Posted on 04/26/2025 6:04:20 PM PDT by DallasBiff
In the 21st century, Americans are enamored with outdoor life. They seem to think that the “au naturel” way of life is quite magical. Did you realize that a type of movie theater was a forerunner of this out-of-doors magic nearly 100 years ago? And, yes my friends, the drive-in theater was an American invention. What a novel idea — a whole group of people could casually view a movie/movies from the privacy of their own vehicles, parked with many others under a star-filled sky
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The drive-in was one of my favorite ways to spend a summer evening when I was a kid: the playground, the neon, the short features and intermission reels, the snack bar food, the pop and crunch as tires rolled over gravel entering and leaving the lot. I loved it all. My aunt lived with us for a year when she attended cosmetology school, and she took me to see Elvis and Frankie and Annette movies. I also saw “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly” and “Patton” at the drive-in.
By the time I was old enough to date, the drive-ins had either closed or had begun showing BOLD X-RATED ADULT HITS!!!, so I had to resort to other venues for an evening out with a lady companion.
I took my kids to the Skyview in Belleville, Illinois about 30 years ago. It’s still going strong. The remaining one in my area is the 49er in Valparaiso, Indiana. I might have to get over there one of these summer evenings,
The drive-in experience requires a front bench seat.
We lived on Landis Avenue from 73-76...
6 Wives? Ay Caramba!
The first drive in movie that I remember seeing was 101 Dalmatians at the Midway Drive In located in Tucson Arizona.
I saw the James Bond Double Feature at a Drive-In.
“Dr. No” and “From Russia, With Love”
This may have happened in 1970.
She was lovely but Hollywood chewed her up like so many young actresses.
I was thinking more along the lines of no bench seats!
“So old Elaine Robinson got started in a Ford.”
Jay Leno in his latest interview was talking about some old Buick that he restored. “That’s the car where my wife and I made out in for the first time. After I restored it we thought we would recreate the moment. We found the old parking spot. Of course it’s been 30 years now. The once empty road is now a subdivision, and we aren’t as limber as before.
I ended up bumping the horn and the nearby house lights came on and a guy came out. Wasn’t as romantic as I remembered it.”
A car was basically a roll-away-bed.
Grew up in Lancaster CA, home to the three screen drive in used in “Spies Like Us” as a laser base. Funny enough that was the joke well before the movie that it could be such a thing. My brother worked there while in high school and had lots of of stories of things that went on, including people driving in very ready for the fun to start.
That is what I understood. The film was just voting out and he was enlisted to give her a sense of normalcy of a high school dance.
Commendable, as were my parents who likely were even stricter, but which as a persecuted remnant today. Much due to the same parents not sending their kids (and they actually has more than 1 or 2) off to liberal colleges where they were baptized in iniquity 101.
There is still one in Milford, NH.
Continually operating for years.
I believe it is one of the last in New England
And a back bench seat...
We used to go with four people in my pick up truck.
Park in the back row and turn the truck around.
We had an old car seat in the bed, A cooler and a couple lawn chairs.
Plus a pair of Jensen speakers in wooden boxes I made to set on the roof of the truck.
Then sit outside watching the movie drinking beer.
He finally settled in past 10 years. Died recently. Sad story.
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