The first drive-in at Camden, New Jersey. June 6, 1933. Photo from www.driveintheater.com

On this day in 1933, the Park-In theaters on Crescent Boulevard in Camden, New Jersey opened to motorists. According to the website, www.driveintheater.com, the movie showing that night was “Wife Beware.”

The term “drive-in” actually came later. Inventor Richard Hollingshead came up with the idea when his mother had difficulty sitting comfortably in traditional movie theater seats. Hollingshead’s idea of an open air theater where people could watch movies from their cars would be more comfortable.

Experiments using his driveway, a projection screen and some basic sound techniques resulted in Hollingshead designing the ideal spacing arrangement for a number of cars to have a full view of the screen.

The first drive-in theater. Photo from www.cinematreasures.org

Richard Hollingshead applied and received a patent for his concept in May of 1933 and immediately opened Park-In Theaters, Inc. 

Less than a month later, Hollingshead opened for the first show charging 25 cents per car and 25 cents per person, with no group paying more than one dollar.

The idea caught on, and after Hollingshead’s patent was overturned in 1949, drive-in theaters began popping up all over the country. One of the largest was the All-Weather Drive-In of Copiague, New York, which featured parking space for 2,500 cars, a kid’s playground and a full service restaurant, all on a 28-acre lot.

Throughout the years drive-ins became known for showing primarily B-movies. Some theaters showed the same movies that played in regular theaters, but in large part, Hollywood’s best movies were saved for the indoors.

The popularity of the drive-in movies reached its pinnacle in the 1950s to the mid 1960s with over 5,000 theaters across the country. Real estate prices and the growing number of walk-in movie theaters have caused a massive decline in the drive-in industry. There are less than 500 drive-in theaters that still survive in the entire country.