Category Archives: Kentucky

Project Drive-In roundup 2, The Sequel

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In my last post, I began the task of listing every local media report of every local drive-in that’s participating in Honda’s Project Drive-In. Foolishly, I thought that I might gather up all of them in one sitting. When I hit 20 theaters, each with a similar tale of tenuous finance and this lottery-ticket hope for survival, my eyes had glazed over, and I barely had the strength to finish off the post and click Publish.

Two days later, I’m ready again to see how many more drive-in reports I can list. Again, they’re alphabetized by state. And again, if you click through and find a particularly cool detail we should all know about, please leave a comment.

More of your candidates:

Whew again! That’s 20 more drive-ins with local coverage of their Project Drive-In eligibility. I don’t know whether there are 20 more that I haven’t mentioned, but if I spot enough new ones, there may be a third episode of this franchise.

Here’s how to listen to the Bourbon Drive-In

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Bourbon Drive-In marquee and screen next to railroad tracks

photo by Bill Eichelberger, used by permission

Brenna Angel of National Public Radio member station WUKY presented a nice report this week about the Bourbon Drive-In near Paris KY. It’s always nice to get the sights of the drive-in (and there’s an excellent, unrelated drive-in photo on WUKY’s page), but it’s a rare gift to be able to hear the sounds of the drive-in. There was a film projector tick-a-ticking, a 57-year-old popcorn machine popping, and co-owner Patricia Earlywine talking about getting the drive-in spirit “in your blood”.

There’s a short clip of D. Edward Vogel, board member of the United Drive-In Theatre Owners Association and owner of Bengies Drive-In of Maryland. (Good thing Angel did that over the phone and not at Bengies or she’d be in trouble.) Angel mentions a studio program to reimburse some costs for converting from film to digital projection, but that the Bourbon couldn’t use it because it requires a high-speed internet connection. That’s the first I’d heard of that; I’d think that dishNet satellite broadband might work.

At the end, Angel shows that she gets it. “Going to a drive-in movie theater isn’t really about the movie,” she says. “It’s about the experience of being there.” Amen to that! So go over to that WUKY page and don’t read the report, click the play button and listen to the sounds of the drive-in.

Calvert DI reopens for 60th season

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The screen at the Calvert Drive-In

photo by Bill Eichelberger, used by permission

The Murray State News recently gave us a quiet portrait of John Harrington, the manager of the Calvert Drive-In in Calvert City KY. Sometimes history is the sum of individual experiences, and reading what Harrington had to say about the Calvert can add to our understanding of what things were like in the early days.

Harrington’s grandparents built the Calvert, and four generations of his family have worked there. Recent improvements they’ve made to the place include a new screen (in 2003), a better concession area (2007), and now digital projection.

The part of the article that I liked best was the date Harrington picked as perhaps the beginning of the end of drive-in mania. It wasn’t what I would have guessed.

“1958 was a hard year for drive-ins,” Harrington said. “… In the late ‘50s/early ‘60s when TVs really started becoming popular, people could stay at home and catch up on the news. Back in the ‘30s and ‘40s, people would go to the theaters to see what was going on in the war, and there were a lot of newsreels.” That’s a part of the TV experience I hadn’t considered, that it broke a habit of going to the movies to see what’s news. Thanks to the Murray State News for giving us that look back.