Starting with the family-style ‘50’s to the Rock-n-Roll ’60 to the Anything Goes ‘70’s and ‘80s,
The Drive-In Movie Saw it all.
I call this episode:
Let’s Rock the Fort-Roc Again
Garth Brooks will be appearing at a Drive-In Theater Near You!
In a recent announcement, Garth has planned a concert to be simultaneously broadcast to Drive-in theaters all over the country. Unfortunately for us, there are no drive-ins near us. The closest one I know of is in Shelby, NC. If there there is a closer one of those cinematic relics it is off my radar.
For those of you under the age of 35, a drive-in theater was a big screen at one end of a field. The field had parking places for cars and metal posts holding speakers beside each parking place. The metal speakers were the size of a popcorn box and were attached by coiled wires so they could be hung on the inside of the car windows. The sound from those speakers was terrible. I believe that the intention was to keep teens from stealing them. Despite their clunky size, occasionally a forgetful (or frustrated) driver would drive away either pulling the speaker wire loose or breaking out a window. I did know a guy in high school who had two drive-in speakers installed on the shelf under the rear window of his 1953 black Ford. He was usually alone in the car.
In the early 1950’s, for many families, a night at a child-friendly movie was quite a treat. Families sat in the comfort of their cars and watched the movie with Dad behind the wheel and Mom riding shotgun. Kids would sit or stand in the back seat and try to see over the front seat. There were no head rests so it was possible to see between Mom and Dad.
A low building in the center of the field held the projector and a concession stand. If hungry customers forgot and walked across in front of the building their shadow would block out part of the movie. This always brought a volley of yells, whistles and honking horns from the occupants of the cars. Concession stands sold the usual theater fare of popcorn, fountain drinks and Goobers and many had a grill for hot dogs and hamburgers. Some drive-in movies even had a playground area with swing sets and see-saws just below the screen. Younger kids could play or sit and watch the screen while Mom and Dad enjoyed a few minutes of privacy in the car.
What a great way to get out of the house on a hot summer evening.
Then kids got cars. In the middle 1950’s, teenagers began earning enough money to buy old cars and the drive-in shifted its paradigm in a big way. Often groups of friends would pack themselves into a car for a night at the movie. Since many theaters charged by the head, it became common for teens to hide in the trunk until they got past the box office and then pop out and crowd into the car. It was always fun for the driver to “forget” they were in the trunk for a few hilarious minutes.
It did not take long for teen Romeos to put park and dark together and realize the benefits of two unchaperoned hours with their girlfriend of choice. While in-vehicle body contact is difficult with divided seats and a center console, most cars in the 50’s and 60’s had bench seats in the front and back. Some girls rode so close to the driver that a standing joke was, “That driver in front of us has two heads.”
Drive-in movie fare changed too. The family movies gave way to “teens gone wrong” movies like Rebel Without a Cause, and science fiction classics like War of the Worlds or Them. The big draw was, of course, the horror movies. There’s nothing like The Werewolf or Creature from the Black Lagoon to narrow the distance between a boy and his date.
Double dates were common with warnings of “Keep your eyes to the front!” The most physically active couple always claimed the back seat and it was sometimes completely awkward when the front seat couple were feeling no chemistry but the back seat was rocking.
There were two drive-in movies on Cherry Road. The Auto, which was across from where Sullivan Middle School is now and the Fort-Roc which was across from the Celanese Plant near the Thomas Spratt Memorial Bridge.
As television programming got better and the VCR brought movies into the home, drive-ins had to start finding their niche audiences. As drive-in attendance waned, a tarnished hero came along to save them for a little while. The 1970’s and 1980’s were a wild and wooly time with the “sex, love and rock-n-roll” culture and the recreational drug culture exploding onto the scene and, just in time to save drive-ins, onto the big screen. The Triple X movie revived the drive-in theater.
During my senior year at St. Andrews in Laurinburg, I had a friend who owned a house with a back yard that adjoined the local XXX drive-in. On warm weekends he would put out lawn chairs in the back yard and invite friends over for drinks and a movie. They didn’t even have to listen to the dialogue. I thought he was the luckiest man alive. Of course I only went over as a courtesy and in the vein of a former president who confessed to smoking marijuana but not inhaling, I only watched through one eye.
While a tornado took out the Auto Drive-In, the Fort-Roc managed to stay alive by becoming the area’s Triple X emporium. In the light of our current culture, I cannot explain how XXX became mainstream but facts are facts and the facts of life could be viewed every week-end right up on the giant screen.
In fact, before the theater put up walls to block the view, quite a lot of facts could be seen if one drove very slowly down Cherry Road. (Of course, that’s just hearsay)
Sadly for the Drive-In Theaters, even XXX was taken from them…first by video tape and then by on-line XXX websites.
A few theaters have limped along over the years showing kid fare early and monster/horror movies later in the evening. Their star may be ascending. With Garth Brooks blasting out over the box speakers (now replaced by on-line or radio reception) there just may be hope. What better way to social distance than to watch a concert from the comfort of your family SUV or on a lawn chair in the back of your pick-up truck.
Too bad we lost the Fort-Roc. The Garth Brooks Concert would go over in a big way in this area. I might catch a bit of it myself as I drive slowly down Cherry Road.
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