The Starlite also become a unique experience for Durhamites of the current generation - much like going to a Bulls game for many people, it was often more about sitting outside on a summer night with your friends, some beer, and some hot dogs than it was about the movie. It isn't clear if it had been previously revived - one comment alludes to the theater being abandoned from 1961 until the 1970s, so perhaps there was a previous owner who reopened the theater.īob was well beloved by many in the community for his "How many you got hiding in the trunk?" greeting and his overall good nature. The most recent resuscitation of the theater was due to the efforts of Bob Groves, a native of Cumberland, MD who purchased the Starlite in 1986. I was more agog at the combination concession stand / projection room / gun shop - I particularly remember a glass display case with a line of stun guns. Much like riding the streetcar to/from school when I was a kid in New Orleans, I didn't appreciate the rare opportunity to enjoy the experience of a previous generation at the time. The Starlite was a special place, and I can’t blame Hefner for selling out - the drive-in was going the way of the do-do bird by 1985 - but Spokane lost something important when the Starlite closed.My first experience with the Starlite was ~1990 when I was in college. And when my friends finally reached driving age, there had even been a time or two when several of us hid under blankets in the back seat to avoid paying admission at the gate. I had to confess to him there was many a night, back in high school, when I shimmied up the trees behind the drive-in and watched from a perch on a high branch, trying to make out the sound from the far-off in-car speakers. In the mid-‘80s, as Walt Hefner sold out for the (now-closed) Newport Cinemas, and I was working as a young reporter for the Spokesman-Review, I called him for an interview and met a guy who who clearly was in the exhibition business because he loved movies. If your car is push to start, check your manual for how to achieve accesory mode. Ensure your car is in accessory mode, and not ignition. And just think - how many people in the late '70s, in a town like Spokane, would have understood that these two movies were linked by the fact that they were among the greatest films directed by George Pal? It was as if the Starlite was a repertory theater of the very greatest drive-in fare. Audio can be heard on your vehicles radio on 90.3FM. I still remember a night in the late ‘70s catching a double-bill of “When Worlds Collide” and “War of the Worlds.” Keep in mind these movies were 25 years old at that point. Instead of the first and second-run features that were shown at most of the drive-ins, or the somewhat naughtier movies that played at the nearby “Y” Drive-In, the Starlite featured triple-bills of early-sixties Roger Corman horror movies, or nights of nothing but cartoons, or science-fiction nights. What made the Starlite great was its eclectic bookings. I remember the Starlite Drive-In well - really my favorite of all the many drive-ins we had in the Spokane area in the 1970s. Where did Walt choose to premiere his movie? It was at the Newport Cinemas, the former location of his Starlite Drive-In. The movie was produced and filmed in Spokane with local actors. In 1991 the Spokesman-Review said Hefner put the proceeds of the sale to use by producing a $750,000 low-budget film of his own, which was called “The Ghosting". In 1985 the Newport Cinemas opened on the site of the former drive-in. Hefner had realized a good return on his investment in bad movies because he had sold the land to Tom Moyer of Luxury Theatres for a million dollars. In October of 1984 the Starlite Drive-In closed the season and forever with a five-feature blowout. It was said that he “considers good bad movies one of the main attractions of his business". In 1981 Hefner was quoted in the news as saying: “Some of the movies we show are terrible, but our audience knows that and appreciates that". The Starlite Drive-In regularly showed triple and even quadruple feature exploitation movies, the type which would have made Quentin Tarantino proud. 15 Single Admission (1 Person per car) 27 Couple Admission (2 People per car) 40.50 Family Admission (3 per car) 54 Family Admission (4 per car). Since he was his own contractor, he saved $103,000 in construction costs by opening it in November. The Spokesman-Review said that Hefner originally planned to open in June. Walt Hefner opened the 500-car Starlite Drive-In, Spokane’s seventh open-air theater, on Novemwith Peter Cushing in “The Hound of the Baskervilles”, Yul Brynner in “The Magnificent Seven” & Margaret Rutherford in “The Mouse on the Moon”.
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