Hi-Vue Theatre

Info Updates:

11/4/2015 - Bill Domby

Steve Paluch and his wife first owned the Hi-Vue Drive In and the Durand downtown theater. They lived onsite in a mobile home. One was open in the summer and the other in the winter.

8/13/2013 - Peter Alilunas

I'm researching the history of southwest Michigan drive-in theaters. If anyone has any information on the Hi-Vue/Sceen Drive-In in Durand, Michigan, or is a former employee there, I'd be very interested in hearing from you. Peter Alilunas alilunas@umich. edu.

11/3/2003 - Web

About Harry V. Mohney 1943: Born in Battle Creek, he was raised in a house without indoor plumbing. 1960: Convicted of breaking and entering in Calhoun County. 1965: Income tax return shows $2,133 in earnings from part-time work as a carpenter. 1966: Works as a projectionist at the Eastown Theatre, an X-rated movie house in Battle Creek. Mohney later becomes a partner in the business. 1966: Buys the run-down Sceen Drive-in in Shiawassee County, which becomes known as the Durand Dirties when Mohney turns to porn to bring in customers. He reports gross receipts of $60,857 from the theater and a bookstore. 1968: Income tax records show Mohney owns several theaters and bookstores, and gross receipts top $1.09 million. 1969: Reports gross receipts of $2.5 million. 1970: Arrested, along with an employee, at his Sunset Drive-in in Lapeer Township for showing an obscene movie and contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Authorities claim people outside the theater, including children, can see films from their bedroom windows. Drive-in workers see police so often they later post a message to Lapeer County Sheriff Kenneth A. Parks - See you Fri Parks - on a marquee. 1973: Empire grows to 20 cities with gross receipts of $6.3 million. 1973: Indicted, along with affiliated companies in Durand, by a grand jury in Covington, Ky., for interstate distribution of obscene movies including Deep Throat and Teen-Age Cow Girls. Mohney is indicted or arrested for obscenity 39 times by 1990. 1973: Meets Gail Palmer, a freshman at Western Michigan University, hiring her to work at one of his theaters. The two live together for several years, and Palmer herself becomes a celebrity, writing and directing popular adult movies financed by Mohney. She later sues him for $15 million in damages based on their business and personal relationships. 1985: Is among a group that buys the original Deja Vu gentlemens club in the Seattle area. 1989: Palmer testifies against Mohney in U.S. District Court in Flint, saying he paid cash and had no bank accounts or credit cards to avoid paying taxes. Palmer claims Mohney owned about 300 adult movie theaters around the country in the early 1980s. 1990: Federal authorities estimate Mohneys net worth at $100 million and say he is the second-largest distributor of adult books and magazines in the nation, but the money cant save him from conviction on tax evasion in Flint. Two years later, he pleads guilty to conspiracy to withhold information after the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals dismisses the tax evasion convictions on a technicality. 1992: Begins serving a 3-year prison sentence in California. 1994: Released from prison. 2003: Listed as a consultant by Deja Vu Consulting, the company behind what it claims is the largest strip club chain in the nation. Retired FBI agents say he actually controls the chain, which has more than 60 outlets and has expanded into Europe.

1/6/2003 - Drive-Ins.com

Once nicknamed the "Durand Dirties". Topless women would serve the food. Keith

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