Adapted from the book Drive-Ins of Route 66

By Michael Kilgore

Although silent-movie "drive-ins" had previously popped up now and then, their history really starts with inventor Richard Hollingshead Jr., who got the first drive-in theater patent on June 1, 1933. What he really invented wasn't the outdoor theater - it was the drive-in ramp, which angled each car up to better point at the screen. You might also give him credit for most viewing fields' clamshell design, shown below.

A page from Richard Hollingshead Jr.'s patent
application shows the clamshell layout that most
drive-in theaters adopted.

Hollingshead's first location, which opened June 6, 1933, near Camden NJ, was not a success. It was popular enough, but as with most 1930s drive-ins, its main problem was sound - no one had invented in-car speakers. Loudspeakers supplied the sound to the drive-in's patrons and often beyond, to its annoyed neighbors. An equally serious problem was that distributors weren't eager to rent films for it. Decades later, Hollingshead told the Philadelphia Inquirer that one of his first rentals "was three years old and cost us $400 for four days. The last time the film had run was in a little (theater) that paid $20 a week for it." He sold that Camden drive-in within three years to an indoor theater owner (with better film connections) who moved it to Union NJ.

The Hollingshead patent didn’t fare much better, as most competitors built similar sites without paying royalties. But potential drive-in builders weren’t sure they could safely ignore the patent. That uncertainty, along with the early sound problems, kept the drive-in business from growing quickly. Fewer than two dozen permanent drive-in theaters were built in the first five years, often using naming alternatives such as "motor-in" or "outdoor theatre." Some small-town entrepreneurs operated short-lived versions using little more than bedsheets, loudspeakers, and film projectors. When the Film Daily Year Book published the first national drive-in theater list in 1942, it could find just 95 of them.

Walter McGhee, manager of the Providence Drive-In,
holds one of the "amplifiers" that attached to every
car. Photo from the Oct. 16, 1940 issue of
The Exhibitor magazine.

The Postwar Explosion

World War II ended, and American soldiers returned home ready to start families and enjoy some entertainment. For most, their choices were live performance, radio, or the movies. Television was only available in some of the big cities, and it was really expensive. A typical 1951 set cost over $2500 in today’s dollars and could receive three black and white broadcasts on a screen smaller than today's computer monitors. The only way to watch a movie was to see whatever was showing, a current film or a reissue, at a theater.

In the early postwar years, every factor lined up in favor of drive-ins. The rapidly growing population increasingly moved to suburbs and away from traditional downtown theaters. For those indoor theaters, parking could be difficult or expensive, patrons were expected to dress up, and families with children needed to find babysitters.

Outdoor movies had none of those drawbacks. Patrons were urged to "come as you are" and bring the kids along. Daylight time wasn't widespread yet, so drive-ins could start at a decent hour. Hollywood slowly switched to movies in color, even as it continued to create films suitable for the whole family. Plentiful cheap land at the edge of town beckoned developers. AscCar ownership rapidly became ubiquitous, families had a fun new place to go.

Another major advance that helped the growth of
drive-ins was the invention of in-car speakers that
could be hung from a window. Photo from
an ad in the Motion Picture Herald.

The number of drive-ins grew steadily, but the real explosion came after October 1949 when the US Supreme Court ruled, in effect, that Hollinghead's ramp could not be patented. In one year, the number of US drive-ins more than doubled, from about 750 in 1949 to over 1700 in 1950. That number would have grown even higher, but in September 1950, as the Korean War flared, the US National Production Authority began requiring its approval to use certain building materials for entertainment facilities. Despite that speed bump, drive-in construction resumed normally within a couple of years, and the drive-in population grew to over 4300 by 1955. After that high point, the number leveled out for the next decade.

The Long Decline

After the drive-in population plateaued, most of the factors that led to their growth peeled away one by one. Television expanded to almost every city, and TV set prices dropped from unthinkable to merely expensive. Families snapped them up; 83 percent of American homes had TV in 1958, up from a mere 9 percent in 1950.

At all theaters, fewer films worked for the whole family; most explored more mature topics, and some were too childish for grown-ups to enjoy. Casual wear became acceptable at indoor theaters, and there were more of them close to home near suburban shopping centers. National adoption of Daylight Saving Time in 1967 sliced a crucial hour off already limited drive-in schedules.

As VCRs became more popular in the 1980s, they
were more likely to be front-loaders, rather than
top-loaders such as this early model.
Photo © patakiz/Depositphotos.com.

Movie-viewing at home became more convenient. Home Box Office launched in 1972, the first of a wave of commercial-free, uncut movie channels for home viewing. Perhaps the final, most lethal drive-in killer was the video cassette recorder. As VCRs dropped in price, video rental stores popped up. A family could line up a double- or triple-feature with homemade snacks for less than the cost of a night out.

Many drive-ins reacted by trying to provide viewers with an experience they couldn’t get on television. In the mid-1950s, that meant wide-screen movies, and most pre-existing drive-ins added wings to their screens. Westerns and other family fare faded. As the typical car became less likely to include children, drive-in movie-makers shifted their attention to teenagers and young adults. In the 1960s and 1970s, that often meant horror or titillation films, eventually labeled as R-rated. Some drive-ins went ever further, showing softcore sexy R movies or even hardcore adult films.

As cities and suburbs expanded, they often encircled previously remote drive-ins. Whenever a developer wanted a contiguous piece of land for a shopping mall or a housing tract, he could offer to buy a drive-in. Some landowners had figured this out decades earlier, offering short-term leases to drive-in theatres while planning to cash out once their parcels became valuable. Combine that with the dwindling crowds and neighborhood pressure against X-rated movies, selling out was often the landowner’s best choice.

21st Century Rediscovery

Most drive-ins that persisted past the year 2000 were either popular in small but not tiny towns with a stable population of about 10,000, or were in metropolitan areas stuck on pieces of land that were unappealing for other uses. For the survivors, a few new factors tilting back their way.

Disney had always produced family-friendly movies, and it kick-started a modern-day trend with Best Picture nominee Beauty and the Beast (1991). Hoping for similar success, other filmmakers returned to making animated movies that the whole family could enjoy. Studios expanded production of comic book adaptations and other cartoonish action movies, so drive-ins once again had a product to sell to both children and their parents. The FM radio transmitter supplemented and often replaced window-hanging speakers since most cars now had FM stereo radios. Patrons enjoyed richer movie audio than they had from a single, tinny speaker, and drive-in owners didn’t have to maintain and replace speakers every month.

As FM radio became ubiquitous in cars, broadcasting
the movie soundtrack over a short-range signal
provided better sound and lower cost
for drive-ins. Photo by Jirapat Chroenkeskij.

Near the close of the last century, when the US Postal Service asked its users to vote on the topic that best commemorated the 1950s, they were surprised that the big winner was drive-in movies. Postwar baby boomer children had become parents themselves and grew nostalgic for the advantages and fun of the drive-in. Surviving drive-ins showed an uptick in attendance around the turn of the century.

But that didn’t mean they were out of the woods. Almost no new drive-ins were being built, and a few existing drive-ins closed every year as their aging owner-managers cashed out, retired, or both.

Drive-In Economics

Let me pause for a moment to describe a typical drive-in theater’s sources of income. In the early days, drive-ins rented or even purchased films for a fixed price and kept the ticket proceeds. In 1954, concession stand sales accounted for just 22% of the average drive-in’s income. Those days are long gone. Today, a very high percentage of each ticket goes to the movie’s distributor, so modern drive-ins make most of their money through the concession stand.

To encourage patrons to visit the concession stand,
drive-ins played advertisements such as this one
during intermission promoting the tastiness of their
hot dogs, sodas, candy, ice cream, and especially popcorn.
2013 photo by the author.

In effect, most drive-in theaters operate as seasonal outdoor restaurants with an entertainment theme. They’re popular and a lot more fun, but keeping that in mind, you can see how it’s hard to get rich by running a drive-in. It also explains why some drive-in owners get really cheesed when patrons bring in their own food. The best drive-ins sell food so good that you’d look forward to choosing it for dinner. Even for the bad ones, I still make a point to buy popcorn and soda, a drive-in’s most profitable products. But I have digressed long enough. Back to history.

The Digital Imperative

Theatrical digital movie projection, using hard drives instead of reels of film, was first demonstrated in 1999. After 15 years of tweaking the format and planning a new distribution system, Hollywood decided to switch. The word came down from studios that they would no longer spend $5 million or more per movie to print a limited number of copies on fragile, heavy film. They required all theaters to convert to digital projection so they could use easier-to-ship, reusable hard drives instead.

Drive-ins always needed powerful film projectors to show films. Their larger screens sat farther away than indoor theaters’, and ambient city light interfered more than a darkened room. To comply with Hollywood’s demand, they needed special, expensive digital projectors. As I just mentioned, drive-ins typically don’t clear a ton of money, so many of them feared that they’d have to close when the last versions of movies disappeared.

In 2013, Honda spotlighted these owners’ plight through Project Drive-In, where fans could vote for their favorite theater. Honda awarded projectors to nine winners, and the contest drew public attention to the drive-ins that didn’t win.

When the final wave of digital conversion hit soon after, some drive-ins shut down, but not as many as some had feared. And here’s the thing — those that survived found that whatever didn’t kill them made them stronger. The digital system has its benefits. Picture quality is always excellent. “Prints” of any movie are more easily available. Drive-in screens can show broadcast sports or huge video games. And having invested all that money in equipment, today’s drive-ins have a stronger incentive to stay open year after year. Brand-new drive-ins are being built, and new-wave “pop-up” boutique drive-ins thrive in converted parking lots. During the Covid pandemic, more people came to appreciate the natural social distancing and excellent ventilation that drive-ins offer.

The steady pressure of rising land value continues to close a few drive-ins every year. But some of the original attractions of a drive-in are now causing about as many to pop up in their place. Substitute FM radio sound for a loudspeaker and once again, all a theatrical entrepreneur really needs is a projector, a screen, and a parking lot.

Pop-up drive-ins such as the Blue Starlite
of Minturn CO were made possible by
inflatable screens and digital projection technology.
2018 photo by the author.

For much, much more, check out Drive-Ins of Route 66, available now on Amazon.