Cinema Under the Stars

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The programming was of little consequence. Operators could book movies with low rental fees, five months old or five years old, past hits or cheap B pictures. John Wayne, Bob Hope, and Disney films could play on the same screen as straight-to-the-drive-in sci-fi features like The She-Creature and Attack of the Giant Leeches. During this peak in the Eisenhower-Kennedy era, Becky’s showed second-run and B pictures and never lacked business, says Beck’s daughter, Cindy Deppe.

And yet, by the early ’70s, Beck had resorted to screening X-rated films. The Allentown area, once home to fourteen outdoor theaters, was on a steep slide down to its current three.

The drive-in’s swift descent, like its phenomenal success, was facilitated by values embracing technology and expansion. After television became widespread in the ’60s, second-run and B movies found a market in pay television and home video. Malls and shopping centers—with their multiplex cinemas boasting superior technical quality—established a new retail infrastructure and necessitated new development patterns.

In a sense, drive-ins were created by urban sprawl, then crushed by it. For owners, this was often more reward than punishment. As effective land speculators, they owned lots worth substantially more than the movies could rake in. The merits of selling became incontestable for most of them.

Since sprawl shows little sign of ceasing, the resurgence of the drive-in would seem unlikely. But given the right location—such as a modest, stable city like Allentown or a college town, or a small Southern city where movies can play year round—a drive-in can find a steady audience.

Theaters that survived the drive-in crash needed an image makeover, and many made the transition to first-run films in the early ’90s. Paradoxically, the growth of the multiplex helped them do this. As the number of indoor screens multiplied exponentially, so too did the number of first-run prints, some of which would move to drive-ins after just a couple of weeks. Soon, studios began making dedicated prints for drive-ins.

Drive-ins were thus primed to bring back their original image: an inexpensive, family-friendly venue. Today, Becky’s serves some local regulars with popular PG hits—superhero action flicks, the latest bawdy Will Ferrell comedy—but Deppe says it mostly draws crowds of tourists. Couples and families travel once or twice each summer from Philadelphia and New York to make a night of the drive-in, while some nostalgic boomers show up with their grandkids.

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