These 18 Powerful Vintage Photos are Your Entertaining Dose for Today

First Drive-in theater, Los Angeles, 1935

That’s right, it was a cutting edge as you could get for 1935. You could watch talking pictures on an enormous screen from the comfort of your own car. All the snacks and blankets you desire and no noisy strangers hogging the arm rest and bumping elbows with you.

In 1915 a partial drive-in theater was opened in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Makeshift drive-ins began popping up. In the 1920s, “outdoor movies” became one of the most popular choices for summer entertainment, but relatively few of these “drive-in” experiments were made.

Once sound stepped onto the scene and drive-ins became better equipped, they started booming. The drive-in’s peak popularity came in the late 1950s and early 1960s, particularly in rural areas.