![]() ![]() And being naughty helped some drive-ins survive.Ĭars lined up to watch a film at Shankweiler’s drive-in, the second oldest drive-in in the U.S.Ĭourtesy of Shankweiler's Drive-In Theatre Archivesĭ. Drive-ins were left to show B movies and, eventually, X-rated ones. So to sell as many tickets as possible, the movie studios sent their first-runs to the indoor theaters. The indoor theaters were more flexible about scheduling, however, and could show one film five or six times a day instead of only at night. Drive-ins offered more flexibility than indoor theaters." People could sit in their cars, they could bring their babies, they could smoke. "Drive-ins started to really take off in the ‘50s," Kopp said. By 1958, the number of drive-ins peaked at 4,063. A few others followed, but the concept didn't really get traction until the advent of in-car speakers in the early 1940s. The second drive-in, Shankweiler's, started a year later in Orefields, Pa. He patented his concept in May 1933 and opened the gates to his theater the next month. ![]() Hollingshead experimented for a few years before he created a ramp system for cars to park at different heights so everyone could see the screen. "So he stuck her in a car and put a 1928 projector on the hood of the car, and tied two sheets to trees in his yard." "His mother was-how shall I say it?-rather large for indoor theater seats," said Jim Kopp of the United Drive-in Theatre Owners Association. He first conceived the drive-in as the answer to a problem. However, it took an auto-parts salesman such as Hollingshead to see the genius in giving a car-loving society one more activity they could do in their vehicles. The concept of showing movies outdoors wasn't novel people often watched silent films on screens set up at beaches or other places boasting an abundance of sky. People paid 25 cents per car as well as per person to see the British comedy Wives Beware under the stars. It was on that day in 1933 that Richard Hollingshead opened the first theater for the auto-bound in Camden, N.J. Capitol commemorated the 75th birthday of a distinctive slice of Americana: the drive-in movie theater.
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