Next month, the Skyview Drive-In in Belleville celebrates its 60th year in business.
In the peak year of 1958, America had 5,000 drive-ins, which outnumbered indoor theaters. Now there are only about 400 “ozoners” left, and the family-run Skyview is the last remaining…
Last week, my wife and I were vacationing in the Badlands and Sandhills of South Dakota and Nebraska, a region where we were married three years ago. When we travel, we always try to stop in towns that have drive-in…
Like opening day in baseball, an All-American sign of spring is the commencement of drive-in movie season. Soon, America’s 400 remaining drive-ins will fire up their projectors, and the Skyview in Belleville is getting an early start to celebrate its…
Charlie Kieskalt died Saturday while doing what he loved: watching a movie. He was at a theater with his granddaughter when he had a stroke. He was 59.
Charlie, also known as Mr. Movie, was the projectionist at the Skyview Drive-in…
Last weekend, my colleague Charles Williams took his family to the Skyview Drive-In in Belleville. It was his first visit to an ozoner in two decades. Now he says he understands why I won’t shut up about outdoor movie screenings.
I…
June 6 is the anniversary of the first drive-in theater, in 1933 in Camden, N.J. Drive-ins were invented by a fellow named Richard Hollingshead (whose patent was not simply for outdoor movies but for the little hillocks, or “ramps ”…
I gave “Speed Racer” a second chance tonight, because it was playing at the drive-in, where every movie seems better.
In my new (albeit 15-year-old) car, I wouldn’t have minded the 150-mile round-trip drive to the Starlite, north of Potosi, if…
Winter is now officially over. On the first weekend of spring, two local drive-in theaters re-opened for the warm-weather movie season.
The Skyview in Belleville (not to be confused with the Skyview on old Route 66 in Litchfield, Ill.) has survived…
