Remembrances of Summers Past
The Drive-In Theater

By Roy Nuhn

As seen in The Antique Shoppe Newspaper, June 2009

Many are the summertime memories of the nation's drive-in motion picture theaters. It seems like only yesterday - the 1950s and '60s - when the American landscape brimmed over with them. Viewing movies in the open air was very much a way of life for most folks. The first one opened its gates over 75 years ago. And thus grew the legends.

"Buck Night" - when you jammed ten thousand teenagers into a 25-year-old rattletrap DeSoto open convertible and everyone got in for a single, crumpled dollar bill.

"Bingo Night" - when the entire family played the game during intermission and won prizes like a free pizza at Tony's or a $2 gift certificate for Dolly's Pet Poodle Care Palace.

And "Sneak Preview Night" - when the extra freebee turned out to be a Polish import in which everyone spoke Polish and the screen was half blotted out by the English captions.

The 1950s were an era when more and more guys, most of them high schoolers or college age, were driving their first cars. What was needed was a place to take their gals to for a bit of privacy.          

Also, many newly-marrieds, some with their first baby, or young folks with a couple of kids were looking for a night out without a worry about baby sitters. The drive-in solved these and many other problems, such as the need for inexpensive entertainment.

No matter that practically all drive-ins showed either old films or dogs that should have been put out of their misery. The regular film distribution chains, bowing to pressure from local movie house owners, almost always refused to rent first runs. Even if they hadn't, most drive-ins were not willing or able to pay the higher freight. This, of course, later changed.

Basically a merger of two 20th-century American phenomenons, the automobile revolution and the motion picture's mass appeal, what is amazing is that it took so long to come about.

The first theater exclusively for films was the Nickelodeon, which opened in June 1905 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The dream by Henry Ford of an auto for every American had begun to be realized by the early 1920s. Yet, it wasn't until June 6, 1933 that the first drive-in opened its gates. Established on a 10-acre site on Admiral Wilson Boulevard in Camden, New Jersey, the screen was 40 feet by 50 feet. Viewing the flickering images on the screen 500 cars could find parking slots in the nine rows of inclined planes and 45-foot deep aisles.

Coming as it did during the Great Depression of that decade, the idea did not light up the sky like a Roman candle on the 4th of July. It wasn't until after the end of World War II that the drive-in boom hit the nation's suburbs. Usually built on the edge of town on land not otherwise occupied certainly never attracted the fashionable people. But they did lure nearly everyone else. And folks who were there back then - and survived so many carbon monoxide gassings at the end of every show as hundreds of autos darted and sparred with one another as they tried to escape into the night- will never forget the memory.

During the Golden Age of Movie Picture Drive-Ins, hundreds were built across America. Novelty types like fly-ins, canoe-ins and bicycle-ins were also attempted. To make themselves even more appealing, many managements added such extras as playgrounds, laundromats, and miniature zoos. The concession stands, which in most cases accounted for more than half of the profits of the venture, would always warm up a baby's bottle or give you a paper cup of water.

As the population grew and new homes by the tens of thousands were constructed in the 1970s and 1980s and shopping malls exploded everywhere, the previously cheap land upon which most drive-ins sat suddenly shot up in value. Combined with a dramatic decline in attendance from the 1960s on as television managed to capture the public's mind and psyche, most drive-ins folded and the land was sold for fantastic prices to developers.

And thus did an era end. A few, very few, drive-ins remain, but they are only surviving relics whose destiny is clearly written on their screens. Many are now used as Sunday swap meets - and giant flea markets.

Being part of the nostalgic 50s and 60s is perhaps one reason why many collectors seek postcards of drive-in theaters. Most are chrome style, regular postcard size, and date from the 1950 and 1960 era. Linen cards exist, but are rare as they came along during the 1940s and early '50s.

Most postcards show either the entrance, with marquee, or a distant shot of the screen. The theaters which were utilized as drive-in churches on Sundays are also seen as a distant view, often with an ad for the service itself. Night scenes depicting a movie being shown on the screen are nearly impossible to find

Postcards of America's drive-in motion picture theaters are a wonderful reminder of summers past. They are also historical photo footnotes of the nation's mid-20th century history.

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