American Drive-in Movie Theater (Motorbooks Classic)

American Drive-in Movie Theater (Motorbooks Classic)

The drive-in movie theater brought together two distinct American institutions: cars and movies. Since the earliest drive-ins of the 1930s, these entertainment complexes have been an integral part of American culture. Their appeal stretched to people from all corners of the country, offering a place for social gathering and various amusements. Take a ride down memory lane in this entertaining look at every aspect of the drive-in movie theater: the architecture, the marquees, the cars, the food, and much more. Black-and-white and color photos, along with period ads and other memorabilia, provide a highly illustrated tour from the origins of the drive-in, through its heyday in the 1950s, its decline, and its subsequent revival.

Customer Review: Great Book
I found the history of the drive-in very interesting in this publication. It would make a great gift for any friend or family member interested in this type of history.
Customer Review: A passion for passion pits
Although the drive-in theater didn't start in Hawaii, it may be that the outdoor movie did. In "The American Drive-in Movie Theatre," Texas drive-in buffs Don and Susan Sanders have a photograph of a sizable crowd watching films projected against the outside wall of a building next to Sacred Hearts Convent School in Honolulu in 1906 -- about a year after the silent movie came to America. It took a surprisingly long time to marry the outdoor movie and the automobile. In 1933, Richard Hollingshead Jr., the "father of the drive-in theater," opened the Camden Drive-In in New Jersey. Although cars and movies seem as natural a combination as milk and cookies, it wasn't so easy for the pioneers. The Sanderses say the studios never liked "ozoners" and refused to make first-run, or even good second-run, films available. And getting sound to the customers was a problem that took years to solve. When the problem eventually was put in the hands of a professional engineer, at RCA in 1941, a workable solution was simple. But drive-in entrepreneurs were not engineers, nor were they the kind of people who turned to engineers for help. They tinkered. The results were weird and wonderful -- and likely to annoy the neighbors. One solution was a giant speaker that broadcast the sound over the lot, and much farther. Cold nights cut into business, too, but every problem was an opportunity to the drive-in operator: In Anchorage, the Billiken Drive-In offered 18-hour, seven-feature admissions in the wintertime. The 1945-55 decade was the peak for drive-ins. The nation had more than 5,000 of them, though they never caught on much overseas. From 1955 on, the Sanderses say, television and other changes started to suck the family trade away, leaving the field to teen-agers and Samuel Z. Arkoff's American International Pictures for another half decade or so. Since then, drive-ins have steadily declined. There are about 500 left, mostly in rural areas. They require too much land to be affordable in cities. Some individual theaters are doing well, and drive-in societies seek to preserve and protect them. The Sanderses have traveled to more than 40 states to interview drive-in people and take pictures, and they have ransacked archives for illustrations. They came up with enough material not only for this charming bit of nostalgia, but for another volume, "Drive-In Movie Memories."