Going Attractions: The Definitive Story of the American Drive-in Movie Page #7

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goes on at drive-in movies, because it does lend itself

to less-desirable behaviors, especially if the movies

are pretty edgy. -And the kids would be able

to look out the back window and see someone

having sex on the screen -- you know, 50-feet high. That would usually get

the church groups going. The councils would start

trying to pass ordinances. The 1970s were really big for trying to shut down

drive-ins that way. -I would want no part of it,

and I would hope that anybody

that owned a drive-in would want no part of it. I don't care how bad

financial things got. -In a different sense,

those kind of movies, though, are what kept drive-ins going

in the '70s. -Drive-ins would want

to disassociate themselves with that image, and they'd rather forget

going through that time. -We went to the supreme court. The news was all over

the country -- front page, big and all. And the local paper put one

column about an inch and a half, telling that we won our case

at the supreme court. -It seemed to be a last resort to nearly all the drive-ins

that were going down. And they would try

the triple-X's, and then, all of a sudden,

they would be dark. -It led to a lot

of the drive-in theaters developing a bad reputation. It led to a lot of drive-in

theaters becoming decrepit. -The use of neon

really took off in the '50s, but the problem with neon was

it's very expensive to keep up. You know, if it breaks, you got

to call a guy to come out. -A lot of them

were not installed properly on a wood structure

and burned down. Insurance companies started telling drive-in theater

operators, "We're not going to insure

your screens because you carry neon on them." City ordinances came into being,

and they were saying, "We don't want you using this

on your sign." -And as the years went on, theater owners just neglected

to fix the signs. -The ones that remained

were simpler signs. -And slowly the drive-in

got that rugged look. -Why would they drive

in to a drive-in that's enclosed with all weeds

and trees growing and everything else? -So you're constantly having somebody on the field checking

this stuff. -It not only applies

to the marquee and certain aspects

of the screen but also the speakers,

as well. -They would get broken. The wiring in the ground

would go bad, and then you'd have to dig up

all the asphalt and try to locate it

and try to fix it. It's just really becoming

a nightmare. -Every Saturday, without fail,

we'd walk up and down the rows and make sure the speakers

worked. And the ones that didn't,

you would drop on the ground. -And if you have 3,000 speakers,

that's a lot of checking. -There was always vandalism

or mistakes of people driving off with

that speaker still attached. -They're out there

in the snow and the wind. The cones on the inside, if you don't keep up on them,

will get tinny. People throw them

out of the car, and switches break,

and cases break, and it's a lot of work. -Mr. Insurance

won't let us have a playground. Well, he would,

for the right price. -Because of insurance reasons, drive-ins had to get rid

of playgrounds. -A lot of theaters

have shied away from it now. There's liability issues

in a lot of places. -Some drive-in theaters -- they got built up in areas

that weren't so nice. -Many of them, if we would

go back to the sites now, would be much more urban

in their location than they would have been

50,60 years go. -Gang problems. Got to the point where that's all that showed up

at the drive-in was gangs. -It's really not

a place you take your family. -The other thing that drives

me wild is property damage. You know,

graffiti is a funny thing. Buddy,

go buy a little piece of land, build a wall, and paint

whatever you want on it, okay? -Fights would break out, and the police were constantly

getting called to drive-ins. They weren't making money.

They'd just close and walk away. [ Slow piano music plays ] [ Rock music plays ] -The reality

of both parents working or a lot of divorces

or whatever it was changed that nuclear family. -Family times that we associate

with the 1950s -- for the 1970s, those same

families weren't experiencing a lot of the same

kind of stability. -You do see a rise in films about people

who are just divorced, like "Starting Over"

or "Kramer vs. Kramer." "An Unmarried Woman." It became a reflection

of the way society was. -And if you couple that with the energy crisis

and the gas shortage... -The gas crisis not only

involved a high price of gas, but it involved long lines. It involved rationing. -With 9 out of 10 stations

closed this weekend, traffic on southland freeways

was far lighter than usual. -If your license plate

had odd numbers, you had to go get gas

on certain days. It was even certain days. So people were not gonna drive

for entertainment. It was more important

for them to go to work, to go food shopping

for their family, and it was tough. -And a big switch

from huge cars to little,

tiny, gas-efficient cars. -The gremlins, the pintos. -Cars become smaller

and more compact. And smaller cars

make it less enjoyable to sit in them for a few hours

and watch a movie. We weren't as obsessed with

being in our car all the time. -Another interesting

thing that happened was the advent

of the bucket seat with the high back and also the bench seat

with the headrests on them. -Oh, bucket seats, yeah.

Bucket seats. -Because now people couldn't sit

in the backseat and see the screen. -That definitely contributed

to the demise of the drive-in. There is no question. Because you no longer had

the big cars, and the price of gas was up. -There were nights that it was

not worthwhile to be open. -People's thinking

was different. The whole thing was different. [ Church choir singing

indistinctly ] -One way they could get into

the good graces of the community were to offer

their properties up for church services on Sundays. -Let us rejoice and be glad. -In Wisconsin,

the Beaumont drive-in did it. The 41 Twin did it.

The Stardust in Eau Claire. St. Croix Hilltop

in Houlton, Wisconsin, are still doing it even though the theater's

been closed since 1992. The drive-in's still standing, and they actually have

a funny thing they do -- a song. It's "If you're happy and

you know it, clap your hands." Well, they do "If you're happy

and you know it, honk your horn,

blink your lights," and something else. Or, "wipe your wipers,"

I think it is. It's pretty funny. -The fact that the drive-ins

were only operational for four or five hours

every night meant that there was

this huge plot of land that was sitting, you know,

just doing nothing all day long. -Flea markets

is another really common way that the land can be used

during the day. -A lot of drive-ins on Sundays,

they, you know, fill up the lot with people selling antiques

and whatever. -The United States

is a little bit odd in the sense that they don't

have it as much

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