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

by Guy Barefoot (Author)

The Drive-Inmeaningfully 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-Inidentifies 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.

Author Biography

Guy Barefoot is Honorary 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).