Author Archives: mrdrivein

Mission Drive-In mural will soon be relit

Posted on by
Restored Mission Drive-In mural

Click here for the full story and a 24-picture slideshow

As reported by KENS, San Antonio’s news leader, the restored mural at the abandoned Mission Drive-In Theatre recently passed its lighting test. The city expects to officially switch on the lights at the end of February.

As discussed earlier, San Antonio is restoring the old drive-in site to include a community library with space for more facilities, and it’s restoring the original solidly built theater screen/mural. Gary Edenburn, special projects manager for the San Antonio Development Office, said he expects to see outdoor movies there this summer.

Not only did the old drive-in have this beautiful mural, the mural’s figures were outlined in neon. For the 21st century, San Antonio officials chose to use LED lighting instead as a faux-neon for the same outlines. I’d be curious to see how that compares.

According to the story, “Locals are already flocking to the Mission Public Library that sits on the same property. (The adjacent) Mission San Jose is poised as a historic backdrop for those who gather in the library’s cozy sunlit reading nooks.” Ah, I love new libraries almost as much as new drive-ins.

I really wish KENS had included a piece of video to go with the story so I could have embedded it here, but their 24-picture slideshow of the mural and library are the next best thing. (There’s a year-old video that includes helicopter shots of the site, but that story is about local artists complaining that the old mural contained stereotypical images. The city agreed not to include those parts of the mural in the restoration, but KENS’s story continues with more complaining.) And if you want to read about Carload’s special relationship with the Mission, go read this earlier post.

Drive-in photo exhibit opening in Sioux City

Posted on by
Drive-in screen photo by Michael Flecky, S.J.

photo by Michael Flecky, S.J.

“Sunset Drive-In,” an exhibition of 42 photos documenting the visual culture and architecture of drive-in movie theaters, opens Saturday at the Betty Strong Encounter Center in Sioux City IA. Admission is free, and the show runs through May 18.

The photographer is Michael Flecky, S.J., Professor of Photography in the Fine and Performing Arts Department at Creighton University. Flecky chose these photos from hundreds of images he has made over more than a quarter century. “Outdoor theaters are quickly becoming a thing of history and archaeology – unfortunately,” said the Council Bluffs native. “It’s a vanishing culture.” Sioux City’s last drive-in, the Highway 75, closed in 1988.

Flecky’s interest in drive-ins was sparked 27 years ago when he was photographing western Nebraska’s Sandhills with a large-format camera. He was attracted to the formal qualities of outdoor movie screens in the panoramic landscape, along with the shapes of grain silos and church steeples, recognizable from a distance on the rural horizon. The movie screens appeared like frames waiting for a picture, “a photographer’s dream,” he said.

Thanks to the Sioux City Journal for pointing out the opening of this exhibit. For more about Flecky and his drive-in photos, check out this August story in the Kearney (NE) Hub.

LA Times profiles Rubidoux’s digital conversion

Posted on by

Rubidoux Drive-in screenThe Los Angeles Times ran a great story last weekend about the digital projection conversion and the problems it is giving drive-ins in general and the Rubidoux Drive-In (Riverside CA) in particular.

I don’t want to bury the lead, so the good news is that the Rubidoux plans to make the conversion. We also learn that the Cascade (West Chicago IL) will also convert despite the failure of its Kickstarter campaign. Writer Laura J. Nelson sets this positive news in a grim setting, that the switch will be difficult for more drive-ins and fatal to some.

Nelson gives the best description of the economics of digital projection, including Hollywood’s plan and the special problems posed by the drive-in projection booth. That’s just another part of a great, sweeping article that touches on the history of drive-ins, its recent casualties, and the appeal of seeing movies under the stars.

If you’re a drive-in fan at all, you’ve got to check out the full article with its 19 accompanying photos. It’s also got two great graphs using United Drive-In Theatre Owners Association data showing the rise and decline of drive-ins by year and the current drive-in population by state. Go read it!