Weird Island

19. DIRTY DRIVE-IN: The Forgotten History of Rhode Island’s Drive-Ins

Episode Summary

Who doesn’t love going to the drive-in? There’s something nostalgic and exciting about piling into the car, packing up all your snacks and drinks, maybe your pillows and blankets, and heading out to watch movies under the stars. But Rhode Island’s Rustic Tri View has a secret, dirty history you might just want to hear about! To Visit: 1195 Eddie Dowling Hwy, North Smithfield, RI 02896

Episode Notes

Episode Source Material:

Episode Transcription

Hi, I’m Sara. And you’re listening to Weird Island. Each week, I’ll be telling you about the strangest stories I can dig up from my tiny little state of Rhode Island. And this week, we’re headed to the Drive In.
What do you picture when you think about the drive-in? I remember going with my parents and my little brother. We’d bring all of our pillows and blankets and dress in our pajamas, well, my brother and I at least. We’d get there and we’d sneak all of our snacks in, and feel like we were really getting away with something. And then we’d play on the playground, or play mini golf until the movie started. And it was always something like “Shrek,” or “RV,” or “Are we there yet?” Something super family-friendly. And then there would be another family-friendly but slightly older-kids movie afterwards, and I’d inevitably fall asleep five minutes in.
But, I gave my boyfriend’s grandmother a call--her name’s Barbara--to hear about her experience at the drive-in, because it was a little different.
Laughter - Well, Sara, I don’t think you want to include that in the podcast.
So, that thing Barbara thinks I shouldn’t include in the podcast? Well, it’s this funny fact that the Rustic Drive-In, Rhode Island’s 70-year-old still operating drive-in movie theater, it showed a… different kind of movie during the ‘70s. Something, not so family friendly.
Well, that’s part of what it’s about.. That the Rustic used to show adult movies.
Yes, and then it showed family movies.
Yep, you heard me right. Rhode Island had a drive-in movie theater that showed adult movies for many years. Of course, I give Barbara a hard time. She’s very sweet and innocent and got kind of tricked into going. But, really, her memories of the drive-in, their just like mine:
Barbara talking.
You just can’t deny it, there’s something nostalgic, something to treasure about the experience of going to the drive-in. And today, we’re talking all things related to the drive-in, from its sweet and innocent origins to the dirty porno-chic days of the ‘70s. But, before we get into it, I promise--the podcast talk is all family friendly!
The drive-in was officially invented in 1933 in Camden, NJ by a guy named Richard M. Hollingshead Jr. Hollingshead worked as a general sales manager at his father’s auto-parts company, Whiz Auto Products. And the story of how he came up with the idea is kind of sweet. He came up with the concept for his mother, who was on the bigger side and was uncomfortable in the small, crunched movie theater seats. At the time, cars were bigger and the seats were more comfortable than those in movie theaters. So he began experimenting. He strung up white sheets between two trees at his NJ home, and placed a Kodak movie projector on the hood of his car. Speakers were placed behind the screen. Hollingshead tested the idea under different weather conditions - running lawn sprinklers to simulate rain, testing out different times and quality of light. But the biggest problem he ran into was that the cars parked in the front would block the view of the cars parked in the back. So he invented a system of ramps to park cars at varying heights. In 1932, Hollingshead filed a patent against the idea - stating: “My invention relates to a new and useful outdoor theater and it relates more particularly to a novel construction in outdoor theaters whereby the transportation facilities to and from the theater are made to constitute an element of the seating facilities of the theater.”
So it was a pretty clever idea! And it was officially patented in 1933. In June of that same year, Hollingshead opened his first drive-in in his hometown of Camden, NJ - calling it the Automobile Movie Theatre. The marque boasted the “World’s First Sit in Your Car - See and Hear Movies,” and Hollingshead ran advertisements with the slogan, “The whole family is welcome, regardless of how noisy the children are."
The idea captured people’s attention - and around 600 people from all over the country came on opening night, paying 25 cents per car and 25 cents a head to watch the British comedy Wives Beware - a movie in which a man, tiring of married life, fakes amnesia so he can pursue other women.
Hollingshead continued to perfect the idea. After receiving complaints about the sound quality for those parked in the very back of the parking lot, Hollingshead worked with the company RCA to develop small speakers that could be mounted right on the car and receive sound through a radio signal. This significantly improved the experience.
And Hollingshead started licensing the idea so that other drive-ins could open. One of those early drive-ins was E.M. Loew’s Providence Drive-In, built in 1937 on what had previously been the location of the Providence Cyclodrome and is today either the Dollar Store or the LA Fitness on North Main Street, on the Providence Pawtucket line. This was only the 8th drive-in opened in the country and E.M. Loew paid a licensing fee and royalties to Hollingshead’s Park-It Incorporated. But, here comes Rhode Island’s unique role in the history of the drive in--Loew stopped making royalty payments in November of 1937. When Hollingshead terminated the licensing agreement, the Providence Drive In kept on operating, infringing on the patent. So Hollingshead sued Loew and the suit dragged on, eventually making it all the way to the First Circuit Court of Appeals. But in a rather unexpected outcome, the court actually invalidated Hollingshead’s original patent, saying it should never have been granted in the first place, because it was merely a copy of the approach used for indoor theaters, using cars instead of seats.
After that, E.M. Loew’s Providence Drive In went on operating until 1977 when it closed for good. But the legacy of the court case extended beyond Rhode Island.
When Hollingshead’s patent was overturned in 1949, drive-ins took off. Of course, there were a number of additional factors contributing to the drive-in’s success: the invention of in-car speakers really strengthened the concept, there was the baby-boom following WWII, and of course the growing American love-affair with the car. But, you can’t deny Rhode Island’s role in the explosion of drive-in theaters following the drawn-out lawsuit that overturned the patent.
The 1950s were the drive-in’s golden years. Celebrities like John Wayne would sometimes attend opening nights. Some locations had promotional stunts - like circus acts or bands that would play before the film. Later, in 1974, at the premiere of Blazing Saddles at the Pickwick Drive-In in Burbank, CA, everyone who arrived on horseback got in for free.
But beyond these stunts, a huge part of the appeal of the drive-in was that it kept the whole family entertained, and playgrounds were common, allowing kids to stay busy before and even during the movie. Some drive-ins provided diaper vending machines, free bottle warmers for baby formula, or even nurses to watch and care for little ones. But it wasn’t all just about the family. Some offered other vehicle-oriented services, like windshield-washing and tire changes.
By 1958, the number peaked at 4,063 across the country. But the early ‘60s foreshadowed the drive-in’s eventual decline. Tons of entrepreneurs had quickly entered the business, hoping to capitalize on the drive-in’s skyrocketing success. But the early ‘60s saw a significant decline as those inefficient and underprepared operators quickly exited the business.
As you would expect, TV really started to impact the drive-in around this time. Proof of TV’s negative impact came in 1963, when drive-ins reported one of their biggest box-office weekends--in the wake of the assassination of JFK, when people went out in droves because they couldn’t watch their regular TV programs.
And then the energy crisis of the 1970s brought on the drive-in’s more serious decline. There were gas shortages, people started downsizing their vehicles - making the experience at the drive-in more uncomfortable. And then daylight savings really hurt the drive-in, pushing the movie start times later into the evening. As a side note, I never considered Daylight Savings as a way to conserve energy, but that largely is why it exists and why it has continued to be extended. And actually, Benjamin Franklin was the first to jokingly suggest daylight savings, as a way to economize candle usage.
But anyway, back to the drive-in: The final death knell surprisingly came in the form of property values, actually. The drive-ins that had previously been built far outside cities on large tracts of undeveloped land were now really valuable, as suburbs expanded and land prices increased. There was a significant incentive to sell, especially in the regions where business was seasonal.
Those who kept operating were creative in their approach to increase revenue. A few Boston drive-ins experimented with using the lot as a commuter park-and-ride during the day to bring in extra money, charging movie admission to those who failed to remove their cars before dusk. Many others operated flea markets on the property during daylight hours.
And there was another approach, utilized by Rhode Island’s very own Rustic Drive-In, that helped the business survive the ‘70s and ‘80s - and it didn’t have anything to do with other services. It had to do with the content being shown. The truth is, the movies shown at drive-ins were never really the most important part of the experience. Drive in movies rarely got first run, major Hollywood movies. They often got either second or third run or B tier movies. There were even film companies that popped up just to supply drive ins with low budget films to show. But the Rustic—they showed a different kind of film even than that.
The Rustic was opened in 1951 as a single-screen theater, at the height of the drive-ins success, and it has been in pretty much continuous operation for 70 years. When it first opened, it was your typical family-friendly operation. But as other drive-ins started selling out in the 1970s, the Rustic made another decision. It started screening only R- and X-rated films.
Yes, Rhode Island had a huge, outdoor adult movie theater. And this wasn’t a short-term solve, either. The Rustic showed porn for 18 years, and the demand was so steady, it operated year-round! Of course, people weren’t happy about it. The town fought to close the facility, reportedly increasing Rustic’s licensing fee from $160 to $18,000 per year in 1971. But a judge blocked the increase, compromising at a fee of $1,000.
Today, the Rustic’s foray into Adult-content is kind of like an urban legend. Many believe it’s just a rumor, beginning with the business’s unfortunate, vaguely penis-shaped sign. But, this is a rumor that just so happens to be true!
And, actually, the Rustic wasn’t the only drive-in to go in this direction. Drive-in operators all over the country shifted from a family-oriented strategy to either exclusively show R- and X-rated films, or extending their hours to show late-night adult content. Lou Ratner, owner of two drive-ins in Akron, Ohio in the 1960s and 70s, said that in the 1970s, R and X rated movies were “almost all the drive-ins were showing… that must have been about 60 percent of the business.” And in 1976, drive-in owners in Missouri reported that pornographic movies outgrossed those rated G and PG by 3 or 4 to 1.
This all took place during the sexual revolution when adult movie theaters were seeing a boom. The Adult Film Association of America formed in -- you guessed it -- 1969. And the ‘70s were called the Golden Age of Porn, when the mainstreaming of porn reached an all time high. Against this backdrop, drive-in theaters that were competing with TV saw porn and R-rated movies as an opportunity to stand out, and turn a profit. But by the ‘80s, the rise in popularity of the VCR started killing adult movie theaters out.
The Rustic Drive-In showed adult movies until it was purchased in 1988 by Clem and Bevery Desmarais, who had actually met in 1954 at the drive-in, where they both worked as teens. She worked at concessions, he was a parking attendant. They worked there and went on their first dates there, and later got married. Clem managed the drive-in through the years when it showed X-rated movies and later when the two purchased the drive in, they decided to experiment—by going back to a more family friendly slate of films. But Clem admitted in a 1997 interview that if it hadn’t of worked, he would have gone back to adult content. But, the timing was right and the Rustic - which became the Rustic Tri-View when the Desmarais’ added two additional screens - has shown your typical family movies ever since. And drive-ins actually saw a resurgence in the late 1990s driven by families, as baby boomers who had frequented the drive-in as kids brought their own kids back to relive the memories together.
Today the Rustic is the only of the state’s 15 drive-ins that’s still operating. When Clem and Beverly passed away in the early 2000s, their daughter Beth took over. And in 2008, the business was sold to the Boston Culinary Group who is currently operating it through the Your Neighborhood Theaters division of Belmont Capital.
Other Rhode Island drive-ins were mostly demolished after closing, to make way for strip malls and other businesses. But traces of one other--the Lonsdale Twin Drive-In in Lincoln--still exist. The defunct theater was actually turned into a nature preserve along the Blackstone River, and the nostalgic sign was recreated in memory of the iconic American pastime.
Today, drive-ins are more of a niche form of entertainment - they’re fun to go to now and then, but let’s face it. Cars just aren’t as comfortable as your own couch - or the big, cushy cinema chairs at many of the upgraded movie theaters. But there’s something fun about caravaning to the drive in with friends or family, sneaking in your own food and drinks (aka assuring the drive-in’s demise because that’s where they make their money).
But, during the Covid pandemic, many drive-ins saw renewed interest, as they provided a safe way to get out of the house and do something around other people. People flocked to drive-in theaters where they could stay safely within the bubble of their own car but know that they were together with others. Many of these people were my age--Millennials--bringing their kids to the drive-in, seeing some of the same movies they saw with their parents in the ‘90s.
So, maybe this strange time will guarantee another wave of nostalgia--one day in the future, as the kids going to the drive-in right now come back with their kids one day.
Thank you so much for listening! If you like this episode, share it with family and friends! Or leave a rating or review wherever you get your podcasts. If you have a topic you’d like to hear about, you can email me at Weird Rhode Island at Gmail.com. See you next week as we dig up more stories about all things weird and wonderful in the little state of Rhode Island. Until next time!