Drive-in Theaters

When I was growing up, my parents’ idea of taking the family out at night was to go to a drive-in movie. During the 1960’s, I actually came to the conclusion that the drive-in theater was the wave of the future and those indoor theaters were just relics of the past, doomed to extinction and nostalgic remembrances from the old folks. There were drive-ins all around. Just down the road from the Seminole Indian reservation on US 441 in north Hollywood was the Arrow Drive-in, where we probably saw most of our movies. There was the Hi-Way Drive-in on US 1 in Dania. Sometimes we went south a few miles into Dade County near Opa-Locka, where the Golden Glades Drive-in was, complete with two screens. One night we went there to watch The Ipcress File, a spy flick starring Michael Caine. The other movie showing that night was a silly farce based on a comic-book character called Modesty Blaise and which starred European film star Monica Vitti. Well, that movie was the only one I wanted to watch. It was the first one we saw on our screen, and then, when The Ipcress File began, I just turned around in my seat in the back of the car and watched (without sound, of course) Modesty Blaise way off on the other distant screen. My parents were exasperated that I wanted to see that stupid movie, especially when Ipcress File was so good, but I (nine years old) couldn’t follow its plot and, besides, Monica was on the screen behind me! A few years later (1977), I found out that Monica Vitti was an accomplished European film star and saw two of her movies on a PBS series showing foreign films: La Avventura (a very good romance-mystery-drama and L’Eclisse (a strange film dealing with the stock market, among other things). We saw other movies for the first time at the drive-in, among them The Beatles’ A Hard Day’s Night, Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, Mike Nichol’s The Graduate, and several science fiction flicks. Whichever theater we went to, one of the highlights of the experience was go to the concessions stand, where they sold pop corn, soft drinks, hot dogs, pizza, candy, and other stuff.

My father later worked at the Hi-Way Drive-in as a part-time manager. He got me a small part-time job there as well working in the concessions stand and tending the cash register (I was 12-13 years old at the time). The register we used there just rang up the totals, so whoever worked it had to add the subtotals on paper before ringing up the total for each customer to pay. I got to where I just added everything up in my head, which sometimes caused consternation with the customers! After my work was over for a night, I would just sit in our car and watch the movie that was on until my father finished his work and drove us home. Later, after I no longer worked there, they began to add more and more screens to show more movies. The Hi-Way Drive-In was next to both a large airport and some marshland, so the moviegoers had to contend with loud jets taking off every few minutes as well as massive amounts of mosquitoes! A few years ago I went back to Dania, driving down US 1 to see what had become of my old workplace. I was shocked to find that the entire US 1 in that area had been diverted far west of its original path, so the old Hi-Way’s location was now literally “off the beaten track”!

Nowadays, of course, drive-in theaters have pretty much died out. The only one I know of that still shows movies here in north central Florida is one on US 441 just south of Ocala. I miss them, but to be perfectly honest, I much prefer the more pleasant, comfortable indoor theaters.