than any other drive-in theatre screen!
Wider roadways and more space between cars to make parking much easier.
Completely new RCA ramp lighting and numbering that gives the exact location of your car. No more getting lost.
Latest IMPROVED RCA sound and high-fidelity tone speakers.
Last mention I find in the Trib is September 1978 when “Smokey and the Bandit” was playing there. By 1980 Gene Siskel included the Sunset in a list of “long gone” drive-ins in a story he did on outdoor theatres.
It took me a while to track this one down. I saw Clint in “The Enforcer” here when it came out. Or whatever the one with Tyne Daly was. Being an action film, the crowd went out in a haze of gravel when departing.
I had a `56 Plymouth Savoy. It was a minor attraction at the show given it’s age.
But they never checked my trunk.
Leo, did your father ever mention the film “A Night at the Sunset” I posted about? I’ve posted to my high school reunion page and they’re trying to find my old cinema class teacher, but no luck yet.
The Sunset Drive in was a property of the M&R amusements company they also had the Norridge walk in the Sky High – Twin (wheeling Illinois) BelAir in Cicero Illinois plus the Oriental in downtown Chicago
Got to see the first Air Port Movie ( Dean Martin as the captain filmed at Ohare during the 1967 snow storm)
My Father worked as a usher at the Sunset and I knew the box office and the tower (screen) WELL BOTH INSIDE AND OUT
having put up the signs for the new movies in the 1970’s from the Love Bug to A Clock Work Orange
Was there the day after the concession stand burned to the day it reopened.
Miss the friends we made there,
Dad died in 1976, my now wife of 29 years (2008) went there until in closed, explained to her I have see the drive in go from a family movie place back to the passion pit that it always was – we go on vacation and if their is a Drive-In movie we go.
Puts a smile on both of us – Yes it Nostalgic but is Real Ameican
Hi KBOW,
Sorry I didn’t see your posting earlier. I saw a 16mm print of the film at Glenbrook South High School in Glenview, IL in ‘76 or '77. Any luck finding the film?
Hope to hear from you re: Sunset: KBOW
Hi, I have seen this movie too. It was nominated for an Oscar and won a silver Hugo Award at the Chicago Film Festival. It was made before American Grafitti. Where di you see it and when? I will make some enquires for you to see if a copy can be had. The makers could not get the funding for a feature version.
KBOW
In my cinema class in high school, I saw a black-and-white short film called “A Night at the Sunset” that was filmed there in the mid-to-late 1960s. It was an episodic story (like “American Graffiti”) about the various patrons and workers there. I’d love to see that movie again…
Was still open in 1978. I saw the opening of ‘Thank God It’s Friday’ here in May or June of that year after winning tickets from a radio station.