Welcome to Bill Jelen's Drive-In Theatre Page
Thanks for visiting our site. Here are some of the taste-tempting treasures you will find here:
There are many great books and tapes about the Drive-In Theatre. Visit my "Serve Yourself Concession Stand" for a fantastic selection of books and tapes you can buy directly over the Internet. While you are at the concession stand, enter our trivia contest to win a cool 5x7 night photo taken at the drive-in. Take a photo tour of the 12 remaining northeast Ohio drive-ins. See our maps locating all of the open drive-ins in the U.S.. Take in our photo gallery I of night time shots at the Midway, or the night photo gallery II of the Midway or the night photo gallery of the Elm Road. Remember some Ohio drive-ins of the past, including the Salem and the Gala. Catch up on The News.
After visiting our tiny little site, be sure to check out these great sites:
And now, on with the show!
Welcome to the 2001 season. We've lost another theatre, as the Miles in Cleveland is now history. However, we dodged a bullet. Kudo's to Midway owner John Knepp for rebuilding when a storm wiped out his screen 1. The new Selby tower was up and running by May and John continues to stage a great show. We started the season with Disney refusing to book Pearl Harbor at Drive-ins, then the movie flopped and they are begging the drive-ins to book Atlantis/Pearl Harbor, but few will bite. Shrek, Dr Doolittle II, AI have all been bonanzas for local ozoners. Attendance is up. Still to come this summer are Scary Movie II, Plant of the Apes and more.
After the winter months, the 1999 season is now upon us in Northeast Ohio. October Sky rotated through the local drive-ins and was a nostalgic look at the 50's in a nostalgic place to watch movies. Of course, the summer's blockbuster will be Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. However, George Lucas has put ridiculous demands on theatres in order to book the movie. A theatre would have to sign up for an eight-week engagement, on their largest screen, with no co-feature. Betting half the summer on a single movie would be suicide for a drive-in operator. I remember seeing the original Star Wars at a drive-in. There would be nothing like seeing the movie, under the stars, on a really big screen. I predict there will be very few drive-ins showing Menace first run. I hope that by summer's end, George has chilled out and maybe a local drive-in can pick it up in second run. But, while Menace is clogging up the googloplex, there should be plenty of great movies at the drive-in this season. Here are some of my picks to watch for. The link will take you to the Internet Movie Database page for the movie:
What a special treat - The Midway Drive-In booked Star Wars for a opening run. It is a great summer movie - and great to be seen on the big screen. Worth a trip from where ever you are to see it.
The Drive In Theatre Fan Club held a meet on 7/24 at the Elm Road Drive-In in Warren, Ohio. In attendance were authors Debrean & Randy Loy, DITF update columnist Dave Makin, Drive-On-In's Jen & Kipp Sherer, as well as DITF members from NY, Chicago, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Ohio and California. The Loy's describe Elm Road: "It is in such mint condition, it looks like it was just built yesterday. Ohio should be proud!" Owner Mr. Hreno is a member of the DITF.
1998 was a great drive-in season for us. Ohio was host to 2 DITF meets in July. We attended the Winter in Steubenville and the Aut-O-Rama in Cleveland. Deb Sherman was a fantastic host at the Aut-O-Rama show. Also this year, we managed to attend the Bengies in Baltimore, the Mountain View in Kentucky, the Magic City, Blue Sky, the Memphis, and the Midway in Ravenna. The weather has been great this summer. In all, we attended 24+ nights in 1998.
I grew up in the tiny city of Salem, Ohio. My home drive-in was Jack Vogel's Salem Drive-In. It was still operating into the early 80's. They showed fantastic vintage trailers before the show and had a great concession stand. The theatre is now closed, but the screen tower is still standing. One trailer that I remember was animated concession food playing baseball. As the baseball was hit into center field, the player leapt up, dropped the ball, and the ball turned into a "6", as the announcer would say, "6 Minutes to Showtime, folks! There is still plenty of time to visit our concession stand...". During Simon and Garfunkel's 1983 reunion tour, they had a drive-in theme and showed another trailer from this series, although it was either the "8" or "4" minutes to showtime version!
When we had already seen the show at the Salem Drive-In, we would drive to the Park Drive-In in Alliance, Ohio, the MidWay Drive-In in Unity, Ohio, or sometimes the SpotLight 88 quad Drive-in in Pennsylvania. All of these drive-ins are now closed. The SpotLight 88 met it's fate when a tornado leveled all four screens in 1985.
1997 was the final season for Akron's Gala Drive-In Theatre. Owner Mike & Mary Krunich retired and sold the property to a developer in January of 1998. Both screen towers are being demolished to make way for residential housing. Mike was a great showman. His hands-on style of ownership lead to a unique feel at the Gala that you can not find elsewhere. Akron is lucky to still have five other screens at three venues in the area. Barberton's Magic City Drive-in, Wadsworth's Blue Sky Drive-in, and Ravenna's Midway Drive-in. By the way, that Midway Drive-in is also a great Jack Vogel design.
For folks travelling east-west through Ohio on the Ohio Turnpike any summer evening, Ohio's most visible drive-in is the Aut-O-Rama Drive-in just south of exit 9 of the Turnnpike in North Ridgeville. The Sherman family has been operating the drive-in since it was built in 1965. They have three shows on each screen on Saturday nights, and two shows the rest of the week. They also have the best concession stand I have ever seen. Try the fantastic meatball sub! The concession stand used to feature two indoor banks of seats that could be used to watch the show from inside. After seeing this theatre from the turnpike for many years, I finally attended for the first time in 1997. From the lot, you can watch the airplanes approach north of the site into Cleveland Hopkins, a train buzzes past occasionally to the west of the lot, and just north of the lot you can watch the trucks and cars roll by on the turnpike.
In late 1997, I was driving through the Daniel Boone National Forest on route 11 in Kentucky. Just south of Booneville, KY you will find the MoonLite Drive-In Theatre. The unique gray brick screen tower is host to one movie on Friday night, and two features on Saturday night. The Wilson family has been operating this drive-in since around 1950. Because there is no telephone for the theatre, it is often missed in many guidebooks and site listings. But trust me, it is there, and still operating, from Memorial Day through Labor Day. It is about 30 miles south of the Natural Bridge State Park in eastern Kentucky.
That's all the news, folks! Before leaving, visit the Serve Yourself Concession Stand, take the tour of 12 remaining northeast Ohio drive-ins, Find a drive-in near you with the maps of open drive-ins in the U.S., or view the maps of open U.S. drive-ins, or remember some Ohio drive-ins of the past.
Last Updated July 2, 2001.
Thanks for visiting! You are visitor # since 2/2/1998.
Maintained by Bill Jelen bjelen8875 @ aol.com, proud member of the Drive-In Theatre Fan Club and the Ohio Drive-In Theatre Fan Club.