O, the good ol’ double-billed movies playing at the Big Sky. The drive-in must have been torn down in 1984, for the city began building the Gemco in April of 1985. Lunchwagon Girls was released in 1981, and Cheerleaders, or The Cheerleaders, was originally released in 1973; it’s re-released here as a double-biller. In 1977, I saw the movie The Other Side of Midnight here. Before that, I saw in 1972 everybody’s favorite for that year, Deliverance.
I found this old advertisement for the Big Sky Drive-In. The resolution is not great; though the print is small and blurred, it is readable. One of the movies the outdoor theater featured was Under Ten Flags with Van Heflin and Charles Laughton. Never saw it, but you can see it now for free at home. That’s what disturbs me about technology–it has a way of keeping people indoors, such a contrast from my days of growing up in Duarte.
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On Wednesday, August 4, 2021, I posted this movie, Vanishing Point, 1971, starring Barry Newman, on Facebook.
Joe saw the post and wrote,
We saw that movie at the Big Sky, I believe.
to which I replied,
That’s right!!
I found this other photo of the Big Sky. I don’t think it’s as good as the one above, but what I do like about it is that it captures the old Kinney’s Shoe store where many of us Duarteans used to shop for shoes. Love it. Even the smallest capture of those days is terrific.
What I don’t like are the folks who come to Duarte and try to position themselves as the official narrator of the town, overlay their disparate narratives onto or about Duarte, a niche they’ve carved out for themselves through mediocre work made worse by the fact that they like to sidle up to people with some officiating power, like council members, like local police officers, like school busybodies all in the hopes of garnering some special privilege that they will fashion themselves worthy of.
The photo below is a 1960 shot of the Big Sky Drive-In with my old Northview Jr. High School, opened in 1950, to its right.
So many memories of that school. Will never forget Mr. Krum, the PE teacher. Or Mr. Cooper, the Wood Shop teacher, in whose class I made a napkin holder, about which I would later spin a short story around in Dr. Hertz’s PCC short fiction class. Or Mrs. Atherton, my Math teacher. And of course, there was always Mr. Rodriguez, our Spanish teacher. He was a decent man. I will never forget how the Jackson 5 song, “ABC,” used to play in my head while walking to one of the bungalow classrooms on the west end of the campus, to Mrs. Atherton’s math class, I believe.
Duarte, CA 
I can remember a '52 Chevy with girls in the trunk going through the gate of Big Sky Drive in 1971. We got caught and laughed at.Craig (Class of '71) from Arlington, TX
I grew up on Duarte/ Monrovia and that we’re I seen E.T that was the good old…. “80” was fun
In the 1950s the Big Sky often hosted a few events under the screen prior to showing the movies. I remember people would gather around at dusk for these events, then retire to to their cars for the movies. The drive-in had a small snack bar that sold pizza, popcorn and candy, and in the back there was a long, sheet-metal urinal trough in the men’s room (which as a youngster always bothered me, having to pee between grown men). The last film I remember seeing there was “X: The Man with X-Ray Eyes” with Ray Milland, circa 1962. Great memories.
Remember going to the Big Sky in high school. Saw “ Young Frankenstein” in 1976 there.