Category Archives: Michigan

Monroe MI approves drive-in plan

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Here’s yet another data point in a remarkable season of drive-in renewals. The Frenchtown Township MI planning commission has approved a special use permit and zoning adjustments to allow a developer to rebuild the Denniston Drive-In in Monroe. The next step is for the developer to submit a full site plan to the commission, according to the story in the Monroe News.

The article doesn’t mention his name, but according to Dean Cousino, the hardest-working man in Monroe, the developer is Todd Williams from Brownstown Township. Cousino told me that the full site plan won’t be included in the commission’s next meeting on Oct. 20, so we’ll have to wait to learn more about the project.

The Denniston was a huge single-screen drive-in that opened in the 1950s and closed in the 1980s, when a small two-screen indoor theater took its place there. That theater closed a few years ago. As you can see by the Google Earth View above, the lot is still remarkably clear.

According to the story in the News, the current plan is to face the screen to the east, opposite of original screen’s orientation. The site already has utility service, and the developer plans only a concession stand with restrooms. And a screen, of course. For more details, you really should go read it!

Carload’s grand re-opening

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Driving America drive-in type sign at The Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn MI

This Douglas Auto Theatre sign spent over 30 years at a Kalamazoo MI drive-in. Now it hangs at The Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn. Photo by PunkToad

In case you haven’t noticed, Carload.com is active again. The graphics are prettier, the news is as timely as ever, but there are a few changes.

Carload began as a way to keep track of what was showing at Colorado drive-in theaters. Way back then, there were 12 active drive-ins in the state, most of them didn’t have web pages, Facebook didn’t exist, and long-distance calls cost money. Listing the theaters and what they had planned for the weekend was helpful.

Now that’s all different. At this writing, only one drive-in in the US or Canada doesn’t have its own site or at least a Facebook page. Everybody’s got a cell phone, and long distance is free or dirt cheap. Having one more site with movie listings isn’t helpful any longer.

Instead, Carload has been redesigned as a mobile-first site. The front-page emphasis on drive-in news is still strong, but now we also keep track of every active drive-in in the US and Canada. If you’re still curious about what’s showing, just call the phone number or click through to the theater’s official web page.

Thanks for your support during this transition. If you have a great drive-in photo, please add it to the Carload Flickr Pool.

How to define the drive-in theater

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Blue Moonlight Drive-In at night

The Blue Moonlight Drive-In (Galesburg IL) at night. © DepositPhotos / sgtphoto.

What is a drive-in theater?

That’s not a rhetorical question. Over the years, I’ve called out Things That Are Not Drive-Ins. The most common example of Not is a movie night in a park where everybody sits in chairs or on blankets and the organizers can’t resist calling any outdoor movie a “drive-in.” But the line between Drive-In and Not is getting thinner.

Consider what a drive-in theater requires. It must have a permanent location, although that location can shift. A “pop-up drive-in” that visits various parking lots doesn’t count.

A drive-in theater must have room for cars. Additional pedestrian seating is okay, but you can’t have a drive-in without drivers.

A drive-in needs a screen, but now the line starts to get blurry. Does it need to be a permanent screen? Consider the Blue Starlite Mini Urban Drive-In in Austin TX. As you can see by this photo, the BSMU used a very temporary-looking screen. Other such parking-lot drive-ins have used the side of a building as a screen. Should that disqualify it? I’d say no, so screen permanence isn’t a requirement.

I can’t think of any other requirements, except perhaps that it needs to be open to the public. Whether it uses film or digital, new movies or old, mainstream or porn; whether it’s got a concession stand, food trucks, or nothing; if cars can drive to a particular place to watch movies on a screen, that’s a drive-in theater.

Here’s a related question: When is a drive-in “active,” as opposed to permanently closed? Most cases are obvious. Many drive-ins are dormant over the winter, but like leafless trees in December, that doesn’t mean they’re dead. When a drive-in stays dark through summer, or announces that it won’t reopen, then it’s closed.

Turns out that there are some marginal cases. Consider Manistique MI’s Cinema 2, a single-screen theater named for US Highway 2. The Cinema 2 closed in 2001. Fifteen years later, its screen and buildings were amazingly still in good shape, so civic charities sponsored one-shot movie nights twice in 2016. (The most recent was covered here.) For now, I’d still call that one closed, but if they ramp up to once a month or more, I’d reconsider.

Then there’s the Hilltop in Chester WV. Struggling with the conversion to digital movies, it was closed all summer until it found a film distributor and reopened this month. Was the Hilltop “closed,” or was it just dormant? I’m just glad it’s back now.

There will always be cute little stories about fake drive-ins, like the Kansas elementary school that built one in its gym. These offshoots illustrate how deeply the idea of a drive-in is ingrained even for those unfortunates who haven’t experienced it. Drive-ins are here to stay, and Carload will be here to tell you about them.