At Hull's Drive-In near Lexington last weekend, the
double feature was “Cars” and “The
Shaggy Dog.” The show started at dark between
9:00 p.m. and 9:15 p.m. Pets had to be kept on leashes.
Admission was $5 and nobody could sneak in hidden in
a car trunk.
Hull’s is one of
eight
remaining drive-in theaters in the commonwealth. At one time there were more than
100 in the state and 4,000 in the U.S. Opened in 1950
as the Lee Drive-In, Hull’s is the nation’s
only non-profit drive-in. When the current owner, Sebert
Hull, died in 1998, a group of aficionados organized
as Hull’s Angels, first leasing the theater and
then buying it in 2001.
In their heyday in the 1950s, Virginians could watch
John Wayne or Elvis flicks all across the state at
Lynchburg’s
Harvey’s Drive-In, Hampton’s Green Acres
Drive-In, the Bellwood in Richmond and many more.
The concept was the brainchild of Camden, N.J., resident
Richard
M. Hollingshead. He tested his idea in his
driveway. After nailing a screen to a tree in his backyard,
he mounted a projector on the hood of his car and placed
a radio behind the screen. He rolled the windows up
and down to test the sound volume. His “Automobile
Movie Theater” opened in June 1933. More than 600
people may have attended. Showing was a second-run release, “Wife
Beware,” with Adolphe Menjou. It ran three times
with shorts on opening night, but the schedule was changed
to twice a night when more time was needed to clear the
lot between screenings. (“Big Picture,” U.S.
News & World Report, June 22, 1998.)
Hollingshead’s theater lasted only three years,
but the popular idea spread. In 1934, drive-ins had
opened in Texas, California and Pennsylvania By 1939,
Virginia had its first drive-in along with Florida,
Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan and New York.
It wasn’t until after World War II, though, that
the phenomenon exploded. Drive-ins appealed to young
post-war families Parents could watch a film without
their kids bothering others in the audience. Many drive-ins
provided playgrounds. The concession stand was the
favorite with the kids, providing hot dogs, pizza or
anything that could be cooked fast. Today, indoor theaters
now provide similar full-meal fare.
By the 1960s, however, the popularity of drive-ins
began to wane. The theaters became a meeting spot for
teens, a precursor to the malls of a later era. As
the scene of late-night trysts, they gained a slightly
immoral reputation. Some drive-ins started showing
triple X films to survive. The death knell for the
institution was cable TV and VCRs. The fact that theater
owners could make more selling their valuable real
estate to developers didn’t help either. During
a three-year period in the mid-1980s, the number of
drive-ins dropped from 4,000 to 900.
For the dedicated, however, the drive-in remains a
favorite destination At Hull’s, viewers range from Virginia
Military Institute cadets to travelers from Europe who
have heard about it on the Web. Some still use the metal
speakers attached to their car windows, but others take
advantage of the low-frequency sound through their car
radios – a 21st-century innovation.
And a new generation is taking the concept a step further “Guerrilla
drive-ins” are often organized online and film
goers view movies projected on bridges or warehouses.
Born in California, the best known include the Santa
Cruz Guerilla Drive-In and MobMov in Berkeley.
The institution was never just about the movies. Drive-ins
live on!
July 10, 2006
Nice & Curious
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Last Modified:
Friday, June 27, 2008
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