Why did Drive-In's die off?

I think you've interpreted the title way too literally, more than what was intended.

 

We went to the Drive In down in Beaufort, SC this summer. It was a good time even with a bad movie, still finding popcorn in the SUV.

 

We were there this Summer, enjoyed watching Baywatch at a drive-in. It was the first time I went.

 

Did you see those folks in Bowman are going to be drive in movies with the help of the 21 Drive In Theater? Well, looks like they are done with movies for October but might check back for other dates.

Yonder Field

 

Hollywood itself didn't really start romanticizing them until after they were mostly gone. In the 1976 horror flick Ruby, a ghost kills patrons at the drive-in.

Ruby Blu-ray Review - DoBlu.com

 

I can only base my interpretation on the words used by the author. In this case, proper wording would be made things clearer. I'm sure you're nevertheless correct about the OP's intent.

 

Yeah my friend is at the SC Beer Festival there today.

 

Cascade in West Chicago, Illinois is still operational. They have gone digital. They still run this PIC ad and you can still buy it there.

 

O' man that is so cool!

 

They run this one too:

 

Welcome to CASCADE DRIVE-IN

 

ah, brings me back just the thought of it...thanks.

 

sweet times indeed...

 

In the summer there was a mall here that puts an inflatable screen in the parking lot and started showing stuff at dusk with the help of a local FM station, but I think that faded away too. A friend recorded the sound from Apocalypse Now off air in stereo that way.

 

First time I recall going was with my brother. He and his buddies were smokin somethin and not at all concerned with what was being shown. Everything is funny on screen when youre smokin somethin' My best friend Tony and I had our hotwheels and were in our designated Mercury stationwagon area. Back seats flat, the back area a play area for us to set up our hotwheels set.

Sometimes we would watch a different show from my brother and his friends from the back window on another screen. This one show that I remember was in '77 and had these white looking creature from the black lagoon guys running around and shooting these cool flashing guns. Tony and I watched the entire show without sound. It was Star Wars

The last time I went was with my australian girlfriend and it was winter. The glass kept icing over with sleet. I got the brilliant idea to use windex on the glass. Yeah that didnt work lol. We watched Fun With Dick and Jane. Had a great time eating hotdogs and laughing at what we could see!

The first one was from 1977 and the last was from 2005.

I dont know why they died out. I guess obvious reasons mentioned. But I do have some fond memories of when I went. Its kind of like your on an asphalt hiking adventure and you get to take a piece of home with you. Yet you are going out. And it was cheap!

 

I think it was a combination of expanded cable TV in the 1980s and home video in that era too. Once VHS/Beta became affordable it was way cheaper to rent movies from the videostore, and places even rented out the players, too. At one point there was a huge jump in movie ticket/concession prices, and it was a better deal to get a pizza or whatnot and watch HBO or rent 2-3 movies. And HBO if you had it gave you tons of movies per month and it wasn't nutrageously expensive like it is now. I think the first HBO freebies were maybe 1981 or 1982 and after the first one a bunch of people I knew got it. Of course, the movies on HBO were somewhat older, and first runs were still always in theaters.

 

WOW! Scroll down to #5. This would make for a good sitcom episode.
Hopefully there will be a real life happy ending.

 

American International Pictures was sold in 1979.

 

Perfect! Thanks for that. I smiled all the way through.

 

There's a good book worth seeking out about that subject:



https://www.amazon.com/Going-Gone-Vanishing-Americana/dp/0811802922

 

There used to be quite a few drive-ins in Houston, but by the early 1980s they were almost all gone. Somehow, a brand-new, huge six-screen one was constructed in 1982, the I-45 Drive In. It was less than a mile from the house I grew up in, but I didn't patronize it as frequently as I would have if it had opened a year or two earlier, as I went to college a couple of months after it opened.

It lasted slightly less than ten years before the land was redeveloped into a shopping center which is now home to a Fry's Electronics along with several other big-box stores.

 

That Photo looks like you could see three screens at once. Was that distracting?

 

OT: Until last year, Washington DC use to have Screen on the Green.....which was movies on the Mall in Washington DC.

 

IMO the biggest changes to american suburban life in the 70s was cable television and affordable air conditioning . America drew the blinds -locked the doors -closed the windows and went indoors. Neighbors slowly became strangers.. Think about it..