The boom of automobiles and car ownership was the reason the drive-in thrived. Families could bring young kids or infants, and not have to worry about interrupting other movie goers or having to leave a busy theater. Young couples made drive-ins the popular spot for dates because of the privacy a car would allow.
Drive-ins gained immense popularity 20 years later during the 1950s and '60s with the Baby Boomer generation. There were over 4,000 drive-ins throughout the U.S., and most were in rural areas.
Why did the popularity of drive-in movies rise in the 1950s?
Small suburban towns springing up at the edges of cities across the Midwest were bordered by cheap land that could be used for the sprawling, multi-acre drive-in theaters. America's rising car culture meant that more families and teens had the ability to drive to the outskirts of town to see a movie.
Invented in the US, drive-in theaters reached their peak popularity right after World War II during the '50s and '60s, allowing guests to enjoy B movies in a giant parking lot, under the stars and in the comfort of their cars.
Life at the Drive-In Movie Theater - 1950s & 1960s America
Why were drive-ins so popular?
The boom of automobiles and car ownership was the reason the drive-in thrived. Families could bring young kids or infants, and not have to worry about interrupting other movie goers or having to leave a busy theater. Young couples made drive-ins the popular spot for dates because of the privacy a car would allow.
"Drive-ins started to really take off in the '50s," Kopp said. "They offered family entertainment. People could sit in their cars, they could bring their babies, they could smoke. Drive-ins offered more flexibility than indoor theaters."
The runaway inflation and real estate interest rate hikes in the late 1970s and early 1980s made the large land tracts used by drive-ins increasingly expensive and thus far too valuable for continued use as drive-ins.
Beginning in the 1970s, when multiscreen venues in malls became the theatrical norm, the popularity of the drive-in declined steadily and eventually cratered.
"The decline of the drive-in was directly related to the movement away from Main Street America and towards the mall society, where convenience, times, weather and the idea of 'all-inclusive' became the popular way to enjoy a night out, pushing away the classic night out at the drive-in," Stefanopoulos elaborated.
You can see your favorite movies like never before: Whenever you go to the movie theater, there's always the risk that the film you're seeing will be a dud. However, most drive-in theaters play classics and fan-favorites, meaning that you've likely already seen the movie you're going to view and know you'll like it.
The first drive-in movie theater opened on June 6, 1933. The concept accelerated in the 1940s, giving birth to memories of drive-in movies for many who lived in '40s through '70s.
On June 6, 1933, eager motorists park their automobiles on the grounds of Camden Drive-In, the first-ever drive-in movie theater, located on Admiral Wilson Boulevard in Pennsauken, New Jersey.
The oldest drive-in still in operation is Shankweiler's Drive-In Theater in Orefield, Pennsylvania, USA. This outdoor cinema opened on 15 April 1934, less than a year after the world's first drive-in theatre opened in Camden, New Jersey.
The movie's theatre release was postponed as Karan Johar was reportedly unhappy with the way it turned out to be! According to a recent report, a source close to the film said, “Karan has already sent the film back to director Tarun Mansukhani for re-shooting, twice. But he's still not happy with the output.
The largest drive-in cinemas by car capacity were the Troy Drive-In, Detroit, Michigan, USA and the Panther Drive-In, Lufkin, Texas, USA. each able to hold 3,000 cars.
As the prior discussion suggests, segregation was widespread in Southern movie theaters in the early 1950s, the time period of our data. Movie theaters for white audiences often either completely barred admission to black customers, or would offer worse seating to only a portion of the screenings.
By the mid-1960s, double features had been mostly abandoned in non–drive-ins in favor of the modern single-feature screening, in which only one feature film is exhibited.
For June through August 2020, about 21% of North American movie theaters in operation were drive-ins, and those fixed-screen outdoor cinemas had 70% of the box office revenue.
Yet for the patrons, the one huge plus of the drive-in was the privacy afforded by the car. As well as taking away the need to ask children to be quiet, it also offered the ideal environment for a date, with the seductive combination of entertainment, darkness and privacy, all in a confined space.
You went to the movie theatre and some were shown on TV on the few channels that existed. You could not rent or buy movies at the time. The 1950s were quite different from the 1960s when we had remote control and color TV.
