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Drive-in movies

TOOLS1TOOLS1 Member Posts: 6,133
edited August 2002 in General Discussion
A few weeks ago we went to visit mt Mother in IN. Was suprised to see that two of the old drive-ins were still open.
So I took Toolbrat to her first Drive-in movie. She was thrilled. Could not beleve that you could sit in your car, in your PJs and watch a movie. She saw the other people turning there trucks around and sitting in the back, So then she wanted me to park the toolhauler backwards. But we did not have any blankets or chairs so we had to sit in the cab.
The swing sets were gone but people played frisbee on the grass under the screen till the movie started. Then thay would put the kids on blankets around the cars and share snacks while watching the show.
It sure was differnt from the Cinaplex. Where every body sits in a differnt theater and gets back togather after the shows, Took us back to a simpler time. I wish I cuold stay there!
TOOLS

Comments

  • muleymuley Member Posts: 1,583 ✭✭
    edited November -1
    I remember the old drive-in movie days. $1.00 per carload. They were great. We had 3 of them in my home town. Slowly, each one gave way to low income housing or something similar. It used to be a place where the whole family went and did something together.
    muley

    **I love the color of Blue Wonder Gun Blue in the morning**
  • woodsrunnerwoodsrunner Member Posts: 5,378 ✭✭
    edited November -1
    Believe it or not, they are actually an in thing again in some places. A couple years ago the one in Avon, NY was restored back to operation. They do a pretty good flea market on saturday and sunday mornings,and movies on friday and saturday night.

    Woods
  • homer4homer4 Member Posts: 128 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    I remember them well! Loads of fun.

    "...Abby someone""Abby who"..."Abby Normal"
  • 4GodandCountry4GodandCountry Member Posts: 3,968
    edited November -1
    Still have one about three miles from my house. Im gonna go tomorrow night and see Adam Sandlers "Mr. Deeds" and the J-Lo movie "Enouph"...

    When Clinton left office they gave him a 21 gun salute. Its a damn shame they all missed....
  • He DogHe Dog Member Posts: 50,947 ✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    As of about three years ago, there were only about 200 left in the U.S. Nice to know a few are coming back! Both in my home town are gone, and none remain in Albuquerque.

    A balanced diet is a cookie in each hand
  • allen griggsallen griggs Member Posts: 35,183 ✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    When I was a senior in high school about 30 carloads of kids from my high school would go to row 13 of the NE Expressway Drive In and watch The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. When the car pulled up to the ticket window there would be two guys in the front seat, and there would be three more guys in the trunk with a cooler full of Michelob or PBR. Those were good times.

    "Not as deep as a well, or as wide as a church door, but it is enough."
  • He DogHe Dog Member Posts: 50,947 ✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    Allen, we use to do octuple dates to the drive in. Two guys would hit the A&W and pick up a pile of chili dogs and a few quarts of root beer. Other couples would pick up their dates and 4 car loads would meet at the drive in. Good times. I don't suppose things will ever be quite as simple again, but I don't suppose we are as easily entertained any longer either.

    Did you ever try that stun gun on a sting, or have you been careful lately?


    A balanced diet is a cookie in each hand
  • allen griggsallen griggs Member Posts: 35,183 ✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    I don't have a stun gun. I still carry that romex in my truck but I cant bring myself to shock a bee sting with a Nissan spark plug. I am trying the be careful technique.

    "Not as deep as a well, or as wide as a church door, but it is enough."
  • 96harley96harley Member Posts: 3,992 ✭✭
    edited November -1
    Tools1,
    Where was that in Indiana. Not Centerton by any chance?
  • offerorofferor Member Posts: 8,625 ✭✭
    edited November -1
    It was a fun way to see a movie as a kid, but of course the quality was shall we say less than optimum. I don't remember ever getting in on the "tune your car stereo" period. I saw all my drive-in movies back in the days when you hung the wired speaker on your window edge, and occasionally someone would forget and drive off, pulling the wires loose.

    There were almost half a dozen drive-ins doing great business around Fort Wayne, Indiana, in the late 50s, as well as many independent indoor theaters, each with its own unique architecture. The drive-ins had names like the Lincolndale, the Hillcrest, the East 30. The indoor houses were the Rialto, the Embassy, the Paramount, the Clyde. Some were named for the street they were on, like the Jefferson and the Wells. I remember the Wells would have the cheaper sci-fi thrillers, like Attack of the Crab Monsters.

    - Life NRA Member
    "If cowardly & dishonorable men shoot unarmed men with army guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary...and not by general deprivation of constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
  • RosieRosie Member Posts: 14,525 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    Better think guys and gals. Do you want your kids looking over in the car beside you and see whats going on?
    Rosie, I remember very well!
  • dhdh Member Posts: 127 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    There is a vacant lot across the street from my job where our drive in used to be,I can look out right now and remember when my buddy and I would go on Monday nights which cost a whole dollar and we would bring a case of beer.My wife (then girl friend) went once and I still remember having to wipe off the insides of the windows to drive away."The Hills Have Eyes",saw that one with my cousin.The 70's were great.
  • He DogHe Dog Member Posts: 50,947 ✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    dh, you could have gone a long time without saying the 70's were great! I was thinking it was the 50's and 60's. Heck most of the drive-ins were gone by the 70's!

    A balanced diet is a cookie in each hand
  • allen griggsallen griggs Member Posts: 35,183 ✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    Thanks DH, you just reminded me, when I was 32 in 1982 I had a 21 year old girl friend who was studying violin at the North Carolina School of the Arts. I was visiting her one weekend and she said there was an x-rated drive in there. We went there one night and you talk about some steamed windows! See you try to copy what is happening on the screen.

    "Not as deep as a well, or as wide as a church door, but it is enough."
  • dhdh Member Posts: 127 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    The drive in theatre in LaMarque Texas was open I know for a fact up until 1982 that I know of,cause I got married in '82.And there was an X rated theatre in Alvin where I live now but I never went there and I don't know when it closed.50's and 60's!!You must have been wearing t shirts with the sleeves rolled up back then!! I remember seeing Dean Martin at an indoor theatre in Galveston when I was a kid,"Five Card Stud".My aunt thought it would be a kid movie until the 1st guy got killed and she was ready to drag us out of there,but we hung in there.
  • TOOLS1TOOLS1 Member Posts: 6,133
    edited November -1
    Hay 96
    It was at Monticelo IN. And the other was at Bass Lake IN. I used to frequent both of theas places when I lived up there. Used to spend saturday at Indiana Beach (an amusment park on Lake Schaffer. Then head to the drive-in just befor dark.
    TOOLS
  • Wild TurkeyWild Turkey Member Posts: 2,427 ✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    seven kids in their PJs in the station wagon. Double feature, youngest crashed by end of 1st, rest on way home.

    Still one open in Radcliff, KY (Ft. Knox) Park van/pickup backwards, lawn chairs and good speakers. Great way to spend a cool evening.

    Wild Turkey"if your only tool is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail"
  • BuckshotBuckshot Member Posts: 54 ✭✭
    edited November -1
    Oh Yeh! the good ole drive-in days..You, Your favorite Girl..three buddies in the trunk..and you always had extra features in all directions...but.."only the shadow knows"
  • squeakycsqueakyc Member Posts: 204 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    Ah.....The good old days when nobody was in such a hurry. It was 1966 when I saw my first drive-in movie. I watched the original "Batman" first, and fell asleep when "My Man Flint" started. I don't think the folks wanted me to see it anyway. The last time I went to the drive-in was with a carload of buddies, a case of Carling Black Label and two bottles of Yukon Jack. We watched "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and the classic "The Hills Have Eyes". We had a blast that night. Soon after it was demolished to make way for new homes. What a great way to spend a Friday night.
  • Spring CreekSpring Creek Member Posts: 1,260
    edited November -1
    "Those were the days my friend, I thought they'd never end"
    1967-at drive-in with brand new Corvette, girl-friend (now my wife), when a hail storm hit--made it under a nearby awning large enough to protect the Vette........NO damage.
    Got drunk and totaled it two weeks later............
    "Those were the days my friend, I thought they'd never end"
  • NOTPOSTALNOTPOSTAL Member Posts: 311 ✭✭
    edited November -1
    Our old drive-in use to show x rated shows after the regular feature, everyone had to leave, then pay again to go backin. Unfortunatly the screen faced the highway and there happened to be a major intersection right there, more than one fender-bender cause by a fourty foot set of d-cups bouncing across the screen.

    ...from my cold dead fingers!!
  • sodbustersodbuster Member Posts: 2,305 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    I drive by the ol' drive in on my way to the shootin' range. The screen is still there, the cinderblock bldg. is still there, but they are farming the parking area. Man,, the memories,,,,this was the place to be on Fri and Sat nights in the small town that I grew up in!! Um, don't think that I actually ever watched a movie, but that doesn't matter!!

    "Just my opinion."
  • flatdogflatdog Member Posts: 201 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    Good Post,
    There used to be one on the west side of Indianapolis,In.
    It was called the Tibbs I think it's still there. I hope so, it sure was an important part of my childhood.
    Started me to wondering. Are drive in's unique to America? I've never heard of or seen one in any other country.
    flatdog.

    " Love is what goes on between a man and a .45 pistol that won't jam."
  • BullzeyeBullzeye Member Posts: 3,560
    edited November -1
    When I was about 7, my parents took me to what was apparently the last drive-in movie place left in upstate NY.

    It was a double-feature. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie followed by The Hunt for Red October. No, I'm not kidding.

    I had little interest in Sean Connery or submarines at the time, but damned if I didnt love the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I thought the whole thing was a hoot.

    I went back to look for that drive-in sometime last year, and it had been bulldozed and turned into a driving range. Go figure.


    Edited by - Bullzeye on 08/02/2002 01:50:34
  • pickenuppickenup Member Posts: 22,844 ✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    This post puts a smile on my face. Ahhh the good old days. Last one I was at was about 21 years ago. Took my 1 year old kid to see Cheech and Chong. Van turned around, back doors wide open. I can still picture him laying there with his head propped up in his hands through the whole movie.I just threw away one of those speaker a few years ago. I don't remember how I got it, I know I never drove away with one, but some of my friends did.

    If I knew then, what I know now.
  • gunpaqgunpaq Member Posts: 4,607 ✭✭
    edited November -1
    They are all gone now: Coatesville Drive-in, Exton Drive-in, Rt. 202 Drive-in, Columbia Drive-in, Kutztown Drive-in, State Line Drive-in, and York Drive-in.

    Pack slow, fall stable, pull high, hit dead center.
  • 96harley96harley Member Posts: 3,992 ✭✭
    edited November -1
    Tools,
    I'm know the neck of woods you refer to. We call you northern Hoosiers ,Flatlanders. We go a couple old drive-in around here.
  • He DogHe Dog Member Posts: 50,947 ✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    It cracks me up that some of us are nostalgic about drive-ins from the 70's and 80's and a few of us OF's about the 50's-60's. Here is a real blast from the past: In the early 50's the then only drive in in my home town sponsored a guy being buried alive to draw in the crowds. Supposedly he was going for some record, and as I recall he was buried in a plywood box of unknown demension. There was a light down there and you could sort of see him. As far as I could tell, there was no tricky way for him to only be there for a couple of hours a day, but kids are easily fooled.

    A balanced diet is a cookie in each hand
  • red dogred dog Member Posts: 140 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    A local group of people got together and reopened our drivein as a
    non-profit venture. Great for the young and old. They are having a
    so called home coming event this weekend.
  • nunnnunn Forums Admins, Member, Moderator Posts: 35,988 ******
    edited November -1
    They were great, but dying out. We used to do the backward pickup thing with lawn chairs. Brought a cooler with drinks and a big Tupperware container with fresh popcorn. Enough people doing that probably helped kill the drive-ins off, because the movie business lives on concession sales, not ticket sales.

    SIG pistol armorer/FFL Dealer/Full time Peace Officer, Moderator of General Discussion Board on Gunbroker. Visit www.gunbroker.com, the best gun auction site on the Net! Email davidnunn@texoma.net
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