The Drive-In: Outdoor Cinema in 1950s America and the Popular Imagination

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Description

The Drive-In meaningfully contributes to the complex picture of outdoor cinema that has been central to American culture and to a history of US cinema based on diverse viewing experiences rather than a select number of films.

Drive-in cinemas flourished in 1950s America, in some summer weeks to the extent that there were more cinemagoers outdoors than indoors. Often associated with teenagers interested in the drive-in as a passion pit or a venue for exploitation films, accounts of the 1950s American drive-in tend to emphasise their popularity with families with young children, downplaying the importance of a film programme apparently limited to old, low-budget or independent films and characterising drive-in operators as industry outsiders. They retain a hold on the popular imagination.

The Drive-In identifies the mix of generations in the drive-in audience as well as accounts that articulate individual experiences, from the drive-in as a dating venue to a segregated space. Through detailed analysis of the film industry trade press, local newspapers and a range of other primary sources including archival records on cinemas and cinema circuits in Arkansas, California, New York State and Texas, this book examines how drive-ins were integrated into local communities and the film industry and reveals the importance and range of drive-in programmes that were often close to that of their indoor neighbours.

Reviews

Guy Barefoot's The Drive-In is a crucial addition not only to scholarship on American film exhibition, but also to the entire field of Film Studies. Rigorously researched and accessibly written, the book will serve as the major work on drive-in theaters for many years to come. * Gary D. Rhodes, Professor of Media Production, Oklahoma Baptist University, USA, and editor of Horror at the Drive-In (2008) *
The drive-in movie theatre occupies an iconic position in the history of American cinema. In this hugely engaging and informative account, Guy Barefoot goes beyond our popular conception of the drive-in to examine its history and its role in American cultural identity since the 1950s. This is an exceptional and much-needed addition to cinema scholarship, which combines a meticulously researched focus on locations, economics and audiences, with an exploration of the ways in which the popular meaning of the drive-in theatre has been constructed across the arts. * James Russell, Deputy Dean for Computing, Engineering and Media, De Montfort University, UK *
Weve long known Guy Barefoot to be a fine historian of film and culture, but The Drive-In might be his best work yet. This is an engaging and rigorous example of scholarship, which explores the drive-in phenomenon in the US in the 1950s, addressing the geographic spread of outdoor cinemas, their owners, their diverse entertainment programmes, those who frequented them and their symbolism then and since. This is a fabulous book that deserves the attention of anyone interested in the cultural history of cinema and its institutions. * Johnny Walker, Associate Professor in the Department of Arts, Northumbria University, UK *

Author Bio

Guy Barefoot is Honorary Visiting Fellow at the University of Leicester, UK, where he was Associate Professor in Film Studies until 2022. He is the author of the books Trash Cinema: The Lure of the Low (2017), The Lost Jungle: Cliffhanger Action and Hollywood Serials of the 1930s and 1940s (2017), and Gaslight Melodrama: From Victorian London to 1940s Hollywood (2001).