By Cathy Ingalls, Albany Regional Museum board member
Bill Maddy, Mike Franklin and Barbara Wallace Cullicott still have fresh memories of going to drive-in movie theaters while growing up in Albany and Corvallis.
And now a new generation of young and old is heading to the impromptu drive-ins setting up in business parking lots around the country.
The trend gives people the chance to escape from the confines of their homes during the pandemic, and it allows property owners to make extra money.
Small businesses are taking advantage of the drive-in craze and so are the larger stores, such as Walmart, which is expected to have 160 drive-ins ready to show feature films in August.
Maddy, of Albany, recalls heading to the drive-in when it was on Santiam Highway. It opened in 1953 and closed in 1968. The Bi-Mart store and the Sizzler restaurant are located there now.
In 1970, a drive-in opened on Cinema Way near Tangent. The screen was torn down in 1986, and today the projection/concession stand is all that remains.
He also saw movies at the Midway Drive-In at 5995 N.E. Highway 20.
The complex that opened in 1949 was torn down in the 1980s, and now the land is worked by Autumn Seed Co.
The Midway sign announcing films was restored and hung on the former Great Harvest Bread Co. building on First Street in downtown Corvallis. Instead of announcing movies, poetry and limericks appear on the board.
Midway Theater sign in Corvallis, photo courtesy Michael Franklin.
Maddy called going to drive-ins with his brothers and friends a “big adventure.”
“The drive-in had double and sometimes triple features so if we could stay awake for all of them that meant that we would get home very late at night,” he said.
James Bond films were Maddy’s favorites.
“When the admission fee was based on a per person basis, part of the fun was to hide a friend or brother in the trunk,” he said. “When the fee was only $5 per car, we still tried to get as many people as possible in the car.”
The practice, Maddy said, enabled everyone to have enough money left over to pay for popcorn and other treats offered at the snack bar.
Franklin of Corvallis remembers that his parents weren’t big moviegoers as a couple, but they would take Franklin and his two younger brothers to the Midway to save on babysitting costs. He believes that his parents thought that the boys would behave and just go to sleep in the backseat.
“That eventually did happen but not after being yelled at for fighting or at least making excessive noise,” Franklin said.
He also remembers windows being damaged when drivers forgot to remove the speakers hooked there before driving away.
Cullicott, formerly of Corvallis and now of Lake Oswego, noted
“on one trip to the Midway it was raining so hard that it was difficult to see the screen clearly, and the rain came in the very small crack left because the speaker was hung from the window.”
Drive-in entertainment was most popular in the United States during the late 1940s and 1960s.
That’s because after World War II, more people were buying automobiles when fuel rationing was lifted.
Helping spur the drive-in popularity was parents could take the family to a movie at a lower cost than going to a theater, and young people found drive-ins ideal for a first date.
By 1951, the number of drive-ins had increased from its 1947 total of 155 to 4,151.
Drive-in attendance declined in the late 1960s because there were more home entertainment options, such as color and cable TV, VCRs and video rental.
In October 2019, it was reported that 305 drive-ins remained open.