The fun of New Year's Eve parked in a frigid
auto is debatable, yet here was Winston-Salem's Skyview Drive-In promising the
moon to patrons willing to brave elements and join in a four-feature
marathon. When do inducements become too many? Freebies here seem overwhelming.
Outright cash prizes were rare, if not unknown, at drive-ins close to
Greenbriar. This is one of very few I've come across. Our Starlight did not
issue $ reward --- live turkeys or chickens occasionally --- but never
money. Winston-Salem
and the Skyview were then an hour away on two lanes. Spoiledas we now are with
interstates, such a drive would seem murderous. Bribery of patronage was
consequence of winter chill that kept cars off the Skyview lot between fall and
arrival of spring. Your choice if attending was a dilly: freeze to death or run
the heater, that last an option that spent gas and made nights out expensive. But
maybe you'd win a twenty-five gallon gas ticket they were giving away, or even
the $35 bankroll; anyway, you were a cinch for a midnight cup of joe, and
would need it by then, plus a free ducat for showing up on such a foul night. Maybe
weather would be mild ... that could happen in ForsythCounty on NY's Eve ... but I've just
checked forecasts for tomorrow night, and Winston-Salem
is in for a thirty-degree low. How different would 2013 be from what patronage
experienced on this early 60's occasion?
The interesting thing to me about the Skyview ad is the four slug cuts from the pressbooks. The distributors would create big, splashy two-column or three-column ads for their latest movies, but I've noticed that the neighborhood theaters and drive-ins used the smallest available ads (when they used pressbook art at all). By the late 1950s many productions were made independently for major-studio release, and everybody had to get credit, while the stars' names had to command a certain percentage of the space. Look how much copy the ads are legally obliged to cram into the limited area: "A Euterpe Production in Color / CinemaScope and Metrocolor"; "M-G-M presents a Sol C. Siegel Production," etc.
My family's VILLA HEIGHTS Drive-In Theatre (just 45 miles from Winston-Salem's SKYVIEW usually ran an "all-nighter" on New Year's Eve and drew good attendances. At the end of the night, each car got a free pass to a future show. We did coffee and donuts in the concession stand as well. No cash awards or gas cards, however. We weren't that generous. Patrons didn't seem to mind running their engines during the winter nights.
Heaters at the drive-in! Well, I've spent most of my adult life in Minnesota and, believe me, drive-ins packed it in by mid September, re-opening in early June (actual temperature, not wind chill, was 23 below this morning for instance.) But I grew up in New England and many of the outdoor theaters supplied heaters all through the off months. Bad news: those things worked, well, not so hot! Good news: you could actually see, not just hear , all the feature attractions and a cartoon (Connecticut drive-ins, I may have noted before, were notorious for starting the show ridiculously early in the summer, many a program I remember starting off with a still sunlit screen and Mr. Magoo's disembodied voice).
4 Comments:
The interesting thing to me about the Skyview ad is the four slug cuts from the pressbooks. The distributors would create big, splashy two-column or three-column ads for their latest movies, but I've noticed that the neighborhood theaters and drive-ins used the smallest available ads (when they used pressbook art at all). By the late 1950s many productions were made independently for major-studio release, and everybody had to get credit, while the stars' names had to command a certain percentage of the space. Look how much copy the ads are legally obliged to cram into the limited area: "A Euterpe Production in Color / CinemaScope and Metrocolor"; "M-G-M presents a Sol C. Siegel Production," etc.
My family's VILLA HEIGHTS Drive-In Theatre (just 45 miles from Winston-Salem's SKYVIEW usually ran an "all-nighter" on New Year's Eve and drew good attendances. At the end of the night, each car got a free pass to a future show. We did coffee and donuts in the concession stand as well. No cash awards or gas cards, however. We weren't that generous. Patrons didn't seem to mind running their engines during the winter nights.
Heaters at the drive-in! Well, I've spent most of my adult life in Minnesota and, believe me, drive-ins packed it in by mid September, re-opening in early June (actual temperature, not wind chill, was 23 below this morning for instance.) But I grew up in New England and many of the outdoor theaters supplied heaters all through the off months. Bad news: those things worked, well, not so hot! Good news: you could actually see, not just hear , all the feature attractions and a cartoon (Connecticut drive-ins, I may have noted before, were notorious for starting the show ridiculously early in the summer, many a program I remember starting off with a still sunlit screen and Mr. Magoo's disembodied voice).
Donald Benson contributes a "Drive-In Funny":
Did you hear about the Norwegian who almost froze to death? He went to the drive in to see "Closed for the Winter."
(Courtesy of a Prairie Home Companion joke show)
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