Please Turn Off Headlights Upon Entering the Drive-In

Early 1950s


Ads top and bottom from 1943 and 1944.

WHEN I WAS GROWING UP in Winston-Salem, NC, the “Drive-In” was thought of as a bit sleazy. Parents didn’t take their kids there, at least not in my town. Plus, it was the place where the “adult” movies were shown, and obviously was where the teenagers went to neck. Add to that— the theatre I knew was in a “not-so-safe” part of town.

Another thing, the ads for drive-in’s were tiny, something a little larger than 2 ” square and of course, in one color. While the big, mainstream movies filled half pages of the week-end paper, the drive-in advertisements were seriously hard to find—sometimes found on the page following the regular movie ads!

When I spotted these ads for a drive-in in Wisconsin, it made me think what living hell it would have been to actually layout and design these things. But, everything comes back around, I guess. It has taken 60 years for these designs to be considered kind of “Art Chantry” hip.

An AM repost from 2/8/09.