Conclusion
As I interviewed people for this book they admitted that, while they had fond memories for the particular drive-ins they once attended, they no longer patronized drive-in theaters. “I should go and support my drive-in” was heard more than once, but the reality is that few of them will do so anytime soon, if ever.
I, myself, ventured out only once in 1997, the year before I began researching this book. It was near the end of the season. The picture on the screen was so dark that in one scene I thought a character had been shot and killed, only to realize a moment later that it had been another. Both actors were wearing white shirts and I couldn’t distinguish their features during the scene well enough to tell them apart. When I complained, the manager informed me that modern movies are no longer being made with drive-ins in mind. It takes a lot of light to ‘throw’, or project, the movie onto a screen over 200 feet away. If a scene in the movie takes place outdoors at night then there is a good chance that the picture on the screen will be difficult to see sometimes.
This factor, coupled with sitting for hours in a car not much bigger than a breadbox, weather that turned colder as the night went on and a second feature that didn’t end until well after midnight, made for an experience that I thought I wouldn’t want to repeat too often.
Still…where else can you go to watch a movie dressed in almost any type of clothing you feel comfortable in, smoke to your heart’s content, and eat a hamburger with reconstituted onions from the concession stand (or bring your own food)? Nowhere else can you get a double feature, usually for less than the price to rent two videos, and have dancing popcorn and soft drinks entertain you during intermission.
So, the following year I decided to give the drive-ins another try. And I’m glad I did. ‘Titanic’ was magnificent on a big screen, bright and beautiful and majestic. And nothing scares you more than someone being stabbed in ‘Scream Two’ with a knife that is forty feet long. I have continued to return to the drive-in since then, recently seeing Peter Parker as Spiderman swinging high above the streets and saving the world from a three story high Green Goblin. Once again I am hooked on seeing movies under the stars.
The drive-in is an outdated mode of entertainment, I grant you. But, for that very reason it might survive for future generations to experience. More and more couples are taking their children to the drive-in so that they, too, will know what it’s like to watch a movie outdoors.
As the price of land goes up, more drive-ins will disappear. But there is still hope. Although drive-in numbers have dropped from 4,063 at the height of their popularity in 1958, to less than nine hundred now, there have been new screens erected here and there over the last decade, including one that was added in 2002 to the Dixie Drive-In in Vandalia.
Philip Chakeres, Vice President and General Manage of the Springfield based Chakeres Theatres, also believes that drive-ins are here to stay, at least for now.
“There’s a comeback in the drive-in, primarily because they are more economical than first-run movie houses,” Philip told Dayton Daily News in 1995.
Belinda Judson, executive director of National Association of Theatre Owners of Ohio, agreed.
“Some of the resurgence in the last couple of years had been attributed to the fact that more family products are out, and drive-ins are more successful in getting first-run films.”
I urge you, dear reader, to take the family to your local drive-in theater some time this year. It will be an experience that your kids will fondly look back on some day, just as we do now.
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