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06.29.2009 2:29 am

Skyview at 60: the drive-in thrives

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

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…

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06.15.2009 5:32 am

Forgotten pleasures from the “Land of the Lost”

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

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…

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03.27.2009 5:35 pm

It’s drive-in movie time!

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

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…

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12.29.2008 6:25 pm

Charlie Kieskalt, R.I.P.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

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…

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06.23.2008 11:33 pm

The call of the drive-in never gets old

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

skyview.jpgLast 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…

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06.06.2008 2:07 pm

Happy Drive-In Theatre Day

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

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 ”…

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05.18.2008 2:00 am

No, Speed Racer, no!

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

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…

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03.24.2008 7:07 pm

Let’s all go to the drive-in

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

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…

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