#Theatre pics movie

Remember going there to see Smiley Gets A Gun, starring Chips Rafferty - showing my age now. I’m 62 now but the memory is still vivid. It was exciting having the speaker in the car window. L remember watching the cartoons when Dad worked there and playing in the playground in front of the screen, then into bed in the back of the old FJ Holden.Īs a kid in my PJs we saw Mary Poppins here and played on the swings until it was dark enough to watch the movie. Really with all this COVID crap going around (2020), the drive-in would have been financially operational now. I had never seen a chipping machine before. I remember the old cafeteria and there was a little hut out the back where my uncle used to cut the potatoes to make chips. I saw American Graffiti at the Twilight in my black HR panel van (reverse parked, of course). I remember the drive-in well! Especially the experience of Mum and Dad loading as many kids as we could fit in the back of the station wagon.

#Theatre pics movie

Never saw a movie from the back of a car. It was nicknamed the passion pit, wonder why? Once, I remember the first half of the film had arrived on time and was shown before interval while the second half had to be collected to be shown after interval. When I worked at the drive-in, there were nights when the main film was collected from the railway station after the drive-in was open. The old window-hanging speakers - remembering to take them off before driving away! Lol.Īfter the drive-in closed it became the Trash and Treasure site. Or is that grin saying something like ‘we paid for four but my three mates and some six o’clock lager are in the boot’? It was packed.Īh - memories of working at night behind the kiosk counter selling the best milkshakes in town, to earn a few extra shekels.ĭad bought a new Vauxhall Viva 1966 and we used to go to the drive-in. No-one ever checked the boot, we always had an extra in there. The Shepparton Twilight Drive-In was my second home during the 1990s, I was lost when it closed in 2005, now I go to Coburg. (Sources: a news article with comments from Jack Tuckett, who was the first caretaker, and Noel Eva, who was manager of the drive-in from 1980.) The birds would fly into the screen believing they could land on the water.” This would usually happen after a movie featuring a water scene. He recalled one particular interesting event: “Quite often I would pick up a dead duck in front of the picture screen. Jack Tuckett was the drive-In caretaker from 1957 until he retired in 1983. But to no avail, as attendances kept declining and Shepparton’s drive-in showed its last film on June 15, 2005. DJs were also introduced to entertain patrons at interval to try to boost attendances. R-rated shows were introduced on Sunday nights and there were ‘all-night’ shows, with Coke and cornflakes served for breakfast.

The drive-in management then looked at ways in which to entice people back to the open air theatre. The popularity of discos and then in-home videos saw attendances fall even further. It was then that the attendance figures dropped by half, and continued to fall following the introduction of colour television.

The drive-in’s demise was brought about firstly by the introduction of television and in particular the advent of local television. Opening Up: Twilight Drive-In opening night in 1957.