The Old Passion Pit

It's dark. The mosquitos are slyly, noisily seeking a bloody meal. A speaker dangles from a slightly pulled down window.  The wind shield is fogged. The sound coming from the car is subdued, hormonally stimulated moan.

It's the passion pit, that teenage center where a sexual rite of passage by the dashboard lights and with the double feature flickering on the drive-in screen took place. In the fifties, sixties and even the seventies, many American teenagers discovered the mysteries of adulthood at the Drive-In movie theatre.

Drive-Ins hold a special place for us ever since 1933. A few years ago, many thought they were dead, but they now are starting to make a comeback, even if it is a small one.

The first Drive In movie theatre opened in Camden NJ back on June 6, 1933, that's 75 years ago this month. A man by the name of Richard Hollingshead used his drive way to experiment with outdoor projection of movies. After tinkering for some weeks, he refined the idea and the patented it. The Drive-In was born, although they called it a Park-In when they started.

By the 1940s they were about 100 screens around the country, but the post World War II boom saw this number blossom to 820. In the fifties, as the country moved from the cities to the suburbs, the Drive-In moved as well. By 1958, the high point of the Drive-In, there were around 4100 drive-ins across the country. Cheap gas, the automobile culture and the move to the suburbs fueled this growth. Families were happy. Operators were happy. Everyone was happy.

Then things slowed down. Then they stagnated and then, started dying. The sixties and seventies saw some new Drive Ins built, but more were torn down. The type of films changed as well. No longer was it first run features with a 'B' movie co-feature. To draw distracted audiences, the films became exploitive and some even were softcore porn.

The audience was drifting away. The owners were aging. The land was getting to be too valuable and competition from multi-screen indoor theatres (called 'hardtops' in the business) and new technologies (cable, VHS) all eroded the once popular drive-in. It was a dinosaur. It's time had passed.

Then something happened. The bleeding stopped. Drive-Ins stopped closing. Boomers nostalgic for their glory days in the Passion Pit started going back with their new families. One boomer actually purchased a Drive In on Ebay and reopened it.

The same pressures still exist - land prices, new technologies, etc, but the Drive-In found a niche somewhere between nostalgia and frugality to survive. Nostalgia for a simpler, more innocent past. Frugality because you can still entertain an entire family for $20 a carload versus the $36 for a family of four at the multiplex (sans concession).

So now we can breath a slight sigh of relieve. Our Drive-Ins will not become extinct.

The next big challenge for Drive -Ins will be the digital one. How will the drive-in cope with the changing technology where film will be come obsolete and digital projection will gain ascendency. This is a daunting barrier. The cost of digital projection is over $50,000 a screen,

You know, I'm not too worried. America will continue to celebrate movies in that most unique of ways, the Drive-In for years to come. Maybe I'll go this weekend and fog up a windshield. The wife would like that, me too. Besides, I have a hankering for a corn dog.

Garen has been sitting in the dark for over 30 years as an film exhibitor, consultant and reviewer. You may have seen him on NE Cable or some other Boston station.  More likely you heard him pontificating about films on FrugalYankee. com, NPR, TKK, RKO, New Hampshire Public Radio, or any number of other stations he's been on, but one thing is certain, he loves, and knows, film.