This is an old advertisement for the Concord Auto Movies (drive-in), which was located across from Buchanan Field on Concord Avenue, in the area of the Concord Airport Plaza & Trader Joe’s.
Who remembers this place? What movies do you remember seeing there?
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I do remember that! I had forgotten! it was the first time I had ever been to drive-in movie. Probably 1964 or so. I was a boy but my sister and her boyfriend brought me there with them. I remember not wanting to go back is going to the Enean movie theater (how many remember that?) was a better experience in my young opinion.
That was the first drive-in I had been to, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, I was 16 in 1970.
@Badge1104 The Enea brothers built and owned that drive-in along with the Enean downtown. The drive-in was built in ’60 and closed in ’77. There used to be a photo of the marquee and screen on this website, it’s no longer there, I have it on my PC….
http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/11509
Good movie! . It was where I first learned about the rules in a knife fight.
This place made it so we didnt need to sneak people into the drive-in hidden in the trunk anymore.They charged by the carload.
My Buick Electra could hold 4 people side by side in the trunk
Saw The Great Race there as a kid!
I remember seeing Pinocchio there around ’70 or ’71. I was around 5 or 6. I spent half the movie looking out the car window at the pretty blue lights at Buchanan Field.
Does anybody remember the drive in that was at Monument and Contra Costa? Staples is there now.
Pleasant Hill Motor Movies. The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly was playing there the night we graduated from Pleasant Hill High School.
On another note: Did you know that the old EL Rey Theater in Walnut Creek has an identical twin, that still operates? It’s the Cascade Theater up in Redding…
https://cascadetheatre.org/about-us/photo-gallery/
I think I remember the El Rey. Where the Lesher Center is now? Went there once for a Disney movie about a field goal kicking donkey. Gus the mule?
I also remember driving by with my mom when I was around 7 or 8 and “Deep Throat” was on the marquis. Mom never did tell me what that movie was about. Sadly, neither did any of my girlfriends nor my wife.
The old El Rey theater was at 1649 North Main street, right downtown. Can’t remember the local family who owned the candy shop next door. Wonderful town in the old days. Not so hot anymore…
http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/10834
El Rey in 1970s was owned by Nathaniel Blumenfeld.
Also owned Village theater in San Ramon and Park theater in Lafayette.
@The Professor…. Wasn’t that the documentary movie about Tricky Dick Nixon and Watergate?
I remember the Solano Drive in, Planet of the apes, I was 6 maybe. My dad made a big bed in the back of your BelAir station wagon, I fell asleep.. my oldest Sibs talked about the movie and I was bummed I didn’t see it to the end. I remember the PH drive in and the farm to the north.
Fonzie Parrish my neighbor, was the manager at the El Rey theater. We use to go there all the time. Saw the movie Born Free there. It was a nice theater.
Fonzie was a wonderful guy. Knew him back in the day when he was with Farmers Insurance. Thanks for thinking of him FPN/
“Mr. Parrish” was the manager of the Park Theater in Lafayette in the middle 50’s when all my school friends and I would stand in a looong line all around the theater to get in (25cents) for a double feature, 10 cartoons, and nickel candy bars!! My family even went to the Park Theater for the first St. Perpetua’s Catholic Sunday masses; before the church was built. Great times and great memories.
Remember all three, PH Drive In, Concord Auto, and Solano. Remember the PH Drive In started showing porn movies a couple years before they closed. As kids you could be in the Wards parking lot or on Contra Costa Blvd. and watch! Pretty eye opening as an elementary school aged kid.
@Ripley….Concord Auto Movies showed porn movies too before they closed, plus you could hear it on your car radio.
What was the name of the drive in that used to be on the corner of Monument and Contra Costa Blvd?
That was the Pleasant Hill Motor Movies. I think Thursday night was a buck a car. Might’ve been the Solano. Fun times.