Drive-in movie detail question

The bumps were continuous, at least at the drive-ins I went to.  I used to run the projectors for the local drive-in when I was in high school, so I got to see them a lot.

continuous. what are you going to use for the speakers??

Woodland Scenics Incline or wood shims with a piece of wood or metal across.

On mine, which has a base using blue board, I cut and thinned down strips of blue board and glued them in place.  Since the entire base was going to be covered with dirt, gravel, and grasses, it was very easy to hide the glued on strips and make them look like they belonged.

These are great images, but they kinda show the cars' front tires up on the bumps.

- walt

gunnerjohn - that job had to be some fun, and with benefits...

Larry - you know me well enough to know I can't be thinking about 2 things at the same time. This week's goal is to work out the placement of the necessary buildings and the parking areas.  I think this is going to look pretty neat.  Although I will freely admit I have "borrowed" every idea for my drive-in from other more imaginative forum members's drive-in projects.

Thanks,

Ed

None of the drive-ins I ever attended had any of the "bumps" you guys are describing.  Maybe a regional thing?

All the drive-ins we've ever been to had the cars parked angled up at the screen so rather than looking thru cars you were looking over them to see the movie.

http://blogs.kcrw.com/whichway...2014/05/DSC07482.jpg

Mark, is that a cross in the second picture at the bottom of the screen?? i wonder if the drive in was also used as a church!!

Well, I never had to pay to go to the movies!   Unless something went wrong, it was mostly waiting for the reel change.  Of course, you occasionally had to change the carbon arc rods, remember this was in the late 50's.

I remember going to the drive in movies in high school and they had a set of two speaker boxes on one pole and two cars would park between the speaker poles, one speaker went to the car on the right and the other to the car on the left. 

Later drive in movies I went to used the FM radio for the speaker as the cars were damaging them too much. 

Lee Fritz

 We had a drive-in here in Flatwoods,Ky up till the mid 90's called the " Corral Drive-In " with of course, a western theme.

 It was built on a slope with each level progressively lower from wide to narrow top to bottom.

 The projection booth was in the middle of the drive-in with the concession stand inside.

 There was also a playground located to the left side of the screen with pic-nic table's. There was a pond to the right side of the screen.

 You pulled in at the top right side driving thru what looked like a barn to pay for your fare,and drove to the left,and would exit to the right side where you entered to go thru the barn (entrance).

 They had speakers until the late 80's when the drive-in went to announcing the movies on an AM radio channel.

 Thursday's was $5 carload night and was merely a hangout for teenagers sorta like you remember seeing in the movie Grease.

 The location is a high end housing development now. They never changed the layout of the land much as all the houses are built at a downward slope.

GunnerJohn,

Were the projectors 35mm. Simplex intermittent systems, with Peerless carbon arch lamp houses?

Ralph

Matches, paint them silver.

Are you kidding?  I was sixteen-seventeen, I didn't give much of a crap what brand they were.  I do remember the name Peerless on the lamp housing, but I don't remember what the actual film transport was, I guess I always figured it was all the same.

This picture looks very close to what I remember from over fifty years ago.   The concrete block projection house even looks similar.

dawkil / Larry - I've seen some Drive-ins advertise Church services on Sunday mornings and Flea Markets in the afternoon. Always struck me as a bit odd to combine them.

There was a club layout in York some years back that had a car in the back row bouncing up & down

Although my drive-in had detailed speaker posts, I did not bother with the raised areas. Let's face it, actual drive-ins were much larger than what can fit on most layouts. The average drive-in held 1,000 cars. The largest (Detroit, MI and Luftkin, TX) held 3,000 cars. The very smallest, in Harmony, PA, held 50 cars.

BobbyD,

Any of of the drive-ins we went to on Long Island had the cars angled upwards.  There was a very small drive-in in Iowa close to school that at best held 75 cars And all the cars were level It was a$1 and all they seemed to be showing were the spaghetti westerns that were popular at the time. Those kids lucky enough to have a car at college spent a few $$ there.

Ed

Quite a few were used for religious services on Sunday mornings, as well as flea markets in the afternoon...especially when drive-ins started to loose popularity (thanks to air conditioning and TV). It was hard to make a profit from the ticket sales, so it had to come from the refreshment stand sales. The final blow came from shopping mall developers offering $$$$ for the drive-in land.

 Using drive-in's for traveling evangelists was popular in the day,especially in the south.

 And I can remember going to two different drive-in's that doubled as flea-markets in Ohio.One was in South Point (Sharedine,Ohio township) the other in Chesapeake,which still may be one now , just not sure.

Gee, I don't remember the Whitestone Drive-in in The Bronx having any 'bump.' Heck, we always got there in the dark, and our '68 Catalina would have leveled any bumps.  What I remember well is locking the doors as soon as we got there. 

More common than one would think...

A converted drive-in...

Extreme competition...

In this part of the country there are a lot of pickups running around. It wasn't unusual to see them backed up onto the hump and folks would sit in the back on their lawn chairs or chaise loungers watching the movie. Some kids pulled a bench seat out of an old car and had that installed facing rearward. It served double duty - hauling other kids around after school and going to the drive in. Might be something to consider modeling.

If there's room for this...

In front...

The main reason the kiddie attractions, miniature golf, and even swimming pools were put in were to get people there early, and hence sell more refreshments...the main source of revenue.

Hey, this one is (or was) close to home, it was in the city where I live. Don't remember exactly when it was torn down, but it's been gone a long time. I bet we had at least 25 or so drive-ins around here in the '60s and I think there is now only one left.

All the drive-ins around here had the ramps in each row to point the car upwards toward the screen and above the car in front of you. The ramps were curved around the screen so the cars on the ends were pointed more toward the screen. They had the speaker stands for the speakers, two to a stand for adjacent cars.

I frequented the Whitestone Drive-in when I was young. It definitely had bumps to raise the front of the car. I also remember the playground in front of the screen. We would return to our cars when the cartoons started.  I also remember frequenting the Whitestone Drive-in with my girlfriend when I was in college. 

Sounds like we grew up near each other. I lived in Pelham Bay. Where do you hail from?

great idea to use matchsticks for the speakers!!

i also remember they would charge a per person fee. when you parked the car the trunk would be popped open and out came several more teenagers. 

Not here in central Pennsylvania.  I'm still wondering if it was regional.  Where did you live?

Drawing of the first drive-in in Camden, NJ / image from Popular Mechanics, Sept 1933

Huh?  Stoney Brook Drive-In in York had bumps.  Columbia Drive-In in Columbia had bumps.

Gene Anstine

Oh yes, I remember those days! I frequented the drive-in theaters a lot, for sure.

But I cannot honestly remember ever watching a movie, though 

Alex

Alex,

Are  you telling me that they actually showed movies at the drive-in ?  How'd I miss that part?

Ed

Ed, how about using "O" gauge cork roadbed. Paint it gray. With cork you can bend it to keep all the cars facing the screen. Don

The cork bed is the perfect solution for what I need to do.  And I actually have some surplus cork bed Laying around.

Thanks for for the solution,

Ed

Ed, Since I did what you asked about (see my earlier reply) I would think that 'O' cork roadbed would be too thick.  I wish that I had shaved my blue board 'bumps' down further.  They are not very high as is, but they make the cars face upward a bit more than I would prefer.

I'm sure you'll experiment first though, right?

- walt

Yes  My  now wife & I (53 years) got  caught by some guy with a flash light that probably had 6 big d cells batteries. I had to pay him $5 bucks and he let us stay.  Normally we would sneak in and turn up all the speakers and watch from the fence line.. Fun times    Anyone remember the back seat???? Heck there are still  2  drive ins near by.  Trouble is, both of us  can't stay awake  in the summer. they start so late..