AND IF YOU ASK ME

by Grayce Pitera

Slowly and inevitably, countless symbols of our American culture continue to vanish from our country’s landscapes and roadways. Many disappearances have gone unnoticed. So it was with our drive-in movie theaters.
They were a solid part of our ‘50s lifestyles, serving to attract families, senior citizens, teenagers and adult singles alike. A driver simply pulled up to the ticket booth at The Circus Drive-In on the White Horse Pike here in Hammonton. There he purchased a ticket for himself and each of his passengers, entitling all of them to a full evening of movie viewing.
Hammonton was in a tizzy when the rumor hit our streets. We were about to have our very own drive in theater right in our own community. The Carl Frank family, owners of our downtown Rivoli Theater, had taken it upon themselves to fill that void. They introduced the drive in movie to our town, assuming the great financial expense which accompanies such a venture.
To generate interest, Mr. Franks held a townwide contest to choose a name for the theater. Dominick Pitera, our local sign painter, was asked to construct the mammoth neon signs for the site. He had been contracted to design a sign with six letters in its name, a fact he was asked not to reveal.
Unbeknownst to all contest participants, anyone entering a name with more or less letters would be automatically disqualified. Only six-letter names could be considered. Of all the qualifying entries, the name Circus attracted the attention of Mr. Frank and some lucky person was declared the contest winner.
Prior to this time, Vineland’s Delsea and the Atco Drive-Ins had been the popular destinations for many Hammontonians. Now we delighted in having our own gigantic outdoor movie.
In general, drive-ins were designed for casual living. The style of dress was optional. Some ending a night out with a late movie could be seen in rhinestones while others were comfortable in jeans. Kids were even dressed in bedclothes since they usually fell asleep before the end of the show anyway.
Carloads of people packed in like sardines waited in line on Dollar Night. Instead of paying per head, the cost of admission was only one dollar for the entire vehicle. Once the car was parked, the passengers jumped out and sat around it, digging in and making themselves comfortable for the long night ahead.
Choosing a parking spot was not always easy, as teenagers cruised the back of the lot searching for a private area. They were not really there to watch the movie anyway. There would be a lot of necking, smooching and kibitzing in that vicinity.
The adult singles fell into this same category although they felt slightly more obliged to enter the mainstream parking, presenting a more sedate appearance, leaving out most of the noise.
Families parked nearest the restroom-refreshment area or just chose a spot in the center of the lot.
Pulling up to a protruding steel post which held the small, but heavy speaker, one of the passengers reached out the window and brought it inside the car. Quickly the knob was adjusted to test for clarity of sound. If there was lots of static or even no sound at all, the car moved on to another spot until a satisfactory speaker was selected.
It was then attached to the inside top of the window’s edge by its curved appendage, where it remained all evening.
If the night was chilly, the driver usually went inside the refreshment stand to check out a car heater. This ineffective device was a small steel box, which was placed on the floorboard of the car. Of course, there was some heat to warm the feet of the front seat passengers, but those in the back felt no effect at all. Sometimes two passengers went in separately and commandeered two heaters for the same vehicle to solve the chilly problem.
The show began at dusk. There was no set time, but time passed quickly. First the refreshment stand jingles were repeated over and over with the countdown for show time being announced by the minute. A prerecorded man’s husky voice would report, “The show will begin in 30 minutes.” For the next twenty nine minutes he brought us up to date on the show commencement countdown every 60 seconds in case we might lose track of time.
When he got around to 15 minutes before showtime, the people began to run in for refreshments. The lines were horrendous. There, staring up at us were the weirdest concoctions of hot sandwiches kept warm in brightly decorated paper-lined, silver-foiled bags. Long on price and short on taste, hotdogs and hamburgers were familiar, but the eggrolls and burritos didn’t seem like movie fare to me. Cotton candy, and all the usual movie snacks from candy to popcorn were available in a cafeteria style.
Shouting our selections to neatly uniformed, but somehow impatient attendants, we watched as our sandwiches were violently placed in cardboard takeout trays with indentations for specific purposes. The drinks, manually prepared in cardboard cups, made it into their round slots. Sandwiches and small bags of snacks were, however, simply smashed together in the remaining spaces.
No one ever complained, even when a hotdog was found where a hamburger had been ordered. This type of experience was tolerated at the drive-in refreshment stand, because the urgency of returning to our cars before showtime was our prime concern.
The attendants simply could not keep up with the demand during those fifteen minutes. For the remainder of the night, the lines were nonexistent and the employees stood around talking among themselves. I know this because that is when I usually went in for my huge box of hot buttered popcorn.
Most times large families were back in their autos enjoying the picnic food mom had taken along. The kids were at the playground which remained open only during preshow or intermission times (the latter producing a repeat of the entire food concession experience).
Drive-ins provided many memories for me. Besides the obvious ones, the night in Paramus, NJ when I sat through hours of Giant with a newly arrived intern from Iran who still didn’t understand English very well was interesting. Jammed in the car with several members of the hospital personnel, it seemed incredible that Parviz Baghai could sit that long smiling and enjoying a night that proved totally foreign to him. Drive-ins, it seemed, bridged cultural gaps.
When my son was very young and we decided to take him to Atco where Dr. Doolittle was playing, we parked our station wagon backwards. Dan lowered the back door and we all climbed into the back and sat cross-legged watching the show. Danny fell asleep and never did see the end until it was shown on TV, but that balmy night his father and mother thoroughly enjoyed the Push me-Pull you and Great Giant Snail. Drive-ins served as miniature portable living rooms.
They also brought out the enterprising nature in all of us. People hid under blankets in the back seats or claimed to be less than 12 years of age to avoid paying the low admission fee, not because they were cheap. It was for the adventure of it all.
Couple that with watching Jimmy Dean, Elizabeth Taylor and John Wayne on the big, big screen and we had a pretty good thing going for us. Downing the tackiest of foods, free to talk whenever we wanted or able to leave the car and take a walk without hearing, “Down in front,” were freedoms worth chasing.
Safety was never a factor. We instinctively knew that drive-in movies were sanctuaries. Kids played unattended while parents sat in their cars with no security presence in the entire lot. Our personal safety was never in jeopardy.
Alcohol was not permitted on the premises and no one argued the point. Drugs were nonexistent. We had no idea how the absence of those two substances were indicative of our times.
I don’t know why drive-in movies disappeared, but it was sad riding past the deserted lots with hundreds of steel posts lined up like military gravestones. The empty screens were hardest to bear.
The total freedom of not being held to the rigid ‘50s protocol was wildly exciting to us.
We gained a cultural experience with a great amount of privacy. No one ever peered inside someone else’s vehicle. It was a sacred place. We only socialized outside the cars.
For those who remember, think back to those days for just a minute. Remember the dancing ball on top of the words of those corny jingles?
Drive-ins were an incredible phenomenon. They provided many people with clean, inexpensive entertainment, and for the record, they were indeed fully appreciated by the people who frequented them.