Drive-In Memories

[Jessie Lilley]

There was an early summer when a crowd of us from High School piled into Barry McMackin's mother's car and drove up to the 303 Drive In in New York State (north on the Jersey side of the Hudson). About a 1/2 mile from the theatre entrance, everyone got out of the seats and into the trunk with the exception of Mac and his girl friend (whichever one it was at the time). Of course it was all we could do to keep from laughing out loud and getting caught at it, but in we drove for the price of 2 tickets (which we had all pitched in on) and watched God only knows what. I remember getting in there but for the life of me I've no idea what the films were. I think I was too busy snogging Charlie Moser in the back seat.

[yendor1152]

I have many, many fond memories of the local drive-in theater. There was one approximately 4 miles from our house, and how I remember all the hustle and bustle as we prepared for a night of movies under the stars. Mom would make popcorn, dad would buy sodas and pack them in a cooler, and my little sister and I would jump into the back seat. When we'd arrive, we had to drive down a pine tree-lined roadway to the ticket booth. Then we pulled into the actual drive-in, a huge expanse of cars, parking spaces and "speaker stands." Once we found the perfect place (and we had to kind of balance the car on a slight incline to see the screen "just right"), Judy (my sis) and I would make a beeline for the little playground area directly beneath the gigantic, looming screen. They had great swings, awesome "monkey bars," a dangerous looking (and thrilling) slide, a "merry-go-round" and a few other torture devices that escape my addled mind. We'd spin and twirl and slide and pump our feet into the sky until the first cartoon flashed on the screen. Then we were off, back to the car!

With the speakers hooked up to the driver's side window, we hunkered down for some incredible movie viewing. Mom passed the popcorn, dad gave us each an ice cold Coke, and it was true nirvana.

Once in a while, we'd stay until the second feature started...but dad was a working man who had a mill job, so we usually didn't stay late. The intermission showed an array of mouth-watering concession stand goodies, including pizza, hot dogs, hamburgers, pickles (!), soda, sandwiches--basically anything one might consume while movie-going. Alas, the food never tasted as good as the commercials made it look! The hot dogs were bone dry, the pizza was like sauce on a piece of cardboard, etc. Nonetheless, it all plugged into a grand memory!

Oh, and we saw so many movies there! Stuff like "Horror of Party Beach" and "Deep Red" and "The Night Evelyn Came out of her Grave." When I was older, we watched "The Empire Strikes Back," "Bloodthirsty Butchers," "Grave of the Vampire." It always seemed the drive-in was showing horror films. Sometime in the fall of 1967, we were glued to a five-picture extravaganza of Edgar Allen Poe/Corman/Price films, beginning with House of Usher! That night, we did stay for all of them. And how my mind burns with the first time I ever saw a Herschell Gordon Lewis movie--in this case being "10,000 Maniacs!" I felt like one more had been added to the mix by the time that viewing experience was over (this was in October of 1968).

The powers-that-be decided to close the drive-in sometime in the mid 1980's. Not sure why, but today it's mobile home dealership. The strip of pines that lined the roadway still exist, but the drive-in itself is but a memory. But what a memory!

[Sereniti1952]

I have lots of memories and may share some more, but today it's my last time in a drive-in theater, in 1982.  I was married, and our second daughter was a nursing infant only a few weeks old, so for us a "walk-in" theater was out of the question.

It was a completely incongruous double-feature - Star Trek: Wrath of Kahn, and Victory.  We went, of course, to see Wrath of Kahn and were not in the least disappointed. 

We'd never heard of Victory and hadn't planned to stay for it.   But inertia won out, so there we sat. 

What a wonderful little sleeper!  Directed by John Huston and starring Sly Stallone, Michael Caine, Max von Sydow, and Pele, it is, of all things, a WW II soccer film.  Both my husband and I thoroughly enjoyed it, each grinning his/her head off as we drove away.  I hadn't heard of it before, and have heard nary a word of it since, but it remains one of my favorite feel-good movies of all time.

From Netflix:  "This World War II drama set in a German POW camp follows prisoners hand-picked for a competition. Maj. Karl von Steiner (Max von Sydow), a former soccer player for the German national team, organizes a soccer match between Nazis and Allied prisoners, to be played in Paris. With some key players, including former English soccer player Capt. John Colby (Michael Caine), the team has a good shot at winning the game … but that could foil a plan."

Disappointed that they don't have it "on demand"...

[Jessie Lilley]

Damn it. Now I have to order it from Netflix and watch it again. I agree Lynda. VICTORY is one of the better ones.

[Ryan Brennan]

My very first memory of going to see a movie was George Pal's TOM THUMB.  That was in a hardtop but the date, 1958, tells me that's when my parents thought I was old enough to be taken with them to the movies.  I was six.  After that, we started going to the drive-in.  Cheaper, I suppose, with a double feature delivering more bang for the buck.  Plus, if I got rowdy, which I never did, I wouldn't be bothering anyone else.  And if I got tired and fell asleep, all the better.

Anyway, I don't remember everything we saw at the drive-in but we saw NORTH BY NORTHWEST, THE COMANCHEROS, JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH, OPERATION MAD BALL, WAKE ME WHEN IT'S OVER, and the trailer for SAIL A CROOKED SHIP.  My dad was a huge Ernie Kovacs fan; we'd watch Kovacs and THE UNTOUCHABLES every week.  So we'd go to anything with Kovacs in it.

I saw all manner of films at the drive-in:  THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD, THE GREAT ESCAPE, DOCTOR ZHIVAGO, RIO CONCHOS, FANTASTIC VOYAGE, THE SCALPHUNTERS, you name it.  Many of these I'd already seen in their regular engagements and wanted to see again.  In this part of the country you couldn't get away from SHENANDOAH, as it ran in perpetuity, and was constantly being paired up with something else.

In the '70s I was able to go on my own.  ENTER THE DRAGON, THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY, FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE, MANEATER OF HYDRA, TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, BLOOD, NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, IN COLD BLOOD, THE PROFESSIONALS, KELLY'S HEROES, EQUINOX, THE BLOB, HORROR OF DRACULA, SON OF GODZILLA, M.A.S.H., CAPTAIN NEMO AND THE UNDERWATER CITY, TOWER OF EVIL, Hammer films, AIP films, and so many more.

The drive-in was great at reinforcing the sense of isolation in a movie.  Even though you were in a parking lot full of cars, the privacy of your own vehicle gave you the feeling that you were all alone out there.  Westerns, with their wide open spaces benefited, and a movie like NOTLD was enhanced when seen in the winter with the windows rolled up and fogged over.

[luluthebeast]

My first drive-in movie was Godzilla, KOTM in the late fifties. I ended up seeing most kaiju films and monster movies at the drive-in. Tons of fun and great for dates in high school (the bench seats were a plus back then!).

[Joe Karlosi]

I have great memories of going to the Drive-In, especially as a boy. Pity that this is largely a dead venue these days, but then again so too are the movies they're showing anyway, so it kind of evens out.

[voyttbots]

I seldom got to go to the drive-in. I had to make do with the great newspaper ads every Friday. But I lucked out and saw an all nighter in 1967: MUMMY`S SHROUD, PROJECTED MAN, ISLAND OF TERROR, FRANKENSTEIN CREATED WOMAN.

[Ryan Brennan]

This being Texas and the weather usually agreeable for outdoor activities, we had tons of drive-ins.  I grew up in the DFW area, the Metroplex.  To the East was Dallas, to the West. Fort Worth.  In between were the suburbs of Arlington and Grand Prairie. 

Grand Prairie had the Downs Drive-in which later was quadrupled and renamed The Century Drive-in. 

Arlington had the Arlington Twin.

Fort Worth had The Meadowbrook, The Fort Worth Twin, and The Riverside (for Adults only).  There was another, abandoned ozoner, never in operation during my drive-in movie going heyday.

Dallas had many drive-ins and got more when local radio impresario Gordon McLendon, he of THE KILLER SHREWS and THE GIANT GILA MONSTER, decided to buy in.  With names like The Astro and The Gemini, McClendon came to dominate the drive-in landscape with his multi-screen holdings.  It was he who pioneered, locally at least, the dusk-til-dawn shows, the Spend The Night with Bruce Lee/James Bond/Clint Eastwood/The Planet of the Apes promotions.

It was a huge deal when M.A.S.H. premiered at the Fort Worth Twin instead of a hardtop.  With so many drive-ins, though, it was inevitable that first-run movies would start showing up there.  First-run, tenth-run, I saw a lot of movies at the drive-in.