What was the first movie you saw in a DRIVE-IN theater?

The Perfect Storm in Cape Cod summer of 2000.

Still the only movie I’ve ever seen at a drive-in.

I don't remember. I know Boeing, Boeing was one of the first. Thelma Ritter referred to Miss D-cup and I asked my big sister what that meant and she said I'd understand when I got older.

Valley of the Dolls. My parents had planned on leaving us kids with our grandparents, so they could have a night out. I begged and begged, because I didn’t want to sleep at my grandparents’ house, and I thought the movie was going to be about actual dolls. Boy, was I confused after the movie was over.

"Grease" when it first came out.

Star Wars. I was just a toddler and could not understand how the images were recorded and projected on screen. I figured the actors were nearby performing their scenes.

Jaws. The parents took five of us from the neighborhood to the drive in to see it. It was a lot of fun.

Enter the Dragon, starring Bruce Lee. God, how I worshipped that man. My straight brother did, too.

"Yours, Mine and Ours". We rarely went to the drive in, and Dad, Mom and three of us kids all together in a two-door Chevy Caprice. I think it was the only movie I ever saw with my dad before he passed away.

"The Singing Nun"

"Raiders of the lost Ark"

R#9 - wow!! What are the odds! Yours, Mine and Ours was my first Drive in movie, too! Unfortunately it was the second feature to the very turgid “Les Mans” with Steve McQueen. Zzzz

"Paint Your Wagon"

I really enjoyed the end when the town falls into the mine tunnels.

I also apparently picked up a cigar stub from the ground and put it in my mouth.

That was the last time we went to the drive in for awhile.

Pinocchio

I think mine was The Exorcist.

One-Eyed Jacks.

The Hospital

Another one of the first...

My first & only visit to a drive-in was a double-feature of HEAVEN HELP US & VOLUNTEERS. Summer of 1985, Pickwick Drive-In, Burbank CA.

The Pom Pom Girls

The bouncy cheerleaders were far less alluring to me than the hunky football players.

I loved going to the drive-in when I was a kid. The movie didn't matter to me as much as the experience did. The warm spring/summer nights, the tinny sounding speaker hooked to the car window, families in lawn chairs, teenagers running around with their nervous socializing, staring at the night sky when the movie got boring. All the stuff they showed between the movies fascinated me, like the cartoons, the janky ads for local businesses, and above all else, the mesmerizing, urgent demands that you run to the concession stand RIGHT NOW to buy the most delicious food on Earth. I don't know what they did to make plain old hamburgers, hot dogs, popcorn, sodas, and even pickles look so tantalizing in those ads. If you've ever seen a fast food ad at 1 a.m. that made you want to hop in the car in your sleep clothes and rush to their drive-thru, take that feeling and double it to imagine the aching hunger those drive-in ads could muster. Mother wisely stopped at the grocery on the way and bought snacks along with canned sodas iced in a cooler to avoid paying their exorbitant prices, but we kids still nagged the shit of her for the forbidden treasures just a few yards away all night long.

I vaguely remember going with my older siblings to see House of Dark Shadows and Night of Dark Shadows when I was four or five. But my earliest clear memory was in 1972, going the night before my sixth birthday with the younger kids in my family to see two Godzilla movies. I know most people laugh at those early films with the men in rubber suits wrestling each other, but to my tender eyes it was like watching a documentary. I couldn't get over how "real" Godzilla looked stomping his way through Tokyo. This fostered in me a lifelong love of Godzilla and his scaly friends, but more the Toho originals than the current Legendary series. The American remakes just don't have the magic of the originals with their practical effects.

r19...

R5 / R6 Star Wars and Jaws at the drive-in! On that huge screen! I'm sure the sound wasn't great but what an experience!

[quote]"The Singing Nun"

Thoughts and prayers.

R15 Fuck! How old were you?

Airport in the summer of 1970 with my parents I was 5 but remember it

"Rocky II"

We went to the Twin Drive-In, which had back to back screens, one of which usually played a soft-core movie. And the Oakley, and the Ferguson. I learned the geography of Greater Cincinnati by the locations of the various theaters and drive-ins.

R7

I loved Drive Ins as a kid. When they were revived during the pandemic, I hated them. Too many mosquitos

"Escape to Witch Mountain" and "The Shaggy D.A."

The Bridge on the River Kwai. I was too young to understand it and pissed off my dad because I had to go to the bathroom once too often.

VIVA LAS VEGAS, Fayetteville, NC. Aged 7.

I don't remember the movie, I just remember playing IN MY PAJAMAS at the playground in front of the screen, finding my way back to our car when the lights went down, eating a sandwich (brought from home), and falling asleep in the back seat. My parents went to the local drive-in (Hwy 41 twin) twice a month and all I remember is the playground, the sandwiches, and my dad carrying me to bed from the back seat.

The Towering Inferno. I was 8.

West Side Story in '62

Years later I saw the bizarre double feature of Love Story and Toklat (sp?)

I think it was Patton. My parents took my brother and me to the drive-in to see it.

I remember my brother and me wearing our pajamas to the theater and falling asleep in the back seat.

I remember there used to be triple-X porno drive-ins in the 70s and 80s.

I'm trying to wrap my head around it - would it be a lot of single men whacking it in their cars and then would leave mid-film when they were done? Did couples go and get frisky? Was there swinging going on in the cars?

How the hell did they make a profit? I know there were a lot of old style movie theaters playing porn - and I have an idea what went on, particularly the gay ones.

But a car? And this was 99.99% of the time straight porn.

I don't remember because I was two but Popi, starring Alan Arkin playing a Puerto Rican man (!) My mom said I started crying during a scene where he yelled at his kids, so we had to leave.

Bombers B-52

Valley Of The Dolls

"Embryo" with Rock Hudson and Barbara Carrera. My mom was in the hospital and my dad took me to get my mind off things.

This wasn't the first but I saw it at the drive-in and it seems to have disappeared.

Torture Garden

GUS the field goal kicking mule. (1976)

Audrey Rose. Freaked me the fuck out Rosemary Baby. Just because. Jaws. I was too young. Still have an unusual fear of water nearly 50 years later. Thank you uncle 😀

Dawn of the Dead, 1978.

The first one I can remember is “Song of the South”, in a rerelease during the 70s

Certainly not the first, but a double feature of Last House on the Left and Don't Look in the Basement. The former definitely belongs in the Most Disturbing Movies thread and the latter was...just dumb.

Jesus Christ super star

Goldfinger in my parents’ Ford Galaxy 500. I don’t remember much, I played in the ginormous backseat, and peeked up to watch every now and then.

It was the early 60s and it may have been a Bambi re-release, but the memorable part was the "coming attractions".

My little brother and me, in our jammies in the way back of the Country Squire, all comfy in blankets from home and worn out from playing the playground in front of the screen, and suddenly an ear piercing scream of terror! I can still see my brother diving under the blankets. I looked up to see Janet Leigh shrieking.

Some apparent moron had decided it was a good idea to run a trailer for Hitchcock's "Psycho" before a Disney cartoon. I will forever treasure have the mental image of my brother hiding in terror as Janet Leigh screamed.

I'm guessing someone got fired that night at the Kingston, Massachusetts Loews Drive- In

Forgive typos, I'm trying to do too many things at once (as is my wont)

[quote] in my parents’ Ford Galaxy 500.

My uncle had a black one, red interior. 1964

[quote]Goldfinger in my parents’ Ford Galaxy 500.

Same car here, r49.

You would not have seen West Side Story at the drive in in '62. It was most likely '63. It was a huge first run hit which played at least a year roadshow.

My first was Lord Jim which was such a huge flop in opened roadshow in the spring of '65 and by that summer a few months later it was in the drive in. God was it boring.

I get to tell my East 70 story...again. Their marquee always advertised "IN CAR HEATER" One week it was:

BUNNY LAKE IS MISSING

IN CAR HEATER

The next week it was:

HOW TO STUFF A WILD BIKINI

IN CAR HEATER

I hate to be a priss but will: it’s Galaxie 500. I was told Ford couldn’t trademark the heavens so altered the spelling.

I grew up (and learned to drive) in a series of Country Squires in the 60s.

You might be right r54. It was in Buffalo, NY, visiting relatives. Marilyn Monroe died when we were there. We might have gone two years in a row.

To continue the Galaxy theme, it wasn't my first, but I saw Galaxina with Dorothy Stratten at an all-night drive-in, and 45 years later it remains on my all-time worst list.

Double Feature, The Lords of Flatbush and a documentary Let The Good Times Roll

The drive-in near us when I was a kid advertised THE SEVEN FACES OF DR. LAO

COME SEPTEMBER

I missed the damned Tony Randall movie because I assumed I had a few months to go.

The 1963 rerelease of Gone With the Wind. I think I made it to Mammy yelling at Scarlett to invite the Tarleton twins to stay for supper.

Beach Blanket Bingo

This thread made me realize I have never in my life been to a drive-in movie theater.

😢

Jurassic Park, at a drive-in on Foster Road in Portland, OR in 1993. I was barely three years old, but I have vague memories of being there and seeing it with my parents. My mom was pregnant with my younger brother at the time. The drive-in is long gone now. I don't think I've actually seen another film at a drive-in since.

I like how the question assumes we’re all at least Gen X.

[quote]The first one I can remember is “Song of the South”, in a rerelease during the 70s

R46 Be glad you saw it! It's no longer in circulation and won't be seen again for 200 years when times change (if it still exists)

[quote]I played in the ginormous backseat...

R49 With yourself?

There are Song of the South pirates out there so I don't believe it's that hard to see. I have no idea what film Bob Iger was watching when he decided to ban it. Probably Mandingo just after Mrs Iger hit him over the head hard with a frying pan. From his legendary stupidity it seems he never recovered.

Journey to the Center of the Earth, the James Mason and Pat Boone version.

R65 Drive ins were around in the 50s. So, they were also a boomer thing...and, several boomers have obviously commented on here.

I'm trying to remember the LAST drive in movie I saw...it would have been circa 1984. Might have been The Company of Wolves.

Yellow Submarine. At about age 6, somewhere in Pleasant Hill or Concord, CA. Was the youngest of 5. I was enthralled. The whole family was packed in the station wagon. I remember the family watching me watch the movie.

Years later when I was a teen, my parents were divorced and my older siblings had moved out or were off getting stoned. But Mom carried on the tradition. We watched most of the Pink Panther movies in her VW Bug at the same drive-in and just giggled.

I remember sitting in folding chairs outside the car watching 2001 A Space Odessey. And the one that had free pony rides and playground below the screen.

Targets. Scared the crap out of me then. I've watched it again recently and it didn't move me as much. Times change.

"Joe," with Peter Boyle and Susan Sarandon from 1970.

The ending shocked the hell out of me when I saw it on TV at the tender age of 10. To this day, I'll never understand why my parents let me watch it.

^Oops! Wrong thread!

The best part of going to the drive in was watching people wandering around looking for their cars during the movie. It was even funnier if they were carrying a large tray of snacks.

My parents took us to the drive-in to see "Two Mules for Sister Sarah." Our parents were Catholic and we went to Catholic school, so they thought they were taking us to a religious movie.

They were shocked to discover Shirley MacLaine played a prostitute disguised as a nun and tried to cover our eyes in the scene where she's in the bathtub and Clint Eastwood gets in with her.

What's a drive-in?

My first drive-in movie was 2001: A Space Odyssey. I had just turned 5 and was fascinated by how people could walk upside down in circles, defying gravity. My first sense of the universe and life and art merging when the spaceship on the screen faded into the night sky and stars bright above the open roof of my father's Lark Wagonaire. He brought us kids down to earth pretty fast though when the movie ended. He'd forgotten that the drive-in speaker was wedged into the Lark's half-open window and tried to drive away with a jolt and a bang.

I was a Dallas kid in the 80s, and there was a drive-in theater that projected straight porn.

Brought my friend Russell with me… I was hoping he’d be horny enough to whip it out, but no.

I wasted a case of Coors trying to get him drunk enough…shit!

We had a drive-in that showed soft core porn in the 70s. There was a house not far behind the parking lot and we envied the people who lived there.

Let's all go to the lobby and get ourselves a treat.

“Targets” would be scarier to see at a drive-in because that’s where the sniper’s climactic rampage takes place in the movie. That scene was filmed at the Sepulveda Drive-In Theater in Van Nuys.

My older sister was baby sitting me, and her sleazy boyfriend wanted to see “Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia,” so we all went to the drive-in together. I was 8. It traumatized me.

[quote] I don't remember the movie, I just remember playing IN MY PAJAMAS at the playground in front of the screen

I went in my pajamas as well, and remember walking to the bathroom and the concession stand with absolutely no embarrassment. Because all the other kids were in their pajamas as well.

[R39]: I there with you.

“Carve Her Name with Pride” (1958) in, of all places a drive-in Nova Scotia! Starring Virginia McKenna and Paul Scofield, a British film about a female undercover spy in occupied France. Not a happy ending. In b&w. Don’t think it was ever released in the U.S.

But going to the drive-in was fun. $1 a carload. $1’s worth of gas on the way. Life in the 50’s. I was 9.

A 1950s drive-in is a pedo's idea of heaven!

It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World. Must have been the summer of 1964.

The Three Stooges in Outer Space? Orbit? Something like that. Early '60's.

Grease, June 1978. My tenth birthday.

My parents were too cheap to pay for food from the snackbar so we always took an oversize thermos jug full of cooked hotdogs, with buns & condiments & potato chips, plus more big thermos jugs full of homemade lemonade with icecubes -- & homemade brownies with chocolate mints melted on top for dessert. We ate a lot, then fell asleep in the back seat. There must have been movies on the screen to keep the parents entertained?

I remember the Oakley and Twin Drive-Ins, R28. My parents also took us to the Academy and Montgomery Drive-Ins in the 60s and early 70s. I remember falling asleep on the way home just after we passed the contemporary furniture display at the Otmar Furniture Store in downtown Montgomery.

We usually saw one of the classic Disney animated features followed by a Disney live action feature like the Happiest Millionaire, Swiss Family Robinson or Pollyanna. My parents always made it a surprise after dinner on a Saturday night. "Get ready, we're going to the drive-in!"

I remember the Burt Bacharach music playing through the speakers while we were playing on the playgrounds before the show.

The Hospital with George C. Scott.

Rocky II

R91 Bringing our own food was fun for us. Popcorn, pizza, Coke...We only left the car to pee.

I don't remember the first movie I saw at the drive-in but I remember the scariest: black & white Night of the Living Dead.

I was 10,The Counterfeit Traitor with Lili Palmer and William Holden, at a drive-in with my brother and parents. We had fun on the mini playground and ate snacks, watched cartoons. Then we fell asleep in the backseat. I woke up in the middle of the movie, and was shocked to see Holden enter a bedroom or hotel room? and Palmer had on a sexy slip and they kissed passionately. I had never seen a woman in a slip before or people kiss that way (hey I was born in the 50s). I was embarrassed to think my parents might know what I saw.

My first time at a drive-in was also my first time at the movies, and like some other DLers, it was at the Pickwick Drive-In in Burbank, CA, for the 1966 rerelease of 'Bambi'.

I remember being a bit baffled about why we were going out dressed for bed in our pajamas. But I loved riding in my Aunt Janice's Cadillac convertible, so I got over it. Little did I know the whole thing would burn itself into my brain as one of those perfect, slightly surreal childhood memories.

ET - 1982

Journey to the Center of the Earth with Pat Boone. No, NOT when it first came out in 1959. It was in the 70s in this tiny town in the south when I was visiting some relatives. I guess this drive-in played old movies? Knowing these relatives, we went to see that because it had that “nice Christian boy, Pat Boone.” I was like 8 or 9 and thought it was a really dumb movie, but my cousin started crying and was terrified.

I think the next year, my parents took me to see Grease at the drive-in in our town.

Cape Cod in the 50s and the Drive-Ins were booming. We went once a week—my mother, father, older brother, and I. It was a double feature with a long intermission featuring the clock and dancing food on the screen. The first feature was always a G-rated family flick, but the second feature could be a bit more risqué—not quite R, but not intended for kids. The idea was that the kids would be asleep by the time the second feature started.

I remember it clearly. My brother and I were pretending to be asleep in the back seat while the movie La Parisienne with Bridget Bardot and Charles Boyer played. We both stayed wide awake throughout the entire film. Of course, my parents knew because we kept laughing at some of the adult humor.

Bye Bye Birdie

Several of the Peter Sellers Pink Panther movies in Dad's '65 Cadillac coupe. The front seat was like a living room sofa.

In the spring of 1969-A double bill....The Odd Couple and Barefoot in the Park in dad's Ford Custom 500. My parents were mortgaged to their eyeballs after buying their first house the previous fall so an outing like this was very rare.

r97, it now occurs to me that that was the same for me -- first of many times at the movies were at a Drive-in in Concord, CA (Yellow Submarine being the first) and I was always in PJ's. Probably around 1967. Saw my first inside theater movie when my oldest sister took some friends and me to see The Jungle Book when she was babysitting. In the Bay Area most drive-ins closed to make way for housing developments in the 1970s. The last one I saw at a drive-in was a double feature with a few friends. It was a double-feature - Grease and Saturday Night Fever. The parking lot was full of us teens smoking weed.

No food has ever looked so delicious to me as when I was a boy and the intermission at the drive-in was an endless parade of commercials of the food that could be bought at the snack stand. Not only the hamburgers and hot dogs but the meatball sandwiches. They looked so tasty and my parents wouldn't dream of spending money on such food and we had just had dinner at home. I remember being upset because we went once to see My Fair Lady and it was so long that my parents refused to stay for the second feature that I really wanted to see which was some mid 60s beach movie called For Those Who Think Young. I still haven't seen it. The last movies I saw at a drive in were a double bill of Viva Max and The Out Of Towners where Jack Lemmon gave me such a headache with his constant yelling that I dreaded any movie he was in after that. I really wanted that manhole cover to crush him. It would have been so satisfying.

R9 R105 Food! It looked great so great to all of us who had our own stash. Parents brought sandwiches and snacks but we always whined for the drive-in food.

Did anyone ever see a foreign movie at a drive-in?

R107, we went to one of the late Godzilla movies -- maybe 2003ish? Terrible of course, but it was fun.

My first drive-in show was a double feature: "Fitzwilly", starring Dick Van Dyke as a butler or something and also, Elvis in "Clambake". The next was "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie", during which Mom would drape her cardigan sweater across the windshield during the nude scenes. That movie should have been rated "L" for lambswool!

The AristoCats

Gone With The Wind. On no, thank you, not during the original run. Some years later, the movie theater advertised a coming attraction, using letters they put up on a sign near the road. Someone altered the letters in the last word of The Sterile Cuckoo, using only the two Cs, one O and the K.

[quote]R#9 - wow!! What are the odds! Yours, Mine and Ours was my first Drive in movie, too! Unfortunately it was the second feature to the very turgid “Les Mans” with Steve McQueen. Zzzz

"Les Mans" sounds like a French gay porn flick. The film you were referencing is "Le Mans."

Probably not the first, but I remember my parents taking me and my sister to see "Ben-Hur" and both of us hiding our eyes during the leper scenes, because we'd heard they were gross.

The Commack Drive-In on Long Island had a steady stream of mainstream double features, but also a steady stream of gory exploitation pics that never played the local hardtops.

While it might not have been my first, one bill that stands out was "The Undertaker and His Pals" and "The Corpse Grinders" which were exactly as they sounded. In the former, a restaurant owner kills people and serves them up on his menu. At one point he had two corpses in the kitchen -- a black guy and a white guy, and when a customer orders, he memorable asks him, "white meat or dark?"