Drive in Movies are back

[Steven Singarella]

HI everyone...Im from East Hartford, Ct and of all the Drive-Ins in the area I loved...The "Meadows" was "The Boss of Bosses"......for our area that is!

Held 2,500 cars and included a motorized ride playground for the kids before the movie started. There were 6 concession lines. Was owned by Russo Brothers and leased for 20 years by General Cinema, Corp. It was opened on August 10, 1955 with “King of the Jungle” & Charlton Heston in “The Private War of Major Benson”. It was closed in 1975. Hartford-based Cinex Corp. reopened it, but it soon closed.

It claimed it was the largest drive-in in the world and sat on 32 acres. On the property now was the former (torn down) Hartford Jai-Alai, opened in 1976. A car dealership will take its place. There is also a motel, roads, Mcdonalds and a Burger King on the property.

It was one of the first to run TV fights on large screen. Was to be twinned back in early-1970’s but the main screen fell down and the to-be second screen was installed for the replacement.

[Maurice Leakey]

Steve

Thanks for the photos. The size of the arc lamp-house just shows the large amount of light necessary for drive-in shows. The spool boxes look large enough to hold 6000ft spools, i.e. a one hour run. Imagine two of those in a small projection booth and the amount of heat.

In my first cinema in 1952 the arcs were 75amp @ 50volt, giving off 3750 watts, but seem quite overshadowed by the one in your photo.

Maurice

[Steve Klare]

The joy of it is being that it was a little freestanding building, ventilation couldn't have been very hard.

-besides, I can personally testify that summer evenings up in Maine are cool to cold and being too hot was probably not normally the problem!

Of course, down in Florida or over in Texas, Arizona or New Mexico that's a different proposition altogether.

Projectionists are not usually as exposed to the audience as much as the ones at Drive-Ins. There are all sorts of stories of people pounding on the door of the projection house with all sorts of questions and complaints: the fact that the guy inside was usually pretty busy didn't factor as much as you'd hope.

[Graham Ritchie]

The only drive in, in New Zealand is this one ......neat eh!

[David Baker]

Maurice , I guess Steve Klare summed up the question you aimed at me . The only thing I can add is there are 2 separate projection booths and the screens face each other . All projection equipment is Digital .

[Maurice Leakey]

Thank you, David.
I assume that there may be a projectionist in each booth. But, perhaps, now being digital, no projectionists.


Maurice

[David Baker]

Yes , that's correct Maurice . The theater owner runs all the movies AND the snack bar , along with the ticket booth . It's a family operation .

[Douglas Meltzer]

Graham,

That's a marvelous picture. Where's Cameron? He's missing the movie!

Doug

[Graham Ritchie]

Hi Doug

Sorry I cant help you regarding where Cameron is The photo was included along with an interesting article the Press did on there "home drive in" screening. They live up in the North Island. It was such a neat photo I thought I would post it here. The movie they were watching incidentally was "Toy Story"

[David Baker]

I wrote an article for THE MONSTER NEWS magazine in the late 1990's - early 2000's on Drive-in theaters . In a future thread I'll add excerpts here -

[Brian Fretwell]

I see it says "In color of dripping blood" - there are too may prints around (unintentionally) like that now.