The Millstone Times August 2019

Did You Know…? By Pam Teel

Did you know that the first drive in movie theatre was invented in NJ by Rich- ard Hollingshead? Hollingshead was a young sales manager at his dad's Whiz Auto Products when he got a hankering to invent something that combined two of his interests: cars and movies. His vision was an open-air theater where moviegoers could watch the movie from their own cars. He experimented in his own driveway in Camden, New Jersey. He mounted a 1928 Kodak projector on the hood of his car and projected onto a screen he had nailed to trees in his backyard, and he used a radio placed behind the screen for sound. Hollingshead subjected his beta drive-in to vigorous testing for sound quality and different weather conditions. He used a lawn sprinkler to imitate rain, and then he tried to figure out how to park the patrons' cars. He tried lining them up in his driveway but this created a problem with line of sight when one car was directly parked behind another. By spacing the cars at various distances and placing blocks and ramps under the front wheels of those that were further away from the screen, Hollingshead created the perfect parking arrangement for the drive-in movie the- ater experience. He obtained the first U.S. patent for a drive-in theater on May 16, 1933. He opened his first drive-in on Tuesday June 6, 1933 with an investment of $30,000. It was located on 400 acres at Crescent Boulevard in Camden, New Jersey, and the price of admission was 25 cents for the car, plus 25 cents per person. With three investors, his cousin John Smith, Edward Ellies, and Oliver Willets, he called the company Park-In Theatres, Inc. Hollingshead reportedly was inspired by his moth- er’s struggle to sit comfortably in traditional movie theater seats so he came up with the idea of an open-air theater where patrons watched movies in the comfort of their own automobiles. The night of the opening, many eager motorists parked their cars on the grounds and enjoyed the movie, Wives Beware, from their cars.

The first drive-in design didn't include the in-car speak- er system that we know today. The three main speakers were provided by RCA Victor and were mounted next to the screen. They were not of good sound quality, es- pecially for the cars in the rear, or for nearby neighbors. Hollingshead sold the theatre in 1935 and opened another one. Park-In Theatres licensed the concept to Loews Drive-In Theatres, Inc., but had trouble collect- ing royalties in 1937. Eventually, after Loews was tak- en to court, Hollingshead's patent was ruled invalid in 1949. (The term “drive-in” came at a later date.) By then, the idea caught on and drive-in theaters be-

gan popping up all over the country. One of the largest was the All-Weather Drive- In of Copiague, New York, which featured parking space for 2,500 cars, a kid’s play- ground and a full service restaurant, all on a 28-acre lot. Drive-in theaters showed mostly B-movies, but some theaters featured the same movies that played in regular theaters. In time and with more advanced technology, the initially poor sound quality speakers gave way for each car to play the movie’s soundtrack through its FM radio. The popularity of the drive-in spiked after World War II and reached its heyday in the late 1950s to mid-60s, with some 5,000 theaters across the country. Drive-ins became an icon of American culture and a typical weekend destination not just for parents and children but also for teenage couples seeking some privacy. Since then, however, the rising price of real estate, especially in suburban areas, combined with the growing numbers of walk-in theaters and the rise of video rentals to curb the growth of the drive-in industry. Today, fewer than 400 drive-in theaters survive in the United States.

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10 The Millstone Times

August 2019