Drive-In Memories--by Bryan F.
In my last blog post, I described some of the summer vacation diversions of my childhood. Another one that was not restricted to summertime was the Drive-In Movie experience that was very popular during my formative years in the 1960s. The first Drive-In movie theater was in Cambden, New Jersey, the brainchild of Richard M. Hollingshead, Jr. who back in the 1930s was looking for a solution for his mother who did not find walk-in theater seats to be comfortable. After much experimentation in his garage, he came up with a workable model and patented his idea. The patent later overturned, resulted in an explosion of drive-ins throughout the United States.
Our local drive-ins included the Baseline Drive-In, right around the corner from my Grandma's house; The Bel-Air Drive-In in Fontana and the Tri-City Drive-In in neighboring Loma Linda that was owned by the parents of the very famous Broadway choreographer, Twyla_Tharp, who also attended the same high school I did, albeit at an early time.
My Dad loved going to the drive-in, as much as he loved camping, so we got to do it often. Winter in Southern California was no barrier, either. We pretty much went year-round but not if it was going to rain which wasn't too often.
When we were younger we would get into our pajamas and my mom would put blankets in the floorboard of the backseat to build it up creating a bed for me and my three younger siblings. Some pillows and a blanket if it was cold to cover up with when we'd often be asleep by the second feature. Some drive-ins had a third feature, usually a pretty bad B-movie that my Dad would watch because he was going to get his money's worth. I always thought it was so strange to have my shoes on with my pajamas, but a needed trip to the bathrooms located at the snack bar made them necessary.
Speaking of the price, by the time we started going as a family, the cost was almost always by the carload. Back when my parents were teens it was usually a car charge and a per person charge. It was very cheap but the teens could save money for the snack bar by piling into the trunk. I think that's why it eventually went to a higher per car price.
My Dad always decided what we were going to see and that sometimes created an issue for my Mom, like when in 1969 we went to see The Sterile Cuckoo, with Liza Minnelli. This was pretty advanced stuff sex-wise for the time and my Mom was making demands from the front seat to cover our eyes, that we ignored. There were no ratings back then so this happened occasionally; think Sweet Charity, with Shirley MacLaine or Bob, Carol, Ted, and Alice. The Sterile Cuckoo is the one that stands out the most for me in my drive-in movie memory, though. I was fifteen and very much ready for this advanced theme. I also immediately fell in love with Liza. I also crushed on Wendall Burton a bit, as well, but my Liza crush has stood the test of time.
Come Saturday Morning, the theme song to The Sterile Cuckoo, by The Sandpipers, was nominated for an Academy Award, but lost to B.J. Thomas' Rain Drops Keep Falling on my Head, the theme to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
These movie trips helped with family bonding that was in short supply. There was one time, the only time I can remember that my Dad did something with all of us kids without my Mom present. He took us to see Mary Poppins, at the Studio Theater, a walk-in. I don't know what the catalyst was for this uncharacteristic action, but we all loved that moment in time. My brother and I talked recently about how we wore out the Mary Poppins record we got sometime after seeing the movie. I only went to a walk-in theater five times before I was eighteen. Bambi at five with my Mom and my friend Joey and my Mom's friend Pat. Then one time with Joey and his parents to see Butterfield 8. Butterfield 8 was released in 1960, but this was later, as I was only six in 1960 and I remember being a little older than that when I saw it. They re-ran movies in movie theaters back then. Also, a new release would sometimes run for months. I also saw the Ghost In The Invisible Bikini, with Joey and his Mom for his thirteenth birthday. Then in junior high school, our ninth-grade class trip was a bus ride to Hollywood to see Franco Zefferelli's Romeo and Juliet at the Pantages Theater on Hollywood and Vine. The experience of 1969 Hollywood was surreal. The theater is a work of art. The movie was sublime.
We stopped going to the drive-in movies in about 1970 or '71. I was in high school and had my own car and things were deteriorating at home with divorce on the horizon. I did not go to drive-ins on my own. I would occasionally go with a friend to the walk-in movies when I had an extra dollar. In my twenties, I went to movies alone pretty frequently. I got hooked on Barbra Streisand's, A Star is Born, and went a couple dozen times when I lived in Orange County, always alone.
Moving to new cities for work I often found comfort at the movie theater. It was not expensive then and it killed some time. Heck if you wanted to you could even wander into another movie on your way out. I'm not saying I did or didn't, but a double feature was often just what the doctor ordered.
Some of my most favorite movies of the '60s and '70s:
It's such a jumble for me as I think back on drive-ins. As best I can recall, we never did it as a family outing; it was something I'd occasionally wanted us to do, which has led to vague proto-memories, but plans never came together. All of my drive-in experiences were in my late teens/very early twenties, on dates. To be candid, it generally wasn't a place one went specifically to see the movie.
ReplyDeleteLocally, we had two drive-ins that I recall. The larger one was the Roosevelt, on U.S.1 in the Langhorne area. That faced the highway such that it could be seen from there. I'm sure it had seen much better days, but from the point when I started paying attention to it it was showing fairly low-end films. I think by '72 it was veering into softcore porn, which is almost hilarious in retrospect, given the venue. I don't recall ever going there, but I remember seeing part of the opening credits to something called "The Pig-Keeper's Daughter" (which I've just looked up a trailer for over on YouTube), from the highway.
It was another drive-in, a two-screen affair, screens facing opposite directions, set well back away from the road so a fall of trees blocked the general view, that I went to. I can't recall what that was called. That was all in the '79 - '81 or so range.