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History of the Drive-In Movie Theater

By Jill Lloyd

March 15, 2007

Costa Mesa, CA---America has suffered no shortage of inventors. From the sewing machine and the telephone, to the light bulb and the Apple personal computer, the spirit of ingenuity is an indelible thread of the American fabric.
But no list of American inventors is complete without the name Richard Hollingshead, Jr. No, he didn’t invent something as lofty as the airplane or as useful as the air conditioner, but for many Americans under the age of 40, Hollingshead’s contribution affected their adolescent and teen-age years nearly as much.
Hollingshead created what he called an “open-air movie theater, a place where people could sit in their cars and watch a movie without ever opening the door.” The rest of the world calls it “the drive-in.” And, for most Baby Boomers, the memories that comprise their lives would be far different without this New Jersey’s man’s idea.
He was the first person to successfully marry two of America’s most revered pursuits: its passion for cars, and its love of movies. What grew out of that combination was one of the most endearing, and beloved, pieces of Americana, something immortalized in the film American Graffiti, and personalized by anyone who ever crammed into a Ford Mustang or Volkswagen Beetle and headed out the drive-in.
The genesis of Hollingshead’s notion for the drive-in is shrouded in legend. One rumor is that he got the idea because his mother was large in stature and uncomfortable in regular movie theater seats. Another is that he was bored being the sales manager at his father’s auto products store and was trying to figure out anything to get him off that path.
Whatever the reason, sometime around 1932, the early-30something Hollingshead, Jr., placed a 1928 Kodak Projector on the hood of his car parked in the driveway of his home in Camden, New Jersey and pointed it at a white sheet nailed to some trees in his back yard. He then positioned a radio behind the sheet for sound and the first rudimentary drive-in was born.
He tinkered with the concept for awhile, trying to figure out what would happen during rainy conditions (he used a lawn sprinkler to emulate rain,) and the proper way park cars in order to ensure occupants of every vehicle could see the screen.
When satisfied, he applied for a patent, organized some financiers, and, on June 6, 1933, opened the Camden Drive-in Theater. The drive-in occupied 250,000 square feet, enough room for 400 cars. The first film was Wife Beware, starring Adolphe Menjou. Six hundred people paid one quarter each—plus the quarter admission for each car.
Launched in the middle of the Great Depression, it took time for the concept to catch on. But it did. In 1934, Southern California’s first drive-in, located in downtown Los Angeles, became the fourth drive-in to open in the U.S. By 1942, there, were 95 drive-ins across the country.
World War II saw a not-so-surprising halt to drive-in construction but at war’s end, as America’s military personnel returned home, and their progeny, the Baby Boomers, began making their entrance, the drive-in exploded. (Perhaps not so coincidentally, around the same time, Hollingshead lost his patent on the concept and competition began in earnest).
By 1952, there were some 3,000 drive-ins, and, by 1958, the number grew to its zenith: 4,063. A big part of the appeal was sheer numbers: the mass production of automobiles paralleled the mass production of Americans. Cars enabled the suburbs to become viable population centers. And, with so many people moving to the suburbs—places where downtown and movie theaters didn’t exist—drive-ins gave them

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