A brief history of the drive-in Theater from its inception to the present. The drive-in Theater was the brainchild of one Richard Milton Hollingshead, Jr. The inventor's father, Richard Milton Hollingshead, Sr., owned and operated a business that first sold
harness soap, later moving on to selling a complete line of automotive products under the name of the "Whiz Auto Products Company." After Richard Jr. finished school, he took a position with his father's company as general sales manager.
Always on the lookout for new ideas, Richard Jr. began thinking about new business concepts. His preference was to have a cash business, as he didn't like the idea of going into debt. It dawned on him that in terms of buying habits, people gave up Food, Clothing, Autos and Movies last, in that order. He had noticed that even though the depression was in full swing,
folks continued to go to motion pictures at their local Theater. From this, his first notion was to create a deluxe gas station, designed like a Hawaiian Village, that would feature a restaurant and outdoor movies where the customers could mingle while their cars were being serviced, utilizing Whiz Auto Products of course!
It is not clear why he dropped every other aspect of the idea other than the outdoor Theater, but soon Richard, 30 years old by this time, was experimenting with the concept in his back yard on 212 Thomas Avenue in Riverton, New Jersey. He started by placing an old Kodak projector on the hood of his car, projecting the movie onto a screen nailed to a tree. He turned on his sprinkler to simulate rainfall, and placed a radio behind the screen to provide the sound. He also reasoned that in order to ensure that all of the vehicles had an un-obstructed view
of the screen, they would need to be positioned in a special way. He spent several weeks arranging vehicles in different configurations to solve the visibility problem. The final solution was a series of terraced ramps whose height increased as you parked closer to the screen. This arrangement of ramps was the core of his concept and Richard felt it was strong enough to be patentable, allowing him to collect royalties from future drive-in operators for a period of 17 years, the standard time limit for patents. Or so he thought.
The application for patent was filed on August 6, 1932, and it was later granted by the patent office on May 16, 1933 under patent number 1,909,537. The next thing on the agenda was to build the first drive-in in order to promote the idea to the public as well as potential investors. First off though, he needed to get some financial backing which came from Willie Warren Smith, his first cousin and parking lot operator. The two men then formed a company, called Park-In Theaters Inc. Richard assigned his patent to the company immediately. Edward Ellis, a road contractor, was brought in to grade the lot of the first Theater in exchange for stock. Oliver Willets, an executive of Campbell's Soup, also bought stock in the company at the time.
On May 16, 1933, the day the patent was granted, work began on constructing the drive-in on Crescent Boulevard in Pennsauken Township, New Jersey. The location is usually reported as Admiral Wilson Blvd. in Camden, but technically the Theater was just over the Camden town line, where the name of the road changes. Opening night was June 6, 1933, and it was known simply as "Drive-In Theater" although the actual name was the "Automobile Movie Theater." Opening night was packed with cars, and the first film ever shown at a drive-in was the 1932 release of "Wives Beware," which was in second-run status at the time. The problem of obtaining first-run films for drive-ins remains to this day! Admission was 25? for each car and an additional 25? for each person, somewhat higher than the prevailing price at the indoor houses at the time, who were also offering double features. Ironically, this has reversed itself over time and drive-ins are usually the only places to see double features today.
Hollingshead promoted the drive-in concept by talking about the numerous advantages afforded to the patrons such as the option of smoking without bothering anyone or violating fire laws,
talking in your car without disturbing anyone, as well as eating in the privacy of your vehicle. Young children could be brought along with their pajamas and sleep in the back seat so you wouldn't need to hire a babysitter. One early drive-in operator staged a "Babysitter Protest" with picketing teenage girls marching around with signs that read "Down with Drive-Ins, More Work for Babysitters." The aged and infirm or severely overweight folks who could not handle the narrow aisles of the indoor houses would also benefit.
It was initially thought that 3 shows a night would be viable, but after only 2 nights this gave way to showing only 2 shows per night, one at 8:45 and another at 10:45 with 2 changes a week. This brings to mind another issue that has changed the film exhibition business greatly. In the old days, it was possible for a small town house or DI to get 2-3 changes a week, which meant that if you were drawing from a small local population, you had something fresh every few days to keep people coming in. Nowadays, it is not unusual for the big studios and distributors to force exhibitors to show a film for a minimum of 4 weeks! Sometimes this can be negotiated down, but it really hurts attendance when most of your audience sees the new release on the first weekend and then you are dead for the next 3 weeks waiting for the next new film. Of course, this led to most Theaters becoming twinned and tripled until the dawn of the Multi-plex and Mega-Plex's we see today. With 15 screens or more, there is always something new to see. The side effect of this of course is that it led to many drive-ins and small neighborhood houses to close down. This was not the only reason for their demise however, more on that later.
The first drive-in held under 400 cars, despite reports to the contrary, and large trees and fencing were put in to prevent people from seeing the screen from the outside of the lot. The
screen was 30 ft. high and 40 ft. wide and it was 12 feet from the ground. It was housed by a larger structure that was 149 ft. wide, 35 ft. high, and 60 ft. deep. The field was paved with gravel and oiled to keep dust down and discourage mosquitoes. Sound was supplied by 3 six-foot square RCA speakers and could be heard from miles around on some nights! Total cost was published at $60,000 but it was more like $25,000. The all-important concession stand was put in after the first week.
Oddly, this first drive-in did not last long. It was closed by 1936 and "moved" to Union, New Jersey by the man who bought it from Hollingshead. The reason given by Richard at the time was the high film rental costs caused the drive-in to be unprofitable. Indeed, he had paid $400 for a 4-day rental of "Wives Beware" when it was available to indoor exhibitors for $20 a week! This would not be the last time that drive-in owners would be treated unfairly by the Hollywood studios. In truth however, there were other reasons for the closure of the first drive-in, mostly technical. The sound was horrible and was not synchronized with the screen due to the delay caused by having the speakers near the screen. The insects, the price and the single bill policy also contributed to its closing.
Although Hollingshead retained his 30% interest in Park-In Inc., he was never again involved in operating a drive-in. He felt that the licensing aspect of the business showed more promise anyway, but unfortunately this was not to be the case. A second drive-in was begun in Weymouth Massachusetts in 1936 and was opened on May 6 of that year. The owners of the Weymouth Drive-In, Thomas DiMaura and James Guarino failed to obtain a license from Park-In however. On July 3rd, legal action was brought against them by Park-In charging patent infringement. Park-In was able to obtain a writ which entitled them to place gate keepers at the Weymouth and collected the entire gate receipts for July 3, 4 and 5 for Park-In. There was subsequent moneys paid, and by the fall the Weymouth partners, AKA Drive-In Theaters Corp entered into a licensing agreement with Park-In.
The cost was a one-time fee of $1000 and 5% of the gross box office receipts. In return they would get a protected territory. In July 1937, Elias M. Leow opened a drive-in at Lynn Massachusetts, in apparent violation of the Weymouth license with Park-In. The Weymouth folks had to sue Park-In to get them to sue the Lynn operation! Meanwhile, Park-In counter-sued Weymouth over an un-authorized location that had been built in Shrewsbury Massachusetts. Then 2 men from California, a Mr. M. A. Rogers and Thomas Burgess, opened a drive-in without obtaining a license from Park-In either. Although the business had gotten off to a slow start, by the late 1930's things began to heat up.
This was the beginning of what became a morass of legal wrangling with numerous lawsuits and counter-suits all over the country. Drive-Ins began popping up, some were licensed and some
were not, some who were licensed originally began to stop paying their royalties to Park-In due to the un-authorized locations being built in their so-called "protected" territories. This legal chaos continued for several years, with locations being built faster than Park-In could sue them. As a historical note, one these early drive-ins was the Sunrise Auto Theater in Valley Stream, Long Island New York. It was owned by one Michael Redstone, father of the mastermind and head of Viacom, Sumner Redstone. This Theater was the seed of what was to become Northeast Theaters which evolved into National Amusements, which eventually would operate 60 drive-ins and dozens of indoor Theaters over the years. Although Mr. Redstone claimed in his book, "A Passion to Win" that the Sunrise drive-in was "probably the fourth drive-in built in the world," this does not appear to be the case, according to records from back then. It was certainly one of the first 15 to 20 though.