An overview of drive-in theater as temples of B-Movie culture by Bob Rhubart

“ASTRONAUTS WALK MOON,” reads the half-page headline in the Monday, June 21, 1969 edition of the Plain Dealer. On page 11-A there is a Jane Scott review of Led Zeppelin’s first Cleveland appearance the night before. The movie listings on page 7-B include seventeen drive-in theaters. That week, the double feature showing on most of the outdoor screens included Stilleto, with Alex Cord and Barbara McNair, and Can Heironymous Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humpe and Find True Happiness, with Anthony Newly and Joan Collins. Three and a half decades later, fourteen of those drive-ins and Anthony Newly no longer exist. The most recent edition of the Plain Dealer’s Friday magazine lists the area’s three surviving drive-in theaters. Built in 1953, the Memphis Drive-in, on Memphis Ave. in Brooklyn, Ohio, is the oldest. It’s a west side entertainment institution that, like Joan Collins, refuses to die.

It’s about two hours before show time on a perfect summer Friday evening. In Judy Kissel’s office in a corner of the squat concrete block building that houses the drive-in’s concession stand, the phone rings every twenty seconds. The stream of people flowing through the cramped space -- young women preparing the concession stand, young guys picking up their reflective vests and two-way radios for security detail -- brings to mind an anthill. They all have questions for Judy, and she has the answers – she’s the general manager. Most of the time she’s deftly handling three conversations at once, with the ease and efficiency of an air traffic controller. On a typical night it takes a staff of thirty people to make it all work, and on this night there are moments when it seems that they’re all in Judy’s office. But the lady is in her element, and the Memphis Drive-in is in her genes.

Judy’s parents were the original managers. And her husband works across the street at the Memphis Kiddie Park (owned by the same company, and home of the Little Dipper, the oldest operating steel frame roller coaster in North America). He works days. During the drive-in season, from April to November, she works nights. “If it weren’t for our jobs, we wouldn’t be married twenty-six years,” she says. “It’s nice to have the winters off, because then you appreciate each other, because you haven’t seen each other all summer.” In the off-season Judy hand paints the horses on the Kiddie Park’s merry-go-round. Thirty horses, every winter for thirty years, four days to complete one horse.

But the drive-in is a family thing for many people. “It’s scary,” Judy says, “when I get people coming in here telling me, ‘You know, I was conceived here.' “One couple wants to get married here,” adds promotion manager Dave Shaw. “They met here, now they want to get married here.”

For Dave Shaw, the Memphis is a kind of shrine, an irony-free temple of B-movie culture that persists despite the demise of drive-ins here and around the country. But it’s not really about the movies, at least, not at the drive-in. Rigid film distribution arrangements determine what’s going to be on the screen at the mall multiplexes and at the outdoor theaters – they all show the same films. So the drive-in has to offer something more, something you can’t find at an indoor theater. That’s where Dave comes in.

During the day Dave is the Technical Manager for Distance Learning at the Cleveland Museum of Art. In this capacity he brings fine art into classrooms via videoconferences. But on weekend nights his focus shifts to a different artistic dimension, an alternate universe of creativity. It’s the difference between Rodin and Rodan. The former, a sculptor who died in 1917 and is most famous for his statue, The Thinker. The latter, a gigantic flying reptile with radioactive halitosis, best known for laying waste to major chunks of Japanese real estate in an eponymous 1956 monster flick. Dave regularly traverses the cultural portal that separates the Cleveland Museum of Art from the Memphis Drive-in. When he’s wearing his Memphis Drive-in baseball hat, it’s his job to set the bait that insures that a few minutes before show time the driveway leading to the ticket booths is lined with cars.

The process starts with the Memphis Drive-in’s appropriately gaudy website. (http://www.memphisdrivein.com). There you’ll find the current movie listings, an email newsletter sign-up, and announcements for special events, which can include karaoke contests and pre-movie performances by local bands.

When asked about the strangest drive-in promo event he ever arranged, Dave confesses to booking a performance by a stunt man whose unique talent involved the use of explosives specifically configured, as Dave describes it, to “blow up his ass.”

“We took him over to screen three, and he proceeded to blow himself up,” Dave recalls. “On the way back I was just kind of listening to the people walking behind me and this guy goes, ‘You know, I haven’t seen anything like this at a drive-in since I was a kid. This is great. I'm coming back again.’”

The website also features samples of Dave’s collection of vintage drive-in audio announcements: “It’s time to stretch and fetch. Visit our refreshment counter!” These audio clips, as well as classic drive-in intermission reels and advertisements are used during movie showings. Sometimes this backfires. “They’re upset with me in the concession stand,” Dave admits, “because I have a 1957 Drizzle Guard commercial. You know, ‘Don’t sizzle in a drizzle. Get a Drizzle Guard for you car.” And [the customers] come in wanting to buy them.” Drizzle Guards went the way of Anthony Newly, long ago.

In keeping with the classic drive-in theme, the Memphis has retained its original metal pole speakers, in addition to providing movie audio in FM stereo. Despite the availability of the FM stereo broadcast, people still use the metal speakers, especially when enjoying the movies from the tiny temporary campsites that spring up around the vehicles. “We've got 1250 of [the speakers] out there,” Dave says, “and knock on wood they're all working tonight.”

Many drive-ins have removed the old metal speakers. “That's a cost-cutting measure,” Dave observes, “’Cause keeping these things up is a real headache. It's a daily chore for the maintenance guys.” But it’s worth the effort at the Memphis, according to Judy Kissel. “It's part of the nostalgia.” Nostalgia may help to entice people to show up, but after they’ve purchased their tickets and parked their cars, you gotta keep ‘em happy. That takes a mountain of food.

The typical weekend crowd at the Memphis consumes 1600 gallons of soda pop, and 1500 pounds of French fries. Fries are the most popular item on the menu. “We can’t cook ‘em fast enough,” says Judy. The rest of the food available at the concession stand follows the same theme, a nutritionist’s nightmare, deliciously, unrepentantly high in carbs, fat, and sugar. But the customers expect nothing less. As Dave describes it, the drive-in is a haven from Dr. Atkins and his ilk.

At 9:20 pm the projectors fire up. A brilliant funnel of light radiating from each terminates at one of the Memphis’s three screens a few hundred feet away. The lines in the concession stand move a little faster as people hurry to make the trip across the rough gravel lot to their cars before the on-screen announcements end and the opening credits roll. The preparation is over. It’s show time, and Judy Kissel, Dave Shaw, and the rest of the Memphis Drive-in crew can chalk up another night. The Memphis lives on, and if Judy and Dave have their way, it will continue to do so, long after Hollywood inevitably gets around to doing a remake of Heironyous Merkin...
by Cool Cleveland contributor Bob Rhubart

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