Pajamas, Popcorn, and DDT: Summer Nights at the Drive-In Theater
The Scoop features personal essays on movie-centric topics.
By Dave Comello
Perhaps you know the famous scene in Citizen Kane: Charles as a boy playing with his sled in the snow, his mother looking at him through an open window knowing his idyllic life would soon be upended. A distant train whistle blows as the train takes Charles away from his family and that sled, which lies abandoned in the still-falling snow seemingly waiting for the boy to return.
For Charles, the key formative moment in his childhood was that sled in the cold snow. For me, it was a warm summer evening at a drive-in movie theater.
Popcorn, Pajamas, and DDT
The first drive-in theater opened in 1933, though they didn’t really take off until the advent of in-car speakers in the early 1940s. By the late 1950s there were over 4,000 drive-ins across the country filled with postwar cars, young Baby Boomers, and hard-working parents looking for a night out as a family.
One of those families was mine.
Going to the drive-in as a kid was for me as exciting as life could get. My first time happened around age 5 on a hot summer night in the mid-1950s. I sat with my brother Rick, just a year older than me, in the backseat of my parents’ 1950 Pontiac—not a seatbelt in sight but built-in ashtrays and lighters within easy reach. The long line of cars slowly wound along a gravel road and into the parking area, which was lit by the bright lights of a large marquee.
We popped out of the car to play on the nearby playground (our pre-show entertainment) before our mom fetched us back to the car, where in our thin summer pajamas we ate the homemade popcorn we snuck in while watching the fog truck weave through rows of cars spraying DDT to kill the mosquitoes. Once the speaker was mounted inside the car, we were ready for the movie experience.
As vivid as this experience was, I don’t remember the movie I saw that night. I guess it’s kind of like riding my two-wheel bike for the first time: I remember the thrill of mastering the bike but not what I saw while riding around the neighborhood. I do recall later seeing a rerelease of the 1941 Tyrone Power movie Blood and Sand. And for my last drive-in 15 years later, I sat on the hood of a car watching the movie Woodstock with some friends while enjoying the blue haze of inhaled and exhaled smoke. The times they were a’changin’.
The big screen experience was unique on its own given the limited entertainment options of the time. But it was also those circumstances around the movie that made the drive-in so special to my five-year-old self, and such a specific summer memory.
A Family Tradition
As drive-ins diminished in numbers and popularity, as little boys turned into teenagers, as life became more complicated and families more distant, the memory of the warmth and excitement and fun of that car ride and drive-in experience is like pulling a lost piece of candy out of that old backseat.
It also reinforced in me the importance of providing similar moments to my own family. While none of my three adult children, four grandkids, and one grand-dog have ever been to a drive-in movie, we made it a tradition to watch movies together in our home as viewing technology evolved through VHS, DVD, and streaming. We also hopped in the car to go to a movie at a theater on a regular basis.
“The memory of the warmth and excitement of my drive-in experience is like pulling a lost piece of candy out of that old backseat.”
It wasn’t just about the movies. Spending quality time together, providing excitement and exploration, encouraging sibling bonding, sneaking in illegal popcorn on occasion… It was like bouncing along together in the backseat of that old car over and over again.
Watching my kids grow into amazing people and to continue to be a part of their lives gives me great joy. I hope they too pull something valuable out of their own experiences growing up that will be enriching and enduring, and that will establish the bonds between loved ones who sit patiently and imperfectly in wonder and hopeful anticipation as a huge movie screen comes to life.