Indiana, Oklahoma drive-ins survive storms

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Winchester_FacebookWNDU, South Bend IN’s news leader, ran a story about the storm that took out one of the two screens at the Melody Drive-In (Knox). There’s a nice video of the damage and reaction, but I wasn’t able to embed it here. The good news is that the Melody re-opened last weekend, and the owners hope to rebuild the damaged screen by July 4.

And Oklahoma City’s last drive-in, the Winchester, was also hit hard by storms according to a story in The Oklahoman. Winds damaged the theater’s new digital projection system and half the marquee, although the screen and the “historic neon cowboy sign” survived. Owner Lindy Shanbour says that insurance should pay for most of the repairs, and the Winchester will bounce back. “I don’t know how long it’s going to take, but we will reopen,” he said. “You get this in your blood, and you can’t get it out. I can’t tell you the feeling it gives me.”

I’m always a little shaken when storms and drive-ins mix it up. One of my favorites growing up was the drive-in in Sedalia MO, apparently called the Highway 50 or just Sedalia. I’m fuzzy on that, but I remember that it was in the median where US 50 split into east- and west-bound lanes just west of town. I always thought that it was so cool to have a drive-in in a highway median. And I also remember when I saw the news reports and photos in 1980 that showed how a tornado had blown it to shreds. The drive-in closed after that, and now not only does the highway not split any more, but it looks like there’s an indoor theater where the drive-in used to be. So it’s great news that the Melody and the Winchester are coming back.

Media outlets celebrate 80 years of drive-ins

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Fiesta Drive-In screen

photo by Neon Michael, from the Carload Flickr pool

Rather than adding separate posts about everybody celebrating the 80th anniversary of the drive-in theater, I’ll put them all together for you here so you can read as many of them as you want.

  • USA Today picked up a Cherry Hills NJ Courier-Post story. The best part is a photo of the first drive-in courtesy of Pauline Hollinghead, the inventor’s nephew’s wife.
  • Philly.com ran an article with a different photo of that first drive-in. The article adds some perspective I hadn’t seen elsewhere. “The theater opened in an era when Admiral Wilson Boulevard and adjacent Crescent Boulevard (Route 130) were lined with flashy attractions and establishments of all sorts, including a dog-racing track, an airport, and an enormous Sears department store (now undergoing demolilition).”
  • Gadling.com used the occasion for an interview with Craig Derman, photographer of The Drive-In Project, a look at abandoned drive-in movie theaters across America. And it shows a picture of the Comanche (Buena Vista CO). Hey, the Comanche isn’t abandoned!
  • The Connecticut Post ran a slide show of classic drive-in photos, leading off with the iconic Life Magazine photo with Charlton Heston that we talked about earlier.
  • ABC News ran a different set of black and white drive-in photos, mostly from Getty Images.
  • Parade had yet another slide show.
  • The press release web site PRWeb.com used the anniversary to promote the Family Drive-In Theatre (Stephens City VA) as part of Go Blue Ridge Travel’s “Kids Bucket List“. Have we already forgotten what “bucket list” means? Do kids around there have a high mortality rate?
  • The Kentuck Art Center (Northport AL) commemorated the occasion in its monthly Art Night with an outdoor screen looping vintage intermission ads and a drive-in themed photo booth for visitors to use, according to the University of Alabama’s The Crimson White.
  • Finally, the Orange County Register posted a great infographic (PDF) about the rise and fade of drive-ins through the years. Check it out!

Happy 80th Birthday to Hollingshead’s invention

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In honor of the 80th anniversary of the drive-in theater, I present the Google doodle from last year (why didn’t they wait for a round number?) and the following excerpt from Drive-in Theaters: A History from Their Inception in 1933 by Kerry Segrave. This little bit is about the invention of the drive-in by Richard M. Hollingshead, Jr. You can find the full review of this book elsewhere on Carload.

In the driveway of his Riverton NJ home at 212 Thomas Avenue, Hollingshead experimented. Setting a 1928 Kodak projector on the hood of the family car, he projected the film onto a screen he had nailed to a tree. He tested foul-weather potential by turning on the lawn sprinkler to simulate a rainstorm. …

Sitting in his vehicle, Hollingshead realized that a car parked in front of his would obscure the view. For many weeks, he continued his experiments, placing one car behind another, 40 feet apart. Blocks were put under the front wheels of both cars until he got the proper angle to allow the driver in the second vehicle to see over the car ahead. …

(The problem of sound) was turned over to the RCA Victor Company, next-door neighbors in Camden to the Hollingshead company plant. … RCA came up with what they called controlled directional sound. It meant, they claimed, that everyone in the theater received the same volume of sound – delivered, in this case, by three central speakers. …

Construction of the project did not begin until May 16, when the patent was officially granted. … (Despite serious) labor problems, construction was completed in less than three weeks.

The world’s first drive-in opened on Tuesday, June 6, 1933. Most sources give the location as Admiral Wilson Boulevard, Camden NJ. Actually, the theater was just over the Camden town line, from which point outward the street was called Crescent Boulevard. The location was Pennsauken Township. The theater was called the Automobile Movie Theatre; the marquee simply read “Drive-In Theatre.”

That’s just one small, snipped sample of the best drive-in history book I’ve read so far, and I encourage you to find a copy to read the rest of the account.

The drive-in theater started with baby steps, sprouted in its teenage years (1946-1952), then became a national success as a young adult. It slowed down as a relatively young middle-aged adult, but it’s staying in shape and modern technology could keep it alive for 100 years or more. Make it a Happy Drive-In weekend by visiting a theater near you!