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Page 18

the active age

July 2015

Drive-in movie craze hit Kansas in 1946

By Bob Curtwright The drive-in movie was patented in 1933 in Camden, N.J., by Richard Hollingshead Jr., a 33-year-old visionary and movie buff and son of an auto products manufacturer. Hollingshead was awarded Patent No. 1,909,537 after more than a year of trial and error in nailing sheets between trees, testing sound levels of a radio behind the “screen” and adjusting

Drive in From previous page

still see that, but not so much anymore since we instituted a car load price for some movies,” he said. Most of Quick’s memories are positive because drive-ins are so family-friendly, He began his career at the Westport Drive-In in 1966 while still in high school and become its manager in 1970. When the Westport closed in 1979, to be replaced by Towne West Square, Quick moved to the Landmark. “You’ll see three generations together bringing lawn chairs and kids in pajamas. It’s a good family experience,” he said. “Over the past 30 years, the movies that seem to do the best are the PG and PG-13 for families, not so much the R-rated.”

the angle and spacing of cars to find the right combination for maximum viewing pleasure. His actual drive-in opened on June 6 that year, playing Adolphe Menjou’s Wife Beware on a 40-by-50-foot screen to a capacity of 400 cars. Oddly, it closed a mere three years later. But the idea caught on in other places because of America’s growing obsession with motorcars, spreading to

In a typical year, he’s on the run from early March, when the drive-in opens for weekends, to early November, when it closes for the winter. It operates seven nights a week from May through August. Because of the seasonal nature, Quick also was a history and social studies teacher for 20 years at South High. Recently, he’s been the office manager/liaison between the theater and film distributors. His brother, Gary Quick, and Chuck Bucinski take care of day-to-day operations. “Because of Jim, I was able to stay in Denver with my family,” owner Goble said. “I never had to worry about the Starlite with Jim in charge.” Contact Bob Curtright at bcurt82744@yahoo.com

Pennsylvania and California in 1934; to Ohio, Massachusetts and Rhode Island in 1937; and then snowballing across the country to reach a peak of nearly 5,000 drive-ins by the late 1950s. The drive-in craze hit Kansas in 1946 with the construction of Wichita’s 81 Drive-In on N. Broadway, about five miles from the center of town. Eventually Wichita’s crop of outdoor theaters burgeoned to nine, says Valerie Ellington, wife of late city historian Bill Ellington, Besides the 81, she says, there was the Westport on West Street (now Towne West Square); the Terrace on Hillside north of 21st; the 54 on east Kellogg (US-54) near Rock Road; the Airport on South Oliver near the old municipal airport; the Meadowlark on East Harry west of Oliver (replaced by The Mall shopping center); the K-42 on highway K-42 west of West Street; the Pawnee at Pawnee and Broadway (now Pawnee Plaza Mall); and the Rainbow near Hydraulic and

MacArthur, which was rebuilt into a twin called the Landmark and later renamed the Starlite. “The most impressive drive-in marquee was the Pawnee,” Ellington said. “As I recall, it had an Indian face at the leading edge with several colors of neon streaming toward the back to represent the feathers in a war bonnet. “There was also a drive-in between Derby and Mulvane called the Derby, which I recall had a derby hat on the sign.” Wichita’s first-nighters at the 81 Drive-In on Aug. 15, 1946, were treated to a playbill that included Silver Skates, a 1943 “icestravaganza” and Colorado Fishing, plus a Three Stooges short, cartoons and newsreel. “See and Hear a Movie in the Privacy of Your Own Car,” ballyhooed the ad in Wichita newspapers. “Playground Equipment for the Kids.” “A Picnic and a Movie Combined.” “No More Parking Problems.” Not to be left behind, drive-ins See Craze, next page

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