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The warm weather’s back, and this week Glass Eye takes a retrospective look at the sinful cinematic days of the DRIVE IN

      In memory of Dora Merrill 1916 – 2009.  Always loved
Thanks Gram for taking me to the show, and letting me dream for awhile.
 
  ’ While it does provide an outlet for wholesome family entertainment, the Drive In also unfortunately stands as the setting for less than wholesome activities. Many teenagers and young adults congregate at the drive in, far out of the reach of parents and responsible authority figures. One can only imagine the kinds of socially irreprehensible acts committed by our youth at these outdoor establishments. I feel sympathy towards the filmmakers who try to provide entertainment to a generation of youth pre-occupied with their hormones.’

-David Swelzer: The Drive In Theater – A social examination, 1954

  In 1932 in Camden, New Jersey, Richard M Hollingshead Jr rigged a simple bed sheet to a tree in his backyard, and came to develop the first outdoor movie theater. Hollingshead had a great idea of setting up his model on a larger scale, so Ma and Pa could round up the brood, and ‘drive in’ to a theater lot. Soon after securing patent rights to his invention, Hollingshead saw his creation take off across the United States. By the late 1930’s almost every major state had bought into the Drive In craze, and there seemed to be no end in sight.

Regardless of whether he realized it or not, Hollingshead was responsible for putting a whole new spin on the cinematic experience. While he initially developed the out door cinema as a family centered facility, the Drive In evolved ( or devolved) into a different kind of sordid environment, where many had nothing to lose but five bucks and their virginity.

While some were inclined to pass off the Drive In as strictly an ‘outhouse grind house’, it was so much more than that. Every weekend you could find a wide social cross section of masses all penned up in the movie lot. Cars were crammed full of families, old folks, hop heads, brain deads, punks, drunks, and enough unbridled teenage liquid lust to fill an Olympic pool. The lots were often weekend wastelands strewn with debris comprised of stale corndogs, broken beer bottles, and used condoms, all strung together with cheap Christmas lights, and speaker wire.

Many children enjoyed running roughshod around, ‘El Rauncho Relaxo’ tearing around the jungle gyms in front of the screen in dirty pyjamas like hopped up chimps, fuelled on cups of watered down Coke. Cartoons seemed larger than life on the big screen, and the dancing hot dogs reminded us that we only had nine minutes to grab our gut busting concession chow before the show.

Many parents saw the Drive In as an opportunity to get out of the house without having to dish out for a babysitter. From a different perspective, it also provided a lot of kids with the opportunity to be exposed to all kinds of shit that they shouldn’t have.

To this day, I still thank the man who decided to screen the trailer for, ‘Suspiria’, between Grizzly Adams, and Cannonball Run. As a hyperactive kid with the attention span of a fruit fly, I found that the Drive In provided me with an all access pass to a whole other badass world. Soon I found myself tearing through the newspaper every Thursday to see what would be screening on the weekend. While the folks were more inclined to settle for the latest Burt Reynolds moustache marathon, we often lucked out, and got to see such gems as ‘The Howling’, ‘Jaws’, and George Miller’s original masterpiece, ‘Mad Max’. While a lot of these films would stand as future classics, they were often paired on as a double bill with some sub level B grade prime nacho cheese.

The interesting thing about screening films at the drive in was that the crowds seemed to tolerate most everything, so long as it was fun. Regardless of how low a film sank, in the cinematic bowl, no one was in any hurry to flush it. Sure seventy percent of the films were turdtastic, but for some reason the films of Jess Franco, and Uli Lomell didn’t seem so rank while viewed under the stars. At the Drive In the only thing that really seemed to stink was the bathroom floor. Nobody took anything seriously, and the biggest complaints came when the projector went out of focus.

In a way you can say that the Drive In was a level playing field that provided a lot of opportunity to the lesser known directors. It gave them the chance to ‘air out’ their films by pulling them out of the grind house and screening them to wider audiences. As Video had barely started to take off, for most suburbanites, the Sunset, or the Breezes picture show was the closest they would ever get to experiencing the ‘exotic’ kind of fare shown all along the Deuce in NYC in it’s heyday. Ilsa the she wolf and her lusty sex squad were finally able to march across North America, storm trooping into every countryside movie lot that could handle them.

Today despite our unlimited ability to view most everything from the comfort of our couches, it’s just not the same. While many have currently taken pleasure in pissing on the films of Uwe Boll, I honestly believe that they wouldn’t be so harshly received if not for the death of the Drive In. While he’s no John Carpenter, I think his films are unfairly assessed. Most of the fare that Boll has released is no worse than half the crap that was screened back in the day. The main difference with Uwe is that he’s cranking out Drive In films in the wrong era. Times unfortunately change, and we have become a lot less tolerant.

Now people are a lot less inclined to sit down with the gang to watch a Paul Naschy movie, as opposed to the throngs of drive in lot lizards who loaded up the Buick every Friday and Saturday night. It didn’t matter what was playing, you always knew you were in for a good time. This is not to say that the films themselves were irrelevant. On the contrary, ‘bad’ films became better when viewed with a gang of friends fuelled by a cooler of beer, party favors, and tub of petroleum soaked popcorn. While the Ramones, ‘Rock and Roll High school’, and, ‘The Incredible Melting Man’, would never win any academy awards, the ambience of the Drive In made them so damn fun to watch, and that’s what the heart and soul of it was all about.

Now some might argue that these films were given a lot of leeway, due to the fact that they mainly took, ‘a backseat to the back seat’. There’s no doubt that many parked at the back of the lot to partake in ‘Auto’ erotic activities, but the films still stood on their own against the creaking sexual soundtrack of the Mustang Mambo.

Ironically some tried to capitalize on the teenage yearnings, by screening, ‘Sexual education’ shorts in the 1950’s. Couples were given informative pamphlets as they entered the lot, and the films usually ‘climaxed’ with stock footage of an actual childbirth, larger than life. Just the image of a 25 foot baby head emerging from between a pair of wide spread legs was enough to put you off your ju jubes for life. These films were intended to shock kids into thinking twice before, getting skeezy, in Dad’s Station Wagon, and winding up catching a dose of the crotch crickets. Not only did Bobby, and Jane get to preserve their adolescent flesh, but they could also save their souls as well. Throughout the South, and the bible belt, many lots were occupied each Sunday morning for a weekly service broadcast over the speakers. It provided some with a convenient opportunity to pray and ask for forgiveness from the carnal sins they committed the night before.

There’s no doubt that the Drive In Theater carved out it’s rightful place as a part of North American pop culture. Countless songs, and films have paid homage to the starlight screen, and it’s late night activities. In the 1950’s the Everly Brothers wrote a smash hit about trying to, ‘Wake Up Little Susie’ after the double feature. Everyone from Eddie Cochrane, to the Beach Boys and the Misfits have all written songs honoring the midnight movie lot.

Several low key genre films have also centered around the Drive In. One of the more infamous was the 1968 Peter Bogdanovitch film, ‘Targets’. In one of his final roles, Boris Karloff played an aging horror icon, who attempts to stop a sniper from picking off helpless victims at a Drive In theater. The film actually screened at several outdoor theaters, and many were honestly terrified at it’s possible premise.

The Drive In began it’s slow demise in the mid 80’s and this was mostly attributed to several factors. The rise in the price of real estate in North America began to put the squeeze on rural theater operators, and soon many could not afford to continue to run on a weekly basis. After a reduced schedule of screening strictly on weekends, the neon signs were eventually turned off for good. The increase and development of the VCR market also marked the death of the Drive In. The taillights that once lit the highway path to paradise faded into permanent grey.

Today while there are less than 300 original Drive In theaters left in North America, there has been a resurgence in interest. Many now are taking the hands on approach to outdoor screenings, and jury rigging projectors on top of their cars. Groups are keyed into screening dates and locations via text messages, and gather in specific abandoned lots. The films are projected onto tarps or factory walls, and through a wired in receiver they tune in the audio through the car radio. Through this grass roots approach, it almost takes the Drive In back to the days of it’s development. Richard Hollingshead Jr would be proud of today’s tech savy, trying to keep the spirit of his creation alive.

For many the Drive In now stands as a petrified novelty, and a throwback to the days of jean jackets, and Skynyrd 8-tracks. You can drive by endless suburban spreads, and factory lots today without realizing that a Drive In once stood in it’s place. Even though the screens and scaffolding have long since been torn down, and landscape has erased all traces, we still forever hold our memories of the times we spent hooked up in our own little cinematic playground.  In a way, the Drive In stood as a microcosm model of the world allowing us to experience, life and death, sex and salvation, and the good, the bad, and the ugly all within a dirty car lot beneath the stars.

I’m interested to see how many readers have had Drive In experiences, and remember some of the double bill they got to catch.

If you’re an old Drive in dinosaur, or recently interested, check out these sites:

http://mobmov.org/ - The portable drive in movement

http://www.driveintheater.com – Great listing of theaters currently open