I remember being at the drive-in. So I'm about 9 years old and naturally, I'm in the back seat of the family '54 Pontiac. Behind the rear seat, under the back window, was a flat area just perfect to set down my big orange soda because there was no such thing as cup holders. Whoa! Not so perfect when my drink tipped over right into the rear speaker. No stereo in those days but Pontiac was one of those fancy cars with the latest and greatest single speaker in the back. The speaker had a wire mesh grill that was flocked and fuzzy. In a short few months, I was able to witness the grill rust and crumble to dust. I don't remember telling my dad that I spilled my drink, but I also don't remember him asking WTH happened to the speaker grill.
Haven't been there in about 10 years, but in Atlanta the Starlight Drive In has 6 screens! All showing different movies! Up until about 2010 or so there was a big hot rod, custom, and rat rod gathering there Labor Day weekend called "Dixie Fried". Started on the Sat.morning preceding Labor Day, went all night and up into Sun am, when folks got sober enough to leave, LOL! They played movies on a few of the screens all night long, and late one night, somehow someone got into the projection booth and put on some hardcore porn that played quite awhile! Have another memory of the drive in also, this one here in my hometown, sorta an embarrassing one. Back in high school one of my buddies Dad had a '50 Nash Statesman (the upside down bathtub model). The car had a huge trunk and we decided to load it up with guys and only 2 up front to pay, then after we got in, the back seat let down and you could crawl from the trunk into car's interior without opening the trunk lid. The cemetery was just up the road from the drive in, and we figured it would be a good plce to get out of sight while we got in the trunk. We didn't know it was illegal to be in the cemetery after dark, nor did we know we were followed into there by a cop, who urned off his lights and followed us in When we got out and opened the trunk and started to climb in, he lit us up, walked up and told us he knew what we were planning to do was slip in the drive in. So he made us get back in the car, escorted us to the drive in, got the manager to come to entrance and each of us individually had to step up and apologize to him! Embarrassing to say the least
I have told several Drive In stories on other threads, Passion Pit was our name for them in my time frame. To answer your question, NO, But I have seen a lot of firsts in my lifetime, born 1948, kindergarten 1953, we and none of my neighborhood friends/playmates had a TV so at school when a kid was telling us about TV, we asked if we could come over and see it, next day his MOM had 6 of us over complete with cookies and pop, WOW ! My Mom bought one shortly after this, with the wooden cabinet, 12' screen, record player, I remember, Howdy Doody, Twinkie a program you put a thing over TV screen to join in, Cisco Kid, Rocky & Bullwinkle, watching Jimmy Durante, Grand old Oprey with my Mom (The Best Mom ever IMO, She gets a lot of the credit for who I am and how I turned out) At this time we lived in a house where you shoveled coal into furnace, Ice Box, man delivered Ice with horse drawn cooler, milk man/ milk shoot, we did have indoor plumbing, men pedaling bicycles with coolers, selling ice cream bars, I quickly learned the sound of that bell ringing, phone party line, our ring was 2 short 1 long. The advancements of technology and the social changes have made it a much different world today, Better ? Questionable IMO, Playing with an old car is my only trip back in time when cruising other than my memories.
There used to be a run down drive-in movie toward the south end of Kansas City in the late 70's and it was not in a desirable area. They had declined to the point that they were showing porn at the drive-in! I was flying helicopters for the city at the time and if the wind was right one could point the helicopter into the wind and stay in one spot with out much trouble. 1,800' AGL was the perfect altitude and it mostly kept the neighbors happy as it was high enough not to bother them with the noise. The drawback was that we could not hear the dialogue but who watches those types of movies for the dialogue?
Years ago there was a drive-in on Central Avenue in the Forestville/ Capitol Heights area of Maryland. Friday nights were the night for X-Rated movies to be shown. The road passing the drive-in went down a hill and there was a corrugated metal fence separating it from the theater. You could just catch a glimpse of the movie as you drove past before the fence blocked the view. Sort of a tease. Across the road and up a steep hill from the drive-in there was a home where an older couple lived and they could have easily sat in their living room on a Friday evening and watched everything for free. I'm not saying they were the horniest couple in town, but they always had a big smile on their faces when you would see them out and about........and they always seemed to be home on Friday nights!
I went to the drive -in a lot as a teenager and I remember the names of the movies but don't think I ever watched one. HRP
My family never had a television until '56 or '57, when we moved close to Dallas, because we had been living in little towns too far from the big cities with broadcasting. The funny thing was, we were always a short ride to a drive-in until we moved and got that TV. Then there wasn't a drive-in to be found we could comfortably reach. By that time in the late 50's the tiny screens and the big wooden cabinets were over and we got a "portable" TV that you put on a stand...... with rabbit ears that you had to adjust every time you changed stations. A lot of the small town drive-ins and movie theaters went through some lean times because of the attraction of TV right in your home. Nowadays, we have 150 channels on the set and think it's a big treat to go out and buy double-digit tickets, drinks, and snacks at the "show" and the theaters are fat-n-happy again. When I get my HAMB friendly vehicle rolling, I plan to hit the drive-in movies and the drive-in hamburger joints every chance I get. I don't know if I'll be wearing engineer boots or PF Flyers, but I'll definitely have Brylcreem in my hair.
If you could stand it! Made in Stamford at West Beach. We would all go down and watch them filming. It was a big deal!
Back in the 60's & 70's we had 3 drive in theaters here in Anderson, S.C. The Skyway, The Fox and Hwy 29 later renamed the Viking Drive in and the only showed X rated and was actually the last one to close, It's a shame all the drive in theaters here have gone the way of the Dodo bird. Our twin daughters have never been to a drive in theater and now that I think about it I'm pretty happy they haven't! HRP
I remember that we had a Philco TV when I was a kid. It had a 10" screen, and it was like looking at a baseball game through a knothole. I had to thank you for mentioning Brylcreem and P F Flyers. I personally liked the red ball jets too. Does anyone remember butch wax ?
Born and raised in San Pablo , Ca. the Rancho drive-in was only a block away from our house , had a creek bordering the property , with bullfrogs , crawdads and pollywogs
I remember the whole family piling into dads brand new 68 Impala 396 wagon and going to see Herbie the love bug I also remember all my buds piling into the same wagon around 1979 or 80 , some hidden in the cargo compartment...And we weren't going to see any Disney movies
I did that with my panel truck, parked off to the side with the back doors facing the screen. Spackle bucket full of ice and beer and lawn chairs. Sometimes there were 10 or 12 of us there at once.
We have a brand new one here in New Braunfels, TX. Its old themed, even plays the old intermission commercials about the snack bar. We and the kids LOVE it! such a fun experience each time we go.
As a young lad, my parents would occasionally take my Sister and myself to the drive-in. I remember watching or sleeping through most of the Ten Commandments with Burt Lancaster. The nice thing about the location of the drive-in was, if it was a Saturday night, you could turn off the speaker and listen to the stock cars racing on the nearby Tennessee-Carolina dirt track and wish upon wish that you were there and not here watching some boring movie!
Where I grew up in Granite city Ill, we had the BelAir drive-in. Two screens. Went out about 30 years ago. Signs stood till a couple months ago. We now go to the Route 66 Drive -In in Litchfield Ill. Oldest Drive-In on RT 66. We went a couple weeks ago.
This article ran in our local paper and I was interviewed by By Mr. Hardesty of the Independent Mail.- Posted: Sept. 28, 2014 Big silver screens vivid in Anderson memories To generations of a different era, the memories are firm and magical: Colorful flashing neon, beckoning motorists on warm summer nights. Music flowing from cars as they crawl bumper-to-bumper toward the ticket window. The scents of fresh popcorn and hot food streaming from the concession stand throughout the park. For movie fans of a half-century ago, drive-in movies planted all those fond memories. And in an era when even the best-equipped homes didn’t have a video library in the den, they filled a void for multiple generations — recently released movies at a bargain price. At the corner of Clemson Boulevard and Salem Church Road, the Skyway Drive-in offered all that magic every summer evening from 1948 until 1980. For Sylvia Worley, it was a favorite 1950s location and an affordable way to put smiles on the faces of her children. The anticipation of fun was confirmed, it seemed, when her husband turned off the ignition and hooked the bulky gray speaker onto the side window. “We carried our own popcorn and it didn’t cost much to get into the movie, and our children looked forward to it,” Worley recalls. “It was a family thing. The kids would sit outside on the front of the car, where they could see better. We all loved that big screen,” Worley says. Danny Berry, an Anderson resident for all of his 64 years, said the Skyway has a link to all phases of his youth. He rode in his father’s 1957 Dodge on his first trip to the Skyway in 1962. “The title of the show was ‘Lawrence of Arabia.’ I remember Mom and Dad were both excited about this movie and on that warm summer afternoon the four of us made our way across town,” said Berry, 11 years old at the time. “My sister and I were both young and we both fell asleep early, but the sights of the flashing bulbs at the entrance arrow, the neon and the scents from the concession stand still bring back fond memories.” Later, when Berry was a member of a local band, a trip to 3801 Clemson Blvd. was just as fun. “After we played at a local teen club, we would hit the local McDonald’s and get a sack full of burgers and head to the Skyway to catch the late movie,” Berry said last week. “As I recall, it was a buck-fifty to get in.” “In my teens, I went to all three of the local drive-ins,” Berry said, referring also to the Fox Drive-in on Belton Highway and the Viking Outdoor Theater (originally known as the Highway 29 Drive-in). “But my favorite was the Skyway Drive-in.” Like the Fox and the Viking, the Skyway’s amenities included a playground. The Viking also offered a kiddie pool. With speakers to accommodate 372 cars, the Skyway offered plenty of room and an excellent location — especially after Clemson Boulevard was widened to four lanes in 1965. It was one of five area drive-in theaters in the watch-from-the-car era. In addition to the three in Anderson, the supersized silver screen, and on holidays a fireworks display, was on display at the Easley Drive-In and Seneca’s Fox Drive-in. In his teen years, Berry’s interests turned to “girls, music and cars,” and drive-in harmonized with all three. “When I was dating, the Skyway was my favorite,” Berry said. “During the ’60s and early ’70s, they showed current big-name movies.” Among the biggest was “The Graduate,” which delivered Simon and Garfunkel music and Dustin Hoffman’s memorable image to overflow crowds in 1967. “The cars started lining up early in the day trying to get in,” Berry says. “It took several attempts during the week to get in.” For some, getting into the park was a creative part of the fun. Sneaking past the ticket booth, often in the total darkness and tight squeeze of the car’s trunk, was an unwritten rite of passage for teens of the drive-in era. The practice was popular, but not always successful. “One of the guys came up with the idea of trying to sneak three of us in without paying, so we crawled into the trunk of a ’57 Chevy and the other band members drove up to the ticket box,” Berry says. The plan unraveled when Berry couldn’t hold his laugh. “We were discovered and paid for our tickets.” The worst part, he says, was “seeing what we looked like after laying in a trunk full of greasy car parts. We looked a mess.” The movie on that evening — fittingly, Berry recalls — was “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.” Another stealth strategy unfolded on the exit road, where drivers were known to douse the headlights and make an illegal entrance. On the Independent Mail’s Our Memories Facebook page, Larry Cobb reports that “if we saw a man with a flashlight, we would crank up and go back out the exit.” Dan Lacobie, on the same page, adds that the installation of spike strips in the exit road “slowed that up a bit.” And Ross Caton, who recalls watching the popular 1961 movie “The Hustler,” which portrayed the life of pool player Minnesota Fats, admits on the same Facebook page that he “probably owes Mr. Mutt (Bill Osteen) a lot of money for sneaking in the back gate.” Osteen, a lifelong Anderson resident, was part of a motion-picture family that operated several theaters. He built the Skyway in 1948 and operated it until 1980. It was Anderson’s first-drive in, opening shortly before the 29 Drive-In. The Skyway was demolished in 1994. Its big screen and long lines of speakers have given way to a Kmart and a Publix grocery store. The Skyway, Fox, and Viking were among 99 drive-ins operating in South Carolina when the industry was at its peak in 1954. The Fox, a one-screen, 300-car facility, closed in 1983. The Viking closed in 1991. Tommy McCutcheon, 56, loved drive-in movies so much that he opened one five years ago in his native Greenwood. The Auto25 Drive-In, three miles south of downtown Greenwood, is the only drive-in theater in the Upstate and one of only three operating in South Carolina. On weekend evenings, McCutcheon’s modern digital projector shoots a picture over the playground he and wife Carolyn played on as children. “We’re drive-in people. My dad and mom used to bring me here. I saw ‘Jaws’ here several times one summer,” McCutcheon said. “I’d like for every family to have memories like that.” The original 25 Drive-in died in 1982. The McCutcheons began renovating the property in 2007 and reopened the drive-in in 2009. A 30-year Greenwood restaurateur, McCutcheon serves food on picnic tables. He has added Digital Dolby Sound and a second screen in addition to the digital video, and plans to add a third screen next year. The theater is open year-round, typically offering family movies. “Where else can you bring kids and show them three movies for $4?” McCutcheon says, referring to his occasional triple-feature menu. “Obviously, we’re not here to get rich.” McCutcheon calls his venture “a local, mom-and-pop business that offers restaurant-quality food and family movies (www.25drivein.com)” in an economical format. “We started out with free popcorn, but the line got pretty long, and then the machine blew up,” McCutcheon said. “So now we charge $2.99 with free refills.”
We went to the drive in all year round and in all kinds of weather, hot summer nights and the pic mosquito coil burning, the smell of fresh pop corn in the air & during the winter using the back of my comb to scrape the ice off the inside of the glass. if we were trying to watch a movie. The drive in theaters were not called passion pits for nothing, The first time I got my face slapped was at the drive in, that night I was a slow learner but after the third time I finally got the message, I never dated that girl again. HRP
Here is the remains of our town's drive-in. When I was a little kid my parents would take us in the family wagon. When it was on its last legs in the mid-70s they resorted to showing porn movies. Funny thing is you could easily see the screen when traveling one of the main roads out of town. Getting a glimpse of that porn as you drove by was a huge thrill as a teen, although a little awkward with my mom in the car. Sent from my SM-G950U using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
A tornado destroyed one of the screens at our local drive in while the movie twister was playing. CanView drive in, fonthill ontario Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
The last one close to me is now a Home Depot and Pier 1 store. They had a regular movie theater next to it and that closed up too.
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