Now You See It, Now You Don't!

TellZall's object for October is the Drive-In Movie.

Richard Hollingshead of Camden, New Jersey, had an idea for combining two of his passions: automobiles and motion pictures. Why not create a type of theater where patrons could watch movies from their cars?

Hollingshead decided to test the idea in his backyard. He rigged up a sheet nailed to trees for a screen, put a Kodak projector on the hood of his car, and even used a lawn sprinkler to imitate a rainstorm. He then invited friends to try it out. He found that he needed to stagger the cars in rows and build ramps to raise the front of the cars in order to ensure the picture could be seen from all rows. And he needed to figure out a workable sound system - a problem he eventually solved by providing each car with speaker that hung on the inside of the car's window. On May 16, 1933, Hollingshead received a United States patent on his idea - a patent that later, in 1950, was declared invalid.

But in 1933 Hollingshead was undaunted. He invested $30,000 and on Tuesday, June 6, opened the world's first drive-in movie on Crescent Boulevard in his hometown. He charged a combination of twenty-five cents per car and twenty-five cents per person. That may not sound like much today, but during the height of the Great Depression, a quarter was nothing to laugh at.

Hollingshead's theater was a success, and imitators quickly picked up on his idea. In Ohio, the Starlight Auto Theater opened in Akron in the summer of 1937. One followed in Cleveland in June 1938. Nationally, by January 1942 ninety-five drive-ins were operating in twenty-seven states. Ohio, with eleven, had the most.

Then, World War II intervened. Gasoline rationing and a shortage of tires made all but essential travel difficult. The war effort in general impacted the drive-ins, and many were forced to close for the duration.

When the war ended in 1945, the soldiers returned and were anxious to begin new lives. They went to school on the GI Bill, got jobs, married, bought homes, and started families. Drive-ins were good places to take the family and watch movies. Theater operators understood this and added playgrounds for kids and other conveniences, including well-stocked concession stands.

In 1946, 155 drive-ins were in operation. Two years later, the number had grown to 850; and, a decade later, some 5,000 were open for business. In 1958, Ohio had 196 drive-in movie theaters - an all-time Buckeye high. Nationally, some were small, accommodating as few as fifty cars. Others were giants: the Troy Drive-In in Detroit, Michigan, held three thousand cars!

The 1960s was a decade of stagnation for the drive-in theater. While new ones occasionally opened, many more closed. The theaters began aiming at a teen and young adult crowd, featuring horror movies. By the 1980s, television, with cable channels and videocassette recorders, brought the movies to homes as never before. Movie theaters in general declined, and the number of drive-ins declined nationally to about 800; by 1987, Ohio had only 83.

The 1990s saw a few new drive-ins built and some more closed and demolished. Urban expansion encroached on the fringe rural areas where drive-ins had been built. At the same time, nostalgia prompted people to return to the drive-ins where they had gone as children or teens. While their wave of popularity faded decades before, forty-eight drive-ins were operating in Ohio in 1999, still serving a public that wanted to relax in their automobiles and enjoy the stars of Hollywood along with the stars of the firmament.

Additional Information:
The American drive-in Movie Theater by Don and Susan Sanders.
Osceola, Wisconsin: Motorbooks International, 1997.

Cinema Under the Stars: America's Love Affair with the Drive-in Movie Theater by Elizabeth McKeon and Linda Everett.
Nashville, Tennessee: Cumberland House, 1998.

Drive-in Theaters: A History from Their Inception in 1933 by by Kerry Segrave.
Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Co., 1992.

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For more information on Drive-In Movie Theaters, visit:

http://www.driveintheater.com

http://www.americandrivein.com/

http://www.driveinmovie.com/