In the early 1930s, one Richard Hollingshead supposedly came to know a familiar complaint from his plump mother, “Movie theater seats are too small for my frame,” she’d exclaim, probably. To provide his mother with a more enjoyable movie going experience, something that was still relatively new at the time, and to save her from the embarrassment surely associated with breaking chairs, Richard built an at home theater just for her. Ever the good son, Richard nailed bed sheets between two trees on their family property in Camden, New Jersey. He then aimed a Kodak movie projector at it. He changed the world when he parked the family car in front of it so his mother could watch the show through the windshield from the comfort of the large front bench seat. As soon as Richard flipped on the projector he effectively invented the drive-in movie theater.
Inventing the drive-in theater
Richard and his mother thoroughly enjoyed their outdoor film experience. As a quality American, Richard set out to patent his idea, which he would receive on May 16, 1933. The following month he opened a 400 acre drive-in movie theater in Camden. It featured a 40 foot by 50 foot screen and six foot speakers. Curious motorists, of all size and stature, were thrilled enough to pay a rather hefty $0.25 per automobile plus a quarter per person inside. Richard was kind enough to make $1 the maximum rate.
The inventor sold the original theater in 1935 and used the capital to open a second one drive-in. He eventually licensed to Loews Drive-In Theaters, providing Hollingshead with a decent income for some time. Unfortunately, in 1950, when the soon-to-be American love affair with the drive-in theater began taking off, courts ruled Hollingshead’s patent invalid. It was May 13, 1975 that the great director in the sky or whatever you believe in yelled cut on Richard’s life, at the age of 75.
Drive In Movie Theaters Today
Drive-in movie theaters boomed throughout from the 1950s and through the 1970s. A cultural shift and enhanced indoor technology, as well as a the massive amount of land needed for outdoor flicks, led to a demise that began somewhere around the time Jurassic Park came out. (Editor’s note, I say that only because it was the first film I saw at a drive in – or at least was present for, I was like five or six and definitely asleep, according to my mom.) Anyway, the fell out of fad and most of them became apartment complexes or warehouses.
It seems there is a comeback (thank goodness). The ones that survived are reporting stronger numbers than in recent years and new ones are actually opening. Between 2020 and 2026 at least four new drive in movie theaters opened across the country, including in Louisiana and Minnesota. Across the nation, old school outdoor movie theaters seem to be thriving.
A few popular spots across the nation include Blue Fox Drive In near Oak Harbor, WA (which also has go-karts), the Mahoning Drive-In, Lehighton, PA, which has been operating since 1948, and Skyview Drive-In outside of St. Louis in Belleville, IL, which has some of the most modern projector equipment for a great movie going experience. We want to know, are you obsessed with seeing outdoor movies, or do you think drive in movies are set to be a thing of automotive history with no future?
