The Enduring Drive-In Theater

Even as televisions spread across the American landscape, the drive-in movie theater grew in popularity in the years following World War II.

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The period following World War II wasn’t the best time to be in the movie theater business. Wartime audiences had flocked to the theater; movies, after all, offered not only newsreel updates but much-needed breathers in the form of escapist drama, patriotic propaganda, musicals, and comedy.

By the beginning of the 1950s, a million television sets dotted America, and a comfy night in watching television started to seem like a better idea than getting dressed to go out to the movies. A decade later, there were fifty times more TVs, and television had arguably outpaced film as the dominant American visual medium. In a 1951 marketing analysis of the industry, business scholar Rodney Luther notes that, while Americans were overall spending 22 percent more on entertainment, movies weren’t making bank: “theater receipts have dropped 21 per cent since their 1946 peak.”

Who wasn’t worried about this? Owners of drive-ins. Though the first such theater had opened in New Jersey in 1933, they had taken a while to find their footing. Luther excitedly, explained that

the drive-in theater (which the trade calls an “ozoner,”) has exhibited the growth of a miniature golf craze and the ingenuity of a P. T. Barnum extravaganza. Begun in 1933, and increasing initially at the rate of about 8 a year, drive-in theaters numbered about 60 at the end of the war, 500 in 1948, and 1,500 in late 1949, with 300–500 more planned or in construction.

The drive-in theater is exactly what its name suggests, and during their twentieth-century height of popularity in the United States, all of them had certain common core elements. A drive-in needed a massive outdoor screen, a projection booth to play films, ample parking for viewers and their vehicles, sound transmission equipment, and a snack bar so everyone could have popcorn. Drive-ins seized an odd and opportune transitional moment in culture and media to become an icon of postwar America.

A few factors shaped this success. First of all, there were simply more entertainment options popping up; the traditional sit-down theater was no longer the only game in town. The 1948 Supreme Court case United States v. Paramount Pictures effectively ended the old studio system, under which major studios often owned not only distribution machinery but theaters themselves, writes F. Andrew Hanssen. The Paramount decree meant studios couldn’t cut theaters out from receiving first-run films so easily, allowing more competition and removing institutional obstacles.

Drive-ins had their own challenges to confront, however. How do you deal with a foggy night? Do you spray with DDT for bugs? Is the business immoral because kids are going to cause mischief or make out?

But the owners employed innovation and marketing to go up against television and traditional theaters. Fearing the novelty of watching a movie outside wasn’t enough, many drive-ins brought in ancillary amusements to boost the appeal. As Rodney Luther notes in a second survey of the industry, patrons could also find  “pony rides, picnic areas, car washing, bingo, laundry service, bottle warming, merry-go-rounds, drug counters, book vending machines, vaudeville, and dancing.” Patrons could also enjoy lively ad reels and ample concessions. Plus, no babysitter was needed.

But as business-minded Luther points out, there was solid practical and social appeal in the drive-in theater.

“Most drive-ins practice nonsegregation,” he writes. “[They] allow pets and smoking, are handy for the aged and handicapped, and admit children under twelve free.”

This spoke—both tacitly and out loud—to new and marginalized audiences. Media scholar Mary Morley Cohen explains that, while it was neither easy nor cut-and-dry for them, drive-ins were among the first entertainment venues in the South to desegregate. So, too, owners actively marketed to “audience members forgotten or deliberately overlooked by mainstream theatres, such as children, housewives, people with disabilities, labouring men and teenagers.” Plus, “at the drive-in, spectators could smoke, eat, talk, and make out, and many ads and programmes encouraged them to do so.”

Suburbanization and the rise of car culture also facilitated the rush of drive-in development. Shannon Bell, writing from an architectural perspective, points out that drive-ins were part and parcel of a larger postwar American culture on the move.

“Drive-in theaters were but one of several early-twentieth-century building types whose designs were inspired by the automobile,” Bell writes. “Like gas stations, drive-in restaurants, and motels, the drive-in theater belongs to a family of structures known as roadside architecture.”

So, too, did the postwar national mood itself make the drive-in seem like a nice place to spend a summer evening. In Cohen’s vision, Americans spent the years following WWII redefining their identities, moving from the tension and brio of collective participation in the war effort back to individualism and private citizenry. Privacy became an important experience. And that could mean that you want to watch your movie on your very own gigantic Chevrolet bench seat and not share theater armrests with other people, thank you very much, or, it could mean that you could make out with your partner on that bench seat without anyone bothering you (the latter is how drive-ins gained their reputation as “passion pits,” and whether this was well-earned or not tends to depend on how many pearls the commentator in question is clutching). Outdoor theaters tended to be built where land was available for a large spread of viewing and parking area. This also tended to mean that they occupied an in-between space where both urban and suburban residents could decide to make a night of the movies.

Dennis Giles writes that, by the 1980s, culture and entertainment had moved to different pastures, literally, and people largely considered drive-ins either old-fashioned or nostalgic to the point of caricature.

“In 1982, two articles in the national press effectively wrote-off the drive-in as a viable form of exhibition,” he writes. “The dominant tone of [one of] the stories was elegiac, mourning the past glories of ‘America’s playpen.’”

It would be a mistake to write off the drive-in and its charms, though. Capitalizing on fandom, kitsch, and audiences increasingly looking to escape digital immersion, theaters such as the Mahoning Drive-In in Pennsylvania (brought to fame by the documentary At the Drive-In) are maintaining robust programming calendars even now. Find your favorite and enjoy!

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