Drive-in cinema - the very first one
Published by Reblogs - Credits in Posts,
(Credits: Far Out / Mohammad Khodabakhsh)
Putting the handbrake on history: the first-ever drive-in cinema
Cinema has always been quick to adopt the latest technologies and apply it to the industry however it could, so it was inevitable that car ownership and the movie business gaining serious traction at around the same time would cause them to meet eventually. For a while, the drive-in was heralded by many as the best way to enjoy the latest releases.
It wasn’t until the 1950s that it became a cultural staple, even though the basic parameters of what constituted a drive-in were patented two decades beforehand. Even then, the earliest iteration of automobiles and celluloid colliding dates back as far as 1915
In New Mexico, the Theatre de Guadalupe opened its doors, which allowed hundreds of people to sit in its vast auditorium while also providing space for dozens of cars to park around the perimeter without sacrificing anybody’s ability to get a good view of what was unfolding on-screen. It was history in the making, but nobody seemed to realise at the time.
The Guadalupe had shut its doors by the end of the following summer, before Claude V. Caver secured a permit from the authorities in Comanche, Texas to project features in a public space. Squeezed in like sardines in a can, watching movies outdoors gradually became more pronounced, but it still wasn’t quite the drive-in as it came to be known.
Richard M. Hollingshead ended up becoming the godfather of the medium, and he’d put in the research to ensure it was an experiment worth undertaking. The chemical company owner had been conducting tests in his driveway to see if he could work out the logistical kinks that had prevented mass outdoor viewings becoming as big as he believed they could, and it would be fair to say he cracked it.
He crudely affixed a screen to the trees in his garden, plopped a projector on the front of his car, and started tinkering with the sound to settle on the perfect volume levels. As it turns out, Hollingshead’s inspiration may have been derived from his old dear being something of a heavyset woman.
"His mother was – how shall I say it? – rather large for indoor seats," explained Jim Kopp to Smithsonian. "So he stuck her in a car and put a 1928 projector on the hood of the car, and tied two sheets to trees in his yard." Honing his soon-to-be groundbreaking formula, Hollingshead also devised a ramp system that would allow cars to be parked at various heights to give every attendee an equally solid view of what was happening.
On May 16th, 1933 his patent was approved, and he didn’t waste any time putting it into practice. The very next month, Camden in New Jersey charged patrons 25 cents per car and per person to catch British comedy Wives Beware under the moonlight, which officially became the opening night of the first-ever drive-in cinema.