Video: Ruskin Family Keeps Going

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Here’s another great example of a local TV station celebrating a local drive-in. Instead of the coming of spring (which may have no meaning in Florida, for all I can tell), it was a tie-in with the Oscars ceremony that prompted ABC affiliate WFTS, Tampa Bay’s News Leader, to run a visit with the owners of the Ruskin Family Drive-In Theatre in Ruskin FL.

“Ted Freiwald helped build the Ruskin Family Drive-In in 1952,” the story begins, and he’s been keeping it running for most of its existence. Although he made the digital conversion years ago, the Ruskin Family still has the old-school car window speakers as well as FM sound.

You really should watch this affectionate look at a local institution. And if you want to read a little more about the Ruskin, check out my virtual visit there during the year of the Drive-In-a-Day Odyssey.

Video: Memphis Celebrates Malco Summer

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As the days get longer, we’re starting to get another yearly round of appreciation stories for local drive-in theaters. Today’s is from WATN, Memphis’s News Leader, as it celebrates the Malco Summer Drive-In with a brief interview with David Tashie, Malco’s Senior VP of Construction.

I wish that WATN had included more video. Except for Tashie’s remarks, delivered from indoor theater seats, this is really a slide show. And a lot of those slides came from Cinema Treasures‘ contributors. But I think this clip is worth watching just to see the classic Volkswagen beetle atop the Summer Drive-In sign and to hear some of that story from Tashie.

If you’d like to read a little more about the Summer, check out my virtual visit there during the 2017 Drive-In-a-Day Odyssey.

New Couple Keeps MO’s Phoenix Running

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The Houston (MO) Herald had a fine story yesterday about the relatively new management at the Phoenix Drive-In there. Josh and Jennifer Shelton acquired the place in June 2018, and they’ve got something to do every week because the Phoenix also has an indoor theater.

“It’s going well – it’s busy,” Josh said. “Jennifer always told people we love to watch movies, and that’s a lot easier when you own a theater.”

The single indoor screen holds about 190 patrons, and it’s available for rent for video game parties including wireless controls. The single outdoor field holds “close to 150 vehicles” and operates whenever weather permits, including weekends during this past holiday season.

The Phoenix opened as the Sunset in May 1951 with a capacity of 350 cars (if you believe the Theatre Catalog) or 150 (if you prefer the Motion Picture Almanac). Both sources say “H. E. Lay” ran it at the start, then “R. D. Fischer” (or Fisher) took over around 1955. By 1977, someone named Wyatt was in charge. And some time after the late 1980s, possibly when its screen was blown down and rebuilt, the drive-in was renamed the Phoenix.

The Herald article is accompanied by 11 fine photographs by its author, Doug Davison, who wrote a similar story in the Herald in 2011 about the Phoenix and its then-owner Samantha Thomas. (Even then, the drive-in had already “changed hands several times”.) If you want a happy story about a little drive-in that’s embraced by its community and run by enthusiastic caretakers, go read both articles!