The End of the Drive-In

Sorry. I just remember being blown away the first time I went to a DI and dialed up the frequency and it sounded so good, especially compared
to what it used to be.

 

Hey wasn't there a Tour by Jimmy Buffet to give some support to help offset Digital Conversion costs?

I visited 3 back in early 80's and of course I knew neighbors who went to "Swap-O-Rama" most Saturdays to collect stuff!

 

I have great memories of going to the Drivin-in back when I was very young with my parents...we went a lot back then...

 

It was very cool in the 1950s and 1960s. I'm too young to have seen them in the 1950s, but I sure did go to them occasionally in the 1960s. It was an experience, though decidedly low-res and low-fi. Note you also had to watch the movie through your windshield, though some people sat up on the seats, or spread out a blanket and laid back on the hood, or brought folding chairs. I can see where it would seem like drive-ins would be a very wacky experience if you weren't alive during the years it happened. It was there that I saw several major Roger Corman B-movies, like those Edgar Allan Poe films, and those were tailor-made for drive-ins: cheap, sleazy, movies for a cheap, sleazy outdoor theater... but it added up to a fun, memorable experience.

Go watch the famous movie Grease, which has a major scene at a drive-in.

 

1 of the 6 times I saw Star Wars as a kid was at a drive in, in our VW bus. The only one left in the North Bay Area is about 2 hours northeast of me in a county known as the haven for speed freaks and rednecks.

 

For me as a kid it was cheaper to take a family there than a theater, one price for a carload, and you could bring your own food, soda, popcorn, so it was a pretty cheap family out night. They had play areas for the kids with swings and such so before the sun went down you could go play while the parents did their thing.

But later in age as an underage teen they were also a safe place to party with no cops around, you could have a case of beer in a cooler or some other "party favors" and no one would bother you.

We would grill out before the movies, toss some football or Frisbee in the large play area, neck with the gals, hang out with other folks we knew and once done grilling we'd get our French fries and other fixings from the food shack chow down and stay until the wee hours of the morning watching usually 2 to 3 movies on a summer Friday or Saturday night.

My buddy had a pickup truck and he'd toss a mattress in the back and we'd park it backwards, very comfortable and a perfect view.

 

One block from my house here in Big Bear Lake, there is an abandoned Drive-In that still has everything in place......and this theater closed 43 years ago, in 1971!!! I see it everyday and it makes me sad because it would have been so cool to take my kids there on friday nights when they were growing up. 7000 ft up with a canopy full or stars! It's literally yards from the lake shore. Every evening's sunset must have been wonderful waiting for the lights to dim in the sky before the movie began. The sun actually sets just to the right of the screen, where the lake is.

In the photo, you can see the imprint of the theater name on the still-standing old marquee. The snack bar and projection house are empty, sitting in the middle of an open field, but was used as a realty office for years.

Here is the cool website with the photos:

http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/20854/photos/76467

 

Great little piece.

The thread title is a bit misleading, though, as the HiWay DI is still aliove and well and isn't going anywhere. It's closed for the winter right now, but their website says "See you in 2015!"

But yes, film is dead, and I speak as one of the last (if not *THE* last) projectionist in the NY Capital Region with the capibilities to run both film and digital. 99% of the time our film are shown off of our new digital projector, but once every two or three weeks I'll fire up the 35 to keep it loose, and it is not unheard of for me to run some pre-show stuff off of film because I don't have it on digital sources. And let's be honest here....sometimes I just do it because it's fun!

Those of us here in Albany are *VERY* lucky to have no less than *SEVEN* Drive-In theatres all within 30-40 miles from Albany proper. As far as I know *ALL* of them were able to make the digiatl switchover.

 

All the drive-ins around here were sitting on property that turned out be too valuable.
I imagine this was the case with many drive-ins.
There's now a shopping center, condo, office building or Olive Garden sitting where
the car windows used to get steamed-up.
IMHO: Getting the windows steamed-up was a hell of a lot of fun.

 

I boycott all businesses that set up shop where a drive-in used to be. It's my stance against the sprawl....

 

Drive-ins are such an American thing. I have never been to one. Did people really go there to watch movies or was it just a place where you could make out with your boy- or girlfriend?

 

I go to the drive-in for two reasons - to see two good movies in great picture and sound and to scarf down some above-average burgers and fries. I don't go for the nostalgia factor. Drive-ins survive on that basis. If they rely primarily on nostalgia, they're dead meat.

 

Both

Jeez I'm in Massachusetts lets just say all three and be done with it.

 

Then there's the extra bonus of being able to share a doobie with friends during the movie....inside movie theaters tend to look down on that.

 

Believe it or not, the UK has at least a couple of them:
http://www.route66driveincinemas.co.uk/

 

Ha! I just moved FROM Tupelo, MS to Perry, GA last year.

 

The DI in my neck of the woods (Toledo, Ohio) is actually doing pretty well. In the summer they are almost always packed, especially on the weekends. They've since upgraded to digital projectors and really ramped up the snack bar. It's good to see a lasting business thriving.

 

That's the case for my two locals as well, happily.

 

Michigan drive-in (and indoor theater) history. Plenty of pictures.

http://www.waterwinterwonderland.com

 

Where's the Georgia drive-in history and pictures?

 

Don't know. I grew up in Detroit, so all of my d-i memories are in Michigan. The only one I know of here is the Starlight Six.

 

Try here...

http://www.drive-ins.com/

Search by town or zipcode. Has info and pictures of both closed and still-operating venues.

 

Here are a few photos I took last fall at the Hilltop Drive-In Theater on U.S. Highway 18 near the little town of Gregory, South Dakota. The theater opened in the summer of 1946 -- almost seventy years ago. The current owner is 86-year-old Cecil Harsin, who operated the film projectors at the theater back in the 1950s and then bought the place in 1989. Cecil's son now mans the projectors, but Cecil still likes to mow the grass around the 72-foot screen. Last year, Cecil's son told the Rapid City Journal the theater was still using the same film projector it had for decades and had no plans -- and no funding -- to convert to digital.

The window speakers at the theater still work, but the theater also offers higher fidelity sound via the car radio. A few years ago, you could still buy a small popcorn and a small soft drink, combined, for $1 at the Hilltop... Not sure whether that's still the case.

The Hilltop is one of six remaining drive-ins located in South Dakota -- down from nine just two years ago. The three that closed all cited the cost of digital conversion -- not a lack of customer support -- as the reason they went under.

 

I still have 2 drive-in's in the area (Van Buren Drive-In located in Riverside, CA and Roubidoux Drive-In in Roubidoux, CA). I went to Roubidoux a couple times over the summer and saw a few Summer movies, which was cool. Except for the time my friend and I had to view a movie on the screen that faces towards the 60 freeway and I was really distracted by the cars driving by.

Looking back now, there were about 10 more drive-in's back in the '80s still operating locally in the Inland Empire of Southern California though. Last time I went to the Riverside Van Buren Drive-In was when Pirates of the Caribbean 3 came out and caught a midnight showing and had the hardest time staying awake as the movie was close to 3 hours long.

They're still fun to go to. I guess they were a bit more fun as a child when my parents and relatives would all go together and our parents would stop at a local hamburger stand and load up on cheap burgers and we'd park near each other and us kids would play in the playground before the movie started and we'd all sit outside and watch the movie on what seemed like a gigantic screen in the open air. That, and seeing a majority of all the quintessential '80s blockbusters at drive-ins at the time further tugs on the nostalgia heartstrings. I do have a hilarious memory of my father jokingly having me hide in the back seat to avoid paying for me, which started out as a joke turned into a honest money saving method by him. That, and the time he took us to see Pee Wee's Big Adventure and he thought it was the worst movie ever and we left 20 minutes into the movie.

 

I have a great memory of Irwin Allens The Lost World back in the 60's at our local drive-In...damn those tegu's looked scary on the big screen!