THe Bronco Drive In Theater in Beeville, Texas fell into ruin in the 1970s.
…We had a thing called drive in movie theaters. They were places for families with young children and also havens for young couples who liked to cuddle. They were all over America and, by 1951, they were starting to be the answer to TV’s damage to the indoor movie house market.
With the coming of TV to places like Houston in 1949, people started staying at home more, watching moving characters on the small screen for nothing and maybe saving enough money on movie tickets to move up rom a 10″ black and white screen to one of those new 14″ – or even 17″ – really big TV screen sets.
The problem was quickly apparent. Watching TV did not fulfill the need that most able-bodied younger people have for getting out of the house. And you couldn’t take small kids to a good indoor movie theater anyway – and date nights for teens didn’t work at all if you had to build them around staying home and watching TV with your parents and your girl friend.
Then some marketing genius came up with an alternative that served as the answer for a while – that answer was the invention of the usually suburban or way out in the country drive in movie theater. The trick was to find some cheap land that was not too effected by the lights of the city or heavy highway traffic lights. Then you built a screen that was big enough to handle hundreds of cars with room enough left over near the screen for a playground and a concession stand in the same building that housed the projector. Each car space would then be set up with its own speaker on a wire that the driver could bring inside and adjust for volume. (The sound quality was Grade F Crapola, but we didn’t know any better back then. If you are too young to remember, be glad. You should have heard how bad the sound was for television in the beginning.)
These were also the pre-AC days in most Houston homes, so, the drive in movie theater was also a chance to enjoy the gulf breezes by rolling all your car windows down. The downside in Houston’s summer nights was dealing with the mosquitoes. Our major remedy for these pests was a product we bought at the concession stand, a little green coil of some smokey combustibility that you burned inside the car like a mind-altering incense. They called it “Pic” and it killed and repelled the bugs away very effectively. I’m not sure what it did to our lungs because back in the day, we just assumed that no American manufacturer would make an insect repellent that was also harmful to humans. Heck! We even had a cockroach killer at home called “J.O.” It was a pasty green substance inside a little toilet roll-like container that you placed on the floor at night; it was a material that also glowed in the dark that almost killed any roach that came near it – and totally wiped out all that dared to have a bite. – As they say today sometimes – “What’s up with that?”
At any rate, the drive ins were a neat retreat from the small quarters of home life with no privacy and a great place to cuddle for teen couples. In fact, the desire for closeness among teens drove the film industry into the creation of a genre we now often think of as “drive in movie.” These were the fright films that literally drove girls into the protective arms of their always protective boy friends. Several of these classics have been discussed here recently in The Pecan Park Eagle. The ones that stand out in my memory are “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” (1956), “Creature from the Black Lagoon” (1954), and “The Thing From Another World” (1951). I was too young for date night on the “The Thing’s” first go-round, but it kept coming back for years because of its great matchmaking power over young people.
My main Houston drive in movie theaters included the Winkler, only a mile from my Pecan Park home; the King Center on South Park (now MLK), the Hi Nabor on Mykawa Road, the Trail on O.S.T., and the South Main on South Main. There were many, many others in our town. Perhaps, you have a favorite that I haven’t listed.
Closing Note: I even had my own “Wake Up, Little Susie” moment once at the Trail. It was a Friday summer night and both my girl friend and I had worked hard all day, but we still decided to go to the Trail for one movie in an all night monster film festival. We both went to sleep in the front seat, but some pedestrian finally wakened me when he slammed his hand on my front fender on the way to the concession stand. I looked at my watch. It was 3:42 AM.
Holy Crap! My 16 year old version of “Susie” was supposed to be home by midnight. What was 16 year old me to do?
“WAKE UP, LITTLE SUSIE ! – WAKE UP!”
“Susie’s” mom ripped me pretty good by the time I got her daughter home. Fortunately for me, Susie’s mom did not know how to reach my own parents that night and I was to get home and sneak into the house without anyone there ever knowing.
As for how Susie did after that night, I really couldn’t tell you. Her mom imposed a probation upon contact between us after that night and the clock is still running on that one. I think she said it would be OK for me to call again on the day before the crack of doom.
The Pecan Park Eagle 
September 13, 2018 at 1:14 am |
The Bronco was still used up until the 80’s. I didn’t go because all they showed was porn at the end.