NJ Drive In Showed the Way

[Ben Ruset]

http://www.app.com/app2001/story/0,21133,747300,00.html

N.J. drive-in showed the way

Published in the Asbury Park Press 6/06/03
By CHUCK DARROW
GANNETT NEW JERSEY

In "The Godfather: Part II," organized-crime chieftain Hyman Roth laments, "There isn't even a plaque" honoring murdered associate Moe Green, the visionary responsible for transforming Las Vegas from a desert crossroads to a glittering international resort.

The same can be said for the Zinman Furs property at Admiral Wilson Boulevard and Lee Avenue in Pennsauken. There is no indication that a watershed pop culture event occurred at the site 70 years ago today, when Riverton businessman and inventor Richard M. Hollingshead Jr. opened the world's first drive-in theater.

As drive-in historian Susan Sanders notes, Hollingshead, who died at 75 in 1975, was not the first person to screen films in an al fresco setting.

"People all over America were showing movies outdoors -- from the time motion pictures (were introduced)," said Sanders, 53, of Dallas. She and husband Dan are the authors of "The American Drive-In Movie Theatre,"

But Hollingshead was the first to offer movies that patrons could watch from their cars.


He did it for Mom
The tale of Hollingshead's brainstorm is well-known among drive-in enthusiasts:
Hollingshead's mother, Emma, inspired the marriage of cars and film when she complained to her son that movie theater seats were too small for her rather large frame.

Hollingshead responded by rigging a makeshift screen in the driveway of his home and placing a 16-mm projector on the hood of his car to see if it was a workable solution to his mom's predicament. His experiment included the use of his lawn sprinkler, which enabled him to gauge the effect of rain on the image being projected onto the screen.

The story may sound apocryphal, but a relative confirms it.

"(Emma Hollingshead) was a very large woman," said Richard Hollingshead's nephew, Wickliffe Hollingshead, 64, of Clarksboro. "She said, 'Wouldn't it be nice if you could sit in your car and watch a movie?' "

The scion of a family that owned a successful Camden chemical-products plant, Hollingshead quickly got serious about the idea. He drew up blueprints for a nine-row, 500-space facility featuring a 60-foot screen inlaid in a huge wall flanked by large loudspeakers. He engaged sound engineers from RCA, which was then Camden-based, to develop the sound system. On May 16, 1933, he was granted Patent No. 1,909,537.

What Hollingshead dubbed the Automobile Movie Theatre was built on a 250,000-square-foot parcel of land on what was then called Crescent Boulevard, across from the Central Airport. The $60,000 start-up capital was lent to him by his cousin, Willis W. Smith, also of Riverton.

Getting the concept going wasn't without obstacles, foremost of which were protests by unionized construction workers angered by the low wages Hollingshead offered. And the Hollywood movie studios, which then also owned most of the theaters, saw his idea as a financial threat and refused to rent him first-run features.

But Hollingshead was undeterred, because, as he said at the time, he realized the two things Americans clung to even in the depths of the Depression were their cars and movies. He was convinced his idea would succeed and enumerated the reasons in a Courier-Post interview before the theater's opening.

"Inveterate smokers rarely enjoy a movie because of the smoking prohibition," he told the newspaper. "In the drive-in (theater), one may smoke without offending others. People may chat or even partake of refreshments brought to their cars without disturbing those who prefer silence. The drive-in virtually transforms an ordinary motor car into a private (theater) box."


'Dull parts omitted'
On June 6, 1933, the theater opened with an edited version of the Adolphe Menjou comedy "Wife Beware." All subsequent features were likewise truncated. According to a Courier-Post article the next day, the films would be screened "with all dull or uninteresting parts omitted."
There were three shows, at 8:30, 10 and 11:30 p.m. Admission was 25 cents for a person arriving on foot, 75 cents for two people in a car and $1 per family. The audience on opening night was 600.

E. Guy Elzey Jr., 75, of Haddonfield recalls how the elements could make a trip to what is now remembered as the Camden Drive-In a dicey proposition.

"On windy nights, the wind just blew the sound," said Elzey. "You'd have to leave your windows down (to hear the soundtrack). In the winter, when it rained or it was cold, you had to run your motor."

And, given the swampy ground, mosquitoes were a special nuisance. But two enterprising brothers had the remedy: Frank Peak, 76, of Cinnaminson, said he and his brother Alfred, 79, would burn the cattails that grew wild around the grounds to provide a natural repellent.

Despite the drive-in's novelty and its convenience, it was never a financial success -- primarily, said historian Sanders, because of Hollingshead's inability to book first-run films. In 1935, he sold the property and moved his business to Union County.

As it turned out, holding the patent on the invention proved mostly worthless to Hollingshead. While he was correct in envisioning thousands of drive-ins across the country, his tim-ing wasn't quite right: His patent expired in 1950, and the drive-in boom really didn't happen until after World War II, when a growing middle class bought more cars and moved to suburban towns.


Didn't strike it rich
While drive-ins proliferated at a spectacular rate, increasing from 500 before the war to about 5,000 in the late 1950s and early '60s, Hollingshead received little tribute. And he was so overwhelmed by the legal fight he needed to mount to collect his royalties, he threw in the towel.
"I think he was somewhat depressed it didn't work out the way he anticipated," said Hollingshead's third wife, Pauline, 84, of Bryn Mawr, Pa. They were married from 1953 until his death.

"But he wasn't bitter about it. I never saw a bitterness. That was the way it was, and that was it, as far as he was concerned.

"But I think he'd be greatly pleased that he is still remembered."


© copyright 2003 Gannett News Service
Films al fresco at the Shore
Monmouth and Ocean counties were once home to at least nine drive-in theaters, each with histories as colorful as the cult B-movie classic "The Blob":
MALLS THAT ATE DOVER: Dover Township had the Toms River Drive-in and the Bay Drive-in, both along Route 37, which were eventually eaten up by shopping mall sprawl.

FLICKS FOR FLIERS: Wall had the Shore Drive-in, at Routes 33 and 34, now the site of a WaWa store, and for a while it had the first -- and apparently only -- "fly-in" drive-in, which opened in 1946 at what was then Allaire Airport. It accommodated both cars and airplanes.

GETTING AN EYEFUL: The Manahawkin Drive-in, on Route 72 in Stafford, is especially memorable for some because it featured X-rated films visible to passing motorists. It was Ocean County's last outdoor theater before it shut down more than 20 years ago; today there's a Home Depot on the site.

MORE AT THE SHORE: The Brielle Drive-in, Eatontown Drive-in and Laurelton Drive-in in Brick -- which is now a Wal-Mart also entertained legions of al fresco filmgoers in their day.

END OF AN ERA: Hazlet's Route 35 Drive-in, which closed in 1986 and was demolished in 1991, was the last Shore drive-in to give up the ghost.

 

[Teegate]

The founders of the company I work for always talked about that drive-in in Pensauken and the airport. I work right down the street from there.

Guy

 

[bobpbx]

You must have been to them right Guy? I was at plenty of em. The last thing I remember seeing at a drive in was "Valley of the Dolls".

Remember how the tires would crunch on the gravel when driving in? And the weight of those speakers, all metal.

 

[Teegate]

You must have been to them right Guy? I was at plenty of em. The last thing I remember seeing at a drive in was "Valley of the Dolls".

Remember how the tires would crunch on the gravel when driving in? And the weight of those speakers, all metal.

My parents took us all the time as a kid but I mostly slept. The first movie I stayed up to watch was The Sons of Katie Elder with John Wayne in 1965. I always liked the idea of the car tilted on the little hill because when I slept it kept me jammed into the back of the seat. My dad was hard of hearing as I am and always had the speaker blaring so sometimes I had a tough time dozing off. In the later years you could tune your car radio to an AM channel to hear the movie and not have to roll down your window and drag that two ton speaker inside. That allowed people driving down the road to stop and also listen to the movie.

Guy

 

[Ben Ruset]

The first movie I stayed up to watch was The Sons of Katie Elder with John Wayne in 1965.

:shock:

 

[Teegate]

Does that face mean to say that I am OLD!

Guy

 

[Ben Ruset]

You hide your age well. (seriously)

 

[JeffD]

I think it was in 1965 that my parents took us to the drive in to see The Beatles' movie A HARD DAYS NIGHT. My friend across the street got his parents to see the movie (his younger sister was a Beatles fanatic who used to sing along with every song on the Beatles cartoon show), and somehow we convinced my Dad, who didn't care much for pop groups, to take us to the drive in. The drive in was then in a wild wooded and shrub laden area, and on occasions when I was a teenager some of us snuck in and sat down on a vacant edge of the drive in and turned the speaker on. We were only brave enough to say, watch and listen to a movie for a few minutes until we chickened out and snuck out back through the jungle, as we though of the area. There were some wet areas in the jungle and a little pond tucked towards the middle of it. One time the kid across the street and I unsuccessfully tried to ride on a plastic boat on the pond. Like the general area, the soil was underlaid with limestone, and there were sinkholes in this area that was a little lower than the land surrounding it.

In the early 70's, the drive in started showing R or X rated movies, and people would watch from outside the drive in. The parking lot at Mother Divine Providence, a local catholic church and lower school became a favorite spot for people to watch these movies from their car.

A few years later the drive in closed down, and another shopping center was built, on the old drive in property and beyound to expand the domain of the King of Prussia Mall, making it one of the largest shopping centers in the United States. No wonder kids are so screwed up these days -- the lack of drive ins and open space and society's behemoth appetite for shopping centers. I hoped a giant sink hole would swallow the mall up!