‘Bring[ing] family life into the theatres’: the drive-ins of Western Australia

This article was written in 2003. The author has administered a web-site on Western Australian cinemas for many years. Further information about all sites mentioned in this article can be obtained at that website:http://cinemaweb.scam.ecu.edu.au.

Nowadays, everyone is familiar with the drive-in, but in the late 1950s, when the concept was still new, it was thought necessary to educate potential customers about what to expect. The Mayfair Drive-in, designed by Kenneth Broadhurst for Goldfields Pictures in Glen Iris, a suburb of Bunbury in the south-west of Western Australia, opened on 9 December 1958, with The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing. The public was invited to `Come as you are in the family car’. A four-page supplement in the local paper provided an introduction to the new premises:

Orthodox theatres take film entertainment into the families. Drive-ins bring family life into the theatres.

In your own car, in whatever clothes you wish to wear, and in complete privacy, you can enjoy the same films you would see at any theatre. As with any drive-in, Bunbury’s Mayfair provides each car with an internal speaker so that the complete soundtrack comes to you clearly and uninterrupted.

The Mayfair’s giant screen ensures that each carload of patrons receives a perfect view of the pictures, and the entire parking area is scientifically ramped to place each car in a position from which the screen is perfectly visible…

Here, at the Mayfair Drive-in, a novel and pleasing feature is possible – modern entertainment in homely comfort, with the unsurpassable background of the Australian bush at night.
(South Western Times 4 December 1958)

The drive-in as social space

The Western Australian public took the drive-in immediately to their hearts, so much so that, if you are of ‘a certain age’, you will remember the drive-in vividly, as a life-shaping experience. You first attended with your family: mother and father dressed neatly but casually – it was not a ‘dress-up’ occasion like a visit to the hard-top cinema – and the children bathed and dressed in nightclothes. You would arrive well before dark, with a picnic tea in a basket: the food would rapidly disappear as you ran back and forth between the spot the family had marked as its own (by a rug on the ground or a tablecloth on the picnic tables) and the children’s playground, just below the screen. There, others similarly dressed in pyjamas (nightdresses were not warm enough – or maybe not respectable enough for such games) and dressing-gowns were scrambling about on the swings and slides. You met your friends from school or made new ones for the duration of the evening, while your parents gathered with other parents for a gossip or a drink, occasionally bringing to heel a particularly noisy child or one that seemed in some physical danger (these were the days of unprotected swings and no soft landings at the foot of the slides).

As darkness fell, the picnic would be packed up, the children taken to the toilet (whether they ‘wanted to’ or not) and then stowed in the back seat, while Mum and Dad settled into the front. The window would be wound down so that the speaker could be taken from its stand beside the driver’s seat and hooked over the top of the window, which was then wound up as far as possible, to keep out draughts (though it never kept out mosquitoes). Then the entertainment would begin. There would be a full programme – a newsreel, at least one cartoon (which the children would be allowed to watch), then they would be firmly told to lie down and go to sleep while the feature film/s held the adults’ attention, perhaps even so enthralled that they would not notice the several pairs of eyes silently peeping from behind them. By the time the programme was finished, the children would be sprawled asleep in layers on the back seat. The window would be wound down to replace the speaker: or – on far too many occasions for the management’s satisfaction – forgotten, and wrenched out of its socket as the car drove away, till someone realised what had happened and the driver sheepishly backed up to replace the orphaned speaker on its hook.

It was not always sweetness and light, of course. The weather might turn nasty, so that your view of the screen was streaked with rain, or the screen itself swayed till the picture seemed seasick. It might be a night when the local lads indulged in a bit of hooliganism – brawling till separated and warned by the manager, kicking their football among the family picnics, or clambering up the screen scaffolding to ‘brown-eye’ over the top. There would often be drunks, or perhaps a ‘domestic’ (it might even be your own parents). And the worst thing of all was the long, dark walk to the toilet, on your own or in the care of an equally terrified older sibling – parents could not be relied upon at these times, as they were likely to lose their temper with a child who interrupted their one pleasure for the week.

As you grew older, the charm of a family picnic faded, and if parents still wanted to go to the drive-in they were likely to bribe older children with a bought meal – a hamburger or chips from the café, Coke or potato crisps or a Violet Crumble. You were fully-dressed this time, and it was no longer so necessary to arrive early. If you were not interested in the film you might wander around looking for friends similarly on the prowl, though you were warned to stay among the ramps forward of the café – all sorts of things might happen to a girl who strayed into the nether regions…

Then you were independent of your parents – if they happened to be at the drive-in at the same time as you, you steered very clear and ignored them if you bumped into them in the café. You were now with a group of your friends – all piled into any car that was owned within the group, or in the sit-in area if none of you yet had wheels. In the early part of this phase, the girls would arrive together and the boys together, though that was not always how they left.

After some months or years, you would have paired off, and would arrive as a couple. If you were sharing a car with another couple you would discreetly disappear for a while, perhaps with a mutually-agreed signal for swapping over exclusive use of the car, or for swapping between the front and rear seats. But the goal was to have the whole car to yourself – there were so few private places for courting couples in the fifties and sixties, and even into the seventies! This was when you were likely to park on one of the rear ramps, where noise and movement within the car were less obvious to other patrons. But even then you might experience the embarrassment of a rap on the windows and a warning from the management.

Eventually, the cycle would begin again – with you now the young parents, juggling the needs of the children with your own desires for a ‘night out’.

The reason that you need to be of a certain age to fully appreciate this story, or to recognise it (with individual variations) as your own, is that it lasted for quite a short time – from the late 1950s to perhaps 1980, depending on where you lived. The first conventional drive-in in Western Australia was the Highway, opened in suburban Bentley in October 1955, starting a boom in suburban drive-ins which saw a further eight operating by the end of the decade, and another nine opened in the 1960s: growth then slowed to only 5 more built in the 1970s and the last one in 1980. In the country areas, the first to open was the Oasis in Geraldton in 1957, and there were only three more built in the 1950s. The boom years in the country were the sixties, which saw 61 drive-ins opened, with growth then slowing to only six more built in the seventies and one in the eighties.

Towards the end of this cycle, drive-ins responded to declining fortunes (as hard-tops had already done, just a few years earlier) with a variety of stratagems. One was to shift from family programming to appeal to a younger audience, screening maybe rock musicals or horror films, as by the seventies and eighties young people were more likely than in earlier decades to be driving their own cars, and so able to claim their own social space, away from the prying eyes of the older generation. As an increasing number of families owned two cars, one might be made available to the teenage children, but also car ownership was extending to younger and younger people. The language was shifting too: ‘adolescents’ (who were assumed to be difficult and rebellious, and in need of parental and social control) were metamorphosing into ‘teenagers’ (who were treated with increasing – if puzzled – tolerance, as their rights to independence were acknowledged). For instance, Peter Hughes remembers:

…going to the drive-in as a teenager for years after I would not have been seen dead there with the family. I went as part of a group, or with whichever young women I wanted to be alone with at the time. This rarely had anything to do with the movies but was either ‘group time’ or ‘grope time.’[1]

After the introduction of the ‘R’ certificate in 1972, some drive-ins shifted to exclusively ‘R’ programming, appealing to the adult (over 18) audience for exploitation films. Where the site and the audience were big enough, twinning the venue made it still possible to appeal to the family, as a ‘General Exhibition’ film could be presented on one screen while a teen flick or restricted exhibition film pulled in a different audience to the other screen. When these stratagies worked, they gave some drive-ins a stay of execution, but eventually most venues began to close off parts of the ramps, to open only in the summer, and finally to close altogether.

Hard-top closures had already begun in the 1960s, and some drive-ins also closed at this time. Most, however, survived the sixties and even the seventies, with the majority of drive-in closures (in both the suburbs and the country) happening in the early eighties. By the 1990s, only three suburban drive-ins continued to operate, and in 2003 only one remains – the Galaxy in Kingsley. In country areas, more kept functioning (even if only intermittently or seasonally) and some are even becoming popular again, but it is a long while since any drive-in was the centre of the social life of its suburb or country town. At the beginning of the 21st century, the nearest social space to that which the drive-in used to provide is probably the shopping mall.

The drive-in as industry

These building and operating trends are part of an industrial history, of the drive-in’s place in the film trade, with social and industrial aspects continually interacting. One determining factor was geography. The comparatively equable climate of Australia encouraged a preference for outdoor recreation (including open air cinemas and drive-ins), and the vast spaces available enabled the building of drive-ins and also helps to explain phenomena such as the huge size of the ground for Australian Rules football in comparison with that for other codes.

Both climate and space contributed to the success of the drive-in cinema in Western Australia. It is, after all, the largest state, with vast tracts of open country, and a suburban sprawl around urban centres. Its climate ranges from the temperate south (four seasons each year, with a wide temperature differential between winter and summer) to the tropical north (two seasons each year – a ‘wet’ and a ‘dry’, with relatively less temperature differential).

The mean temperature across the state is high compared with that of other states, but most of its people live in the temperate areas so they do not have to contend with an annual wet season (as does Queensland – the other high temperature state). Climate information of this kind is available from national and state yearbooks issued by the Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics[2] . The statistics these provide, however, are not always relevant to the kind of questions we would wish to ask when attempting to link climate with the fortunes of the drive-ins.

One line of enquiry could be to build a research project around the available statistics, for instance to study in detail the fortunes of the drive-in/s in the pairs of towns (in Western Australia and in the eastern states, of similar latitude and distance from the coast) selected for climate comparison in the 1975 Official Year Book of Western Australia[3] . Without having carried out that kind of careful analysis, my general impression is that the distribution and fortunes of drive-ins across Western Australia is related to differences of temperature and rainfall: for instance, it seems clear that the colder, southern areas lost their drive-ins earlier than the rest of the state.

The pre-history of the drive-in

But we are getting ahead of our story, which actually begins in Western Australia well before the first conventional drive-ins, on the American model (such as the Mayfair, described above). Back at the turn of the century, when films first appeared on the entertainment scene, ‘pleasure gardens’ were popular. These were areas of stalls and stages, in a garden setting (paths, lawns, flower beds), enclosed by a high fence, either painted to represent a vista of lakes and mountains or softened with garden beds and covered with creepers. It was in one of these – Ye Olde Englishe Fayre, at 825 Hay St, Perth (later the site of Her Majesty’s Theatre) – that Western Australia experienced its very first film season, starting on Saturday 21 November 1896, only three months behind the Australian commercial premiere of projected films in Melbourne in August.

Though films soon moved indoors into the vaudeville halls and legitimate theatres, and eventually into purpose-built cinemas, the association of films with the outdoors had been firmly established in that first season, paving the way for the open air picture shows. These were often built in association with a hard-top, like the Cameo and Gardens in suburban South Perth or the Royal and Gardens in outback Meekatharra. Meanwhile, the travelling picture show was providing entertainment wherever there were enough people to make it pay, and if there was no hall available a screen could be hung between the trees to produce a makeshift outdoor venue. Mort Harslett’s story of the visit of travelling showman George Ilham to a construction camp south of Norseman is a vivid evocation of this era.

It was these open air picture shows that produced the first drive-ins, though they were not called that and the people involved probably had no idea that they were innovators. At this distance in time, it is difficult to find substantive evidence of just when and where these early ‘drive-ins’ operated, but there are some places where the rumours and stories are persistent enough and detailed enough to be convincing[4] .

For instance, Beryl Demasson remembers that before World War II Alf Peterson screened at Agnew, a small settlement north of Kalgoorlie. Once a week, in an open air venue beside the hotel, cars would drive in and face the screen, with sound broadcast from loudspeakers. These screenings were being presented at least in 1938 and may have started as early as 1935, but they stopped when Alf enlisted. When he returned from the war in 1946, he tried to start up again, and is listed in the 1947 Post Office Directory and the 1948/9 Film Weekly as exhibitor at Agnew Gardens. But the venture was not so successful this time, and he moved on to more conventional cinema operation in Leonora and Laverton and other nearby townships.

Similarly, the earliest drive-in cinema in the south-west of the state was probably that in the bush at Dunsborough, again before World War II, operated first by Ron Gray from Bridgetown. The local patrons would drive their cars onto a clearing on Blythe’s farm property. The cars were ranged in a rough semi-circle on the slope, facing a huge canvas sheet strung between two trees: one night the screen was waving in a high wind as the film was depicting a storm at sea… Patrons would either sit in the cars or on a rug on the grass. The sound would be broadcast from loudspeakers, as there were no residents close by to complain of the noise.

Blackout restrictions during World War II brought an end to these screenings, and after the war they were begun again by Allan Jones from Busselton. A portable bio-box was used to house the two projectors and the rest of the equipment: Jones’ Delco generator had to be supplemented from a Buick car engine. Mrs Jones remembers how conscientious the patrons were about paying – if the Jones family was too busy preparing for the screening and missed a car, the driver would position his car facing the screen, then come back to the gate and pay. Her task was to set up the amplifier, which entailed putting in the valves. She was also responsible for feeding the family: she would bake a potato pie for tea, then heat it up on the arcs!

Also after the war, for about 4-5 years, the Parents and Citizens Committee ran 16mm screenings to raise money for the school: a circuit of Dunsborough hall, Yallingup hall, Meelup on the beach (leaving the screen hung permanently, with local residents looking after it for the committee) and Greenacres cottages. These ceased by the 1950s, after the Busselton cinemas had become more accessible because more people owned their own cars.

Such precursors to the standard drive-in, operating before the more conventional venues were built, prepared patrons for the later style of operation. There were also sometimes special circumstances producing this kind of informal ‘drive-in’, despite (by the 1950s) knowledge within the film trade that the conventional drive-in was probably on the way.

For instance, in the wheat belt town of Cue, east of Perth, the ‘drive-in’ lasted for less than three years. The municipal hall in Dowley St was the town’s first cinema. This was a simple corrugated iron structure, built before 1900 and later lined with plaster board. It had a stage, with a piano for the silent films, and a small concession shop on the left side of the entrance.

The gardens was on the south side of the hall, surrounded by a high corrugated iron fence. The ticket box was in the middle of the front section of this fence, with entry gates on either side, and the toilets were against the back wall, also at either side of the screen. There was no attempt to beautify the venue with trees and shrubs, and the floor was simply raked gravel. The bio-box was above the hall entrance, with access up an external staircase in the gardens, as it served both the hall and the open air theatre.

Seating, for both the hall and gardens, was on individual, wooden-framed, canvas-covered deckchairs. All seats cost the same and patrons could sit where they liked: some people had their favourite seats, and children tended to cluster towards the front. There was also a `back stalls’ in the gardens – on the hill behind, where those who could not afford the entrance fee (including most of the aboriginal residents of the town) would gather.

On 5 March 1955, the Cue hall was struck by lightning and burnt down. Heavy rain was not enough to stop the destruction of the hall, but it did stop the fire spreading to fences, trees and the picture screen in the gardens. When the hall site was cleared of rubble, the screenings continued in the gardens – even in winter, when people drove their cars onto the site and heard the sound broadcast from loudspeakers. This continued until the men’s change and shower room from the nearby Big Bell mine, which had closed in 1954, was transported to the site and officially opened as a replacement public hall, during the Cue Race Club’s October meeting in 1957. Screenings continued in this hall for some years just as they had before the fire, and Cue no longer had a ‘drive-in cinema’.

Once it was clear that drive-ins were coming to Australia (for instance, through reports of their opening in the eastern states), the race was on to be the first in Western Australia.

There is an argument, for instance, that the first suburban drive-in was not actually the Highway, Bentley, but rather Bart Mott’s much less conventional venue in Gosnells. From the early fifties, Mott had a picture gardens in Albany Highway, with some seats under cover as well, so the cinema was able to open winter and summer. From the trade press and the gossip circulating among exhibitors, he knew that drive-ins were coming, and wanted to be part of the new developments, but he lacked both the specialist technical knowledge and the financial backing. In January 1955 he opened a drive-in beside the gardens: patrons drove their cars onto the site and the sound was broadcast, using Westrex amplifiers. The venue never had properly-built ramps and Mott was constantly in dispute with the local council over building regulations and parking problems, resulting from the proximity of this venue to the screenings in the hall. He eventually added car speakers, and the drive-in was sufficiently successful to be cited as a major cause of the subsequent failure of the screenings in Gosnells Hall.

In the suburbs, where houses bordered on the drive-in sites, broadcast sound was always a problem. For instance, after screenings ended in 1960 in the Darlington Hall, Phil Harris put up a screen at the western end of the railway reserve, alongside the disused railway station platform. Cars drove in from Brook Rd, opposite the Post Office, and lined up facing west. Sound was provided by loudspeakers, but this upset the neighbours and the venture lasted only a few months.

The spread of the motor car

In a country as large as Australia, transport has always been a major catalyst for social change, and Western Australia – the largest state – is certainly no different in this regard. In the early days, cinemas (or the public halls where films were screened) were located within easy reach of the audience: patrons would walk, ride a bicycle or a horse, drive a horse-drawn vehicle, but only a few arrived by motor car. The spread of car ownership allowed audiences to visit cinemas further afield. By the end of World War 2, most rural audiences could reach the major provincial centres, where they could find larger and more modern cinema buildings as well as more up-to-date programming: suburban audiences (round Perth, Fremantle, or the major provincial centres such as Kalgoorlie) could more easily attend the cinemas in the centre of the metropolis. The smaller venues, and those within easy driving distance of larger population centres, felt the effects of this shift: it was part of the reason for the decline of hard-top cinema already mentioned.

What was such a disadvantage for the hard-top cinemas, however, suited the drive-in very well: despite the existence of sit-in areas in nearly all drive-ins, for the majority of patrons attendance at a drive-in required access to a car. This was what distinguished the drive-in experience from the conventional hard-top cinema: family audiences saw the car as an extension of the family living room, while for couples it provided much-sought-after privacy. I am convinced that it is no accident that the period of popularity of drive-ins coincides with the spread of car ownership. It may, however, have also had its down side for drive-ins: Peter Hughes suggests the possibility that the spread of car ownership contributed to the growth of suburbia, and so to the rising land prices that eventually forced the sale of drive-in sites. Even if I could work out which is the chicken and which the egg in these claims, I would be unable to ‘prove’ them. In any case, there were other social factors just as influential as car ownership in the fortunes of the cinema industry, among them television.

Competition from television

In USA, experiments with television had begun in the 1920s, the first public broadcasts were made as early as 1939, and television stations under the Federal Communications Commission plan went to air from 1947[5] . This meant that television was developing gradually, at the same time as the cinema boom, each adapting to the other as time passed, though the boom in hard-top cinemas was clearly over by the 1950s. The subsequent steady decline of the hard-top was attributed to the influence of television, and it is usually argued that in the USA cinema’s response to the threat of television was the introduction of widescreen technologies, the shift to colour films as a standard (while television was still in black and white), and a move away from ‘family films’ towards more explicit subject-matter (that regulation still prevented from being aired on television). [6]  Drive-ins – with their huge screens, and their (initial) deliberate appeal to families – could be seen as another weapon in this armoury.

There are certainly Western Australian examples that support this classic argument of the drive-in as an answer to television. For instance, in the outer suburb of Armadale screenings had been taking place in the public hall since at least 1926, with a gardens added in 1954, and cinemascope projection in 1958. After the arrival of television, the exhibitor (at that time R.R.Perrie) found he was operating the Armadale hall screenings at a loss. He unsuccessfully requested a reduction in his rent, but was forced out quite quickly, ceasing operations in 1961. The Armadale drive-in, however, was built in 1966 and continued to operate successfully till 1984, holding its own against television.

But such classic cases are not the norm: in fact, the effect of television on the cinema industry in Western Australia was not uniform or predictable. In some places, television arrived before the drive-in, in other places it came later: in some places, the drive-in survived, in others it quickly succumbed. It seems to have depended on the timing. In the eastern states of Australia, television sprang fully-formed into being in 1956, in time to broadcast the Melbourne Olympic Games. Western Australia began a little later – 1959 for Perth, but with a rapid spread in the suburbs and rather more gradual spread through the rest of the state. At first glance, the effect of television on cinema seemed to be devastating and immediate. Hard-top cinemas began to go out of business in Perth suburbs in the early sixties and in rural areas by the later sixties.

However, blaming television alone is probably simplistic. As described above, shifts in car ownership were already contributing to this before television impacted. And even after the new technology arrived, it is more productive to see television as part of a general shift in recreation away from the public and back to the private: the television in the living room was to the cinema what the backyard barbecue was to the picnic in the public park, or the backyard pool to the municipal swimming pool or the public beach. This major social shift, starting in the late 1950s and complete by the end of the sixties, weakened cinema as a whole, but the relationship of the drive-in to these developments took different forms in different places, at different times, and in different ways.

One response was the kind of adaptation referred to earlier – to adapt either the physical space, or the programming policy, or both. Sometimes the drive-in was twinned: on the same space, sharing the bio-box and concession building, but with screens at opposite ends of the venue, two smaller cinemas could operate simultaneously, each appealing to a different segment of the audience. One screen might be programmed to continue to appeal to those families still without television, or preferring to leave home for their entertainment: the other might be programmed with the action, horror or teen films that appealed to the growing youth audience. An example is the Metro, Innaloo, opened in 1957 with provision for 900 cars, extended to 1000 cars in 1968, twinned in 1984, at a time when most suburban and rural drive-ins were in decline, if not already closed.

Sometimes, the programming policy changed, again as already described. But the effects of adaptation were not uniform or predictable.

Ups and downs…

One common trajectory in country areas was for the patronage of hard-tops to decline first, particularly where screenings took place in the public hall rather than in a purpose-built structure. After the hard-top closed, the drive-in often continued for some time, although in most places that, too, eventually closed. An example is Carnarvon, where the Riverside Drive-in opened in 1964, the Memorial Theatre closed in 1973, the Carnival open air cinema continued to operate in competition with the drive-in until at least 1977, and the drive-in itself closed about 1980. In such cases, the drive-in was part of the problem for the hard-top and gardens, rather than a solution to the parallel problem of the privatisation of leisure (including television).

A similar trajectory was followed in some suburbs, with the additional complication of rising land values accompanying the suburban sprawl. When the demand for housing in an area sent land values spiralling upwards, the use of a large tract of land for a drive-in could no longer be justified: the Eastway Drive-in in Golf St, Belmont, was one of many suburban drive-ins sold for subdivision as a housing estate.

This was less likely to happen in country towns, where the drive-in was usually located on the outskirts of the town, on land not suitable for a housing sub-division and often only marginally useful for agriculture. However, it could still happen in the larger provincial cities. For instance, the View-Way Drive-in was built halfway between the twin towns of Boulder and Kalgoorlie, to draw on patronage from both. When it was opened in July 1960 it was in the middle of nowhere: by 1999 both towns had expanded till their fringes met, with a consequent shortage of land for building, driving land values up, till the existence of the drive-in could no longer be financially justified, despite its continuing success with audiences. A new multiplex was built on a small part of the site, and the rest was sold to Safeway for a supermarket and car park.

Out of the range of television, cinemas (including both conventional and more primitive drive-ins) continued to provide a social focus for the community. For instance, company towns sometimes provided residents with a cinema, as part of the amenities offered to encourage workers to come to remote, new, and often temporary dormitory towns[7] . In the far north of the state, in the Pilbara, at South Hedland, Hearson’s Cove Village was built by Woodside Petroleum for construction workers on the gas-line to Perth: at its peak it housed five thousand people. As late as 1980 the company built a picture venue and in 1984 a second venue close by. N. J. (Jim) Woods, who specialised in providing product for the isolated cinemas in this northern part of the state, was contracted to supply film to both venues, and Eddie Wheeler installed the equipment for Woods, and looked after the Hearson’s venues while he was also running the Karratha drive-in in 1984-5. After two four-year contracts the pipeline was finished, Woods’ contract was not renewed, and both venues closed in 1988.

Each of these venues had provision for about a hundred patrons in what was basically a sit-in open-air theatre, but some cars could drive up to the cyclone mesh fence and tune in to the sound on their car radios – yet another variant of the primitive drive-in. The whole town of Hearson’s, including both picture venues, has since been completely razed and the bush is reclaiming the land.

Issues of management and ownership…

Two social factors that complicated matters for drive-in operators in the eastern states were not significant in Western Australia – early closing of hotels, and daylight saving.

In states like Victoria, where in the 1950s hotels closed at 6 p.m., there was time for the whole family to get to an evening session at the drive-in, and indeed a reason for it, as a social space where a man could continue to drink with his mates. Once hotels stayed open later, drinking sessions at the hotel extended, and family interaction declined. This included drive-in attendance, which – at least in the early part of the period, when families usually had only one car and women were less likely to drive it – required the father as driver of the family car, which a visit to the hard-top might not. In Western Australia, hotels had been closed at 9 p.m. since 1916, and this was not varied till more flexible hours were introduced well after the drive-in boom had passed. Drive-in patrons in WA had been required to accommodate to the late closing of hotels from the first, so there was no sudden drain in patronage when hours changed – as happened in the eastern states.

Another major problem for drive-in operators in the eastern states was daylight saving, which both encouraged daylight outdoor entertainments such as sporting activities, and discouraged drive-in attendance as starting times had to be pushed back till darkness allowed a clear view of the screen. This happened just at the peak of drive-in viewing – the best, warmest, most reliable weather: by the time clocks went back to normal, the colder weather had again set in, once again discouraging attendance at the drive-in. In Western Australia, however, proposals for daylight saving were repeatedly defeated[8] , so that was one problem that drive-in operators did not have to face.

Another way in which the industrial history of drive-ins in Western Australia was not typical of that in the rest of Australia is in the ownership of the site. Typically, across the whole country, land was purchased outright by an entrepreneur or company, who raised funds to build the venue and operated it as a fully commercial venture. In Western Australia, this was typical only in the suburbs. There, the two major local hard-top cinema chains operated chains of drive-ins: ACE Theatres identified its venues by the suffix ‘-way’ (Highway, Aceway, Melway, Lakeway, Glenway, Swanway, Eastway), and City Theatres with the suffix ‘-line’ (Skyline, Parkline, Riverline, Starline, Moonline, Beechline). There were also independent operators, who also owned the land on which their drive-in was built.

In country areas, the big chains were only interested in the larger towns (like ACE with it View-way at Kalgoorlie and Avonway at Northam). Some local circuit operators were successful enough to maintain their own hard-top cinema/s, and later to build a drive-in on land purchased for the purpose: Allan Jones in the Busselton/ Margaret River area is one example.

But in smaller centres of population, there were not always enough potential patrons to make film screenings of any kind commercially viable, and the municipal authorities sometimes provided the venue (often the local Town Hall) at a subsidised rental to encourage the continuation of regular screenings. In such cases, the local operator was often unwilling or unable to supply the funding to purchase land and build a drive-in. To enable the community to enjoy a facility that might otherwise be denied them, some municipal authorities provided assistance of various kinds. The Moora Road Board entered a partnership with Paddy Baker to build and run the drive-in together. Exmouth Shire Council provided the land, and invited Jim Woods to share the building costs and to operate the resulting drive-in. Some Shires built the drive-in on Shire land, and leased it to an operator: this happened in Bruce Rock, Morawa, Southern Cross, Koorda, Kulin, Tammin and Norseman. Sixteen shires leased the land for an operator to build upon.

This degree of community involvement made a big difference when the drive-ins began to falter. The commercial operators, whether suburban or rural, sold the land when they could. Suburban operators sometimes made large profits, when the land could be sold for housing (like the Highway, Bentley), public use (like the Skyline at Floreat Park, which was bought by the Shire of Cambridge for its new Shire Offices), or other commercial developments (like the Aceway, Morley, which provided the site for a shopping complex[9] ). Sometimes, the land either did not belong to the operator, or had limited commercial value, and remained derelict for years (like the Melody Drive-in, Kwinana Beach).

In country areas, some venues were sold for conversion into commercial premises (Port Hedland Drive-in became a shopping centre) or private homes (Pink Lake Drive-in, Esperance; Rockview Drive-in, Bruce Rock). But in general this was much harder to achieve, so more drive-in sites in rural areas than in the suburbs remained derelict, or reverted to nature (for instance Quairading Drive-in; Mocardy Drive-in, Wongan Hills; Newman Drive-in). Where the municipal authorities were involved, some went to great lengths to help the operator, reducing rent just to keep the facility in the town. In other cases, the land reverted to municipal usage on closure of the drive-in: to a Roads Board depot (Criterion Drive-in, Norseman; Mullewa Drive-in), a sporting complex (Three Springs Drive-in), a caravan park (Bencubbin Drive-in), a BMX track for local children (Dalwallinu Drive-in; Bridgetown Drive-in), or a park (Starview Drive-in, Southern Cross; Harvey Drive-in).

A drive-in ‘revival’?

In the 1990s, the cinema revival that saw the construction of huge multiplex cinemas in the cities also encouraged the re-opening of some of the rural drive-ins, at least where the venue had not been allowed to decay too far. Commercial operations at Karratha, Margaret River, and Busselton seemed to be going well at the turn of the century, taking advantage of the tourist boom in nostalgia that also kept alive other kinds of cinema venue like Sun Pictures – the open-air cinema in the far-north township of Broome. But the real success story is places such as Wyndham and Kununurra, where the community has taken over the operation.

In Kununurra – in the far north of the state, the eastern-most township in the Kimberley, on the road between Wyndham and Darwin – the first picture show had been built by the construction company (Christiani, Nielson and Clough) responsible for the building of the Ord River irrigation scheme and Lake Argyle. While it was a company town, screenings were part of the free amenities provided for workers. When the town opened up, a Kununurra Progress Association (KPA) was formed, which bought the picture gardens from the company and continued to run it as an amenity for the town, as well as to raise money for community activities (such as the Ambulance service). In the early 1980s, the KPA leased the land next door and extended the venue, allowing cars to drive in to the site, sharing the broadcast sound with patrons seated on deckchairs. Soon after, however, television reached the town and attendance at the picture gardens slumped. By the early 1990s the venue had been vandalised, the lights on the nearby football ground were interfering with the projection of the pictures, and finally a storm took the roof off the bio-box and rain damaged the equipment. Community meetings considered selling out at this point – the task of rehabilitating the venue seemed just overwhelming. But a keen group reformed the KPA, appointed a cinema co-ordinator, made an agreement to share product with Sun Pictures (Broome), and found someone willing to come up from Perth to service and maintain the equipment. The venue re-opened in August 1999, with seating for 100 walk-ins and room for 100 cars, still with broadcast sound.

In the first season of the revival (August – November 1999), screening only on Friday and Saturday nights, they were sufficiently successful to pay off all accumulated debts, and since then have operated at a profit. Two films are screened on Saturday nights during the Dry season, and ‘additional screenings are organised to co-incide with community events such as the Ord Valley Muster in May and NAIDOC Week in June/July’[10] . The grounds are also used for other performances, such as rock concerts, and there are plans for the use of bore water to transform the bare ground in front of the screen into lawn. Soon an art-house film society will be launched, using 16mm rear projection equipment. There are now many activities competing in Kununurra for patrons, but, while community support continues so high, the place of the drive-in cinema seems well-assured.

We may never again see a drive-in cinema as the single social focus of a community, but there are enough examples like Kununurra now operating to allow those who ‘can remember’ to enjoy a nostalgic visit[11] , and those who are too young for this to experience something of what made the drive-in so important to their parents and grandparents. There is still enough of the phenomenon left (both in physical traces and in living memory) to make further exploration by historians and social scientists worthwhile. But both people and places seem to be slipping away: we need to hurry, if we are not to lose the opportunity…

Ina Bertrand
February 2003

Appendix:

109 drive-in venues listed on http://cinemaweb.scam.ecu.edu.au (The author would be grateful to receive any information which could add to or correct this list – please contact inab@netspace.net.au)

A: Alphabetical listing (by original name, with location and opening and closing dates, where known)

Aceway, Morley, 1980 – 1988
Agnew, 1938?
Armadale/Daleline, 1966 – 1984
Avonway, Northam 1959 – 1983
Beechline, Beechboro, 1971 or 1972 – 1985?
Bencubbin, 1964 – 1980
Beverley, 1965 – 1975
Bluff Point, Geraldton, 1965 – 1988
Boronia, Albany, 1964 – 1967
Bridgetown, 1960 – 1985
Broadlands, Carnamah, 1963 – 1983?
Busselton, 1961 – still open?
Central 70, Albany, 1964 – 1983
Clayton, Narrogin, 1960 – 1993
Collie, 1961 – 1984
Corrigin, 1965 – 1983
Cunderdin, 1963 – 1986
Dalwallinu, 1967 – 1983
Dampier, 1960
Darlington, 1960?
Denmark, 1965 – early 1980s
Dowerin, 1960 – 1990?
Dunsborough, 1935?
Eastway, Belmont, 1959 – 1985?
Esperance, 1966 – 1986
Exmouth, 1967 – 1982?
Forrest, Bunbury, 1963 – 1986?
Galaxy, Kingsley, 1973 (still open)
Glenway, Balga, 1967 – 1985
Gnowangerup, 1964 – 1980s?
Goldsworthy, 1967 – mid-1980s
Gosnells, 1955 – ?
Harvey, 1963 – 1984
Hearson’s Cove 1, 1980 – 1988
Hearson’s Cove 2, 1984 – 1988
Highway, Bentley, 1955 – (twinned 1986) – 1994
Hillcrest, Lake Grace, 1970? – 1986
Hillview, Kellerberrin, 1963 – 1985
Hyden, 1975 – 1985
Karratha, 1972 – 1985
Kojonup, 1964 – 1980s?
Kondinin, 1966 – 1980s?
Koorda, 1965 – 1983, 1987 – ?
KTY, Trayning, 1964 – 1981
Kulin, 1966 – 1983?
Kununoppin, 1964 – 1983
Lakeway/Oceanview, Swanbourne, 1957 – 1985
Leinster, 1977 – 1982?, 1985 – still operating
Mandurah, 1960 – 1989
Manjimup, 1961 – 1993
Margaret River, 1965 – still open?
Marmion, 1975 – 1984
Mayfair, Bunbury, 1958 – 1985?
Melody, Kwinana, 1961 – 1985?
Melway, Melville, 1958 – 1985
Merredin, 1960 – 1992
Metro, Innaloo, 1957 (twinned 1984) – 1993
Mingenew, 1965 – 1984
Mocardy, Wongan Hills, 1959 – 1980s?
Moonline, Wanneroo, 1974 – 1988
Moora, 1961 – late 1980s?
Morawa, 1965 – 1980?
Mount Barker, 1963 – mid-1980s?
Mukinbudin, 1964 – early 1980s, 1987 – ?
Mullewa, 1966 – 1980s?
Narembeen, 1968 – 1980?
Newman, 1972 – 1986
Norseman, 1967 – 1983?
Northampton, 1965 – 1980s?
Oasis, Geraldton, 1957 – 1985
Odin, Gwelup, 1964 – 1988
Orana, Albany, 1960 – 1991
Ozone, Geraldton, 1964 – 1977?
Pannawonica, 1987? – ?
Panorama, Roleystone, 1956 – 1967
Paraburdoo, 1972 – still open?
Parkline, Forrestfield, 1964 – 1988
Perenjori, 1967 – 1980s?
Pingelly, 1966 – 1986
Pink Lake, Esperance, 1965 – 1985
Port Denison (Dongara), 1966 – still open?
Port Hedland, 1967 – 1986?
Quairading, 1966 – 1990?
Riverline, Riverton, 1969 – 1988
Riverside, East Carnarvon, 1964 – 1980
Rock View, Bruce Rock, 1964 – 1981
Sandstone, 1930s? 1950s?
Satellite, Leonora, 1960 – 1983
Silver Lake, Kambalda, 1969 – 1990s?
Skyline, Floreat Park, 1955 – 1986
South Hedland, 1970? – 1986
Starline, Hilton, 1960 – 1986-8?
Star View, Southern Cross, 1965 – 1984
Strathfield, Katanning, 1961 – late 1970s?
Swanway, Midland, 1964 – 1984
Tammin, 1966 – 1979?
Three Springs, 1967 – 1980s?
Tom Price, 1971 – 1998?
Twilight, Maddington, 1972 – 1980s?
Twin City, Kalgoorlie, 1962 – 1985?
Viewway, Kalgoorlie, 1960 – 1999
Wagin, 1963 – 1983
Waverley, Beckenham, 1964 – 1989
Wirrina, Morley, 1959 – 1980
Wyalkatchem, 1964 – late 1970s?
York, 1968 – late 1970s?

B: Chronological listing (by date of opening – approximate, unless the month is stated)

Mukinbudin?
Koorda?
Wyalkatchem?
Dunsborough 1935?
Agnew 1938?
Sandstone – 1930s? 1950s?
Gosnells, Jan.1955 – ?
Highway, Bentley, Oct.1955 – (twinned 1986) – 1994
Skyline, Floreat Park, Nov.1955 – 1986
Panorama, Roleystone, March? 1956 – 1967
Metro, Innaloo, April 1957 (twinned 1984) – 1993
Lakeway/Oceanview, Swanbourne, April 1957 – 1985
Oasis, Geraldton 1957 – 1985
Melway, Melville, March 1958 – 1985
Mayfair, Bunbury, 1958 – 1985?
Avonway, Northam, 1959 – 1983
Mocardy, Wongan Hills, 1959 – 1980s?
Wirrina, Morley, March 1959 – 1980
Eastway, Belmont, July 1959 – 1985?
Bridgetown, 1960 – 1985
Darlington, 1960?
Dampier, 1960 – ?
Satellite, Leonora, 1960 – 1983
Orana, Albany, 1960 – 1991
Dowerin, 1960 – 1990?
Clayton, Narrogin, 1960 – 1993
Merredin, 1960 – 1992
Mandurah, 1960 – 1989
Viewway, Kalgoorlie, 1960 – 1999
Starline, Hilton, Nov.1960 – 1986-8?
Melody, Kwinana, 1961 – 1985?
Moora, 1961 – late 1980s?
Strathfield, Katanning, 1961 – late 1970s?
Manjimup, 1961 – 1993
Busselton, 1961 – still open?
Collie, 1961 – 1984
Twin City, Kalgoorlie, 1962 – 1985?
Wagin, 1963 – 1983
Harvey, 1963 – 1984
Hillview, Kellerberrin, 1963 – 1985
Cunderdin, 1963 – 1986
Forrest, Bunbury, 1963 – 1986?
Mount Barker, 1963 – mid-1980s?
Broadlands, Carnamah, 1963 – 1983?
Parkline, Forrestfield, Feb.1964 – 1988
Rock View, Bruce Rock, 1964 – 1981
KTY, Trayning, 1964 – 1981
Wyalkatchem, 1964 – late 1970s?
Riverside, East Carnarvon, 1964 – 1980
Central 70, Albany, 1964 – 1983
Boronia, Albany, 1964 – 1967
Bencubbin, 1964 – 1980
Kojonup, 1964 – 1980s?
Kununoppin, 1964 – 1983
Ozone, Geraldton, 1964 – 1977?
Gnowangerup, 1964 – 1980s?
Mukinbudin, 1964 – early 1980s, 1987 – ?
Odin, Gwelup, Dec.1964 – 1988
Waverley, Beckenham, Dec.1964 – 1989
Swanway, Midland, 17 Dec.1964 – 1984
Morawa, 1965 – 1980?
Star View, Southern Cross, 1965 – 1984
Koorda, 1965 – 1983, 1987 – ?
Mingenew, 1965 – 1984
Northampton, 1965 – 1980s?
Denmark, 1965 – early 1980s
Beverley, 1965 – 1975
Corrigin, 1965 – 1983
Margaret River, 1965 – still open?
Bluff Point, Geraldton, 1965 – 1988
Pink Lake, Esperance, 1965 – 1985
Kulin, 1966 – 1983?
Mullewa, 1966 – 1980s?
Pingelly, 1966 – 1986
Port Denison (Dongara), 1966 – still open?
Tammin, 1966 – 1979?
Armadale/Daleline, Aug./Dec.? 1966 – 1984
Esperance Drive-in, 1966 – 1986
Kondinin, 1966 – 1980s?
Quairading, 1966 – 1990?
Port Hedland,1967 – 1986?
Glenway, Balga 1967 – 1985
Norseman, 1967 – 1983?
Goldsworthy, 1967 – mid-1980s
Perenjori, 1967 – 1980s?
Three Springs, 1967 – 1980s?
Dalwallinu, 1967 – 1983
Exmouth, 1967 – 1982?
Narembeen, 1968 – 1980?
York, 1968 – late 1970s?
Riverline, Riverton, 1 Apr.1969 – 1988
Silver Lake, Kambalda, 1969 – 1990s?
South Hedland, 1970? – 1986
Hillcrest, Lake Grace, 1970? – 1986
Tom Price, 1971 – 1998?
Beechline, Beechboro, Feb.1971 or 1972 – 1985?
Karratha, 1972 – 1985
Paraburdoo, 1972 – still open?
Newman, 1972 – 1986
Twilight, Maddington, 1972 – 1980s?
Galaxy, Kingsley, 1973 (still open)
Moonline, Wanneroo, Sept.1974 – 1988
Marmion, Jan.1975 – 1984
Hyden, 1975 – 1985
Leinster, 1977 – 1982?, 1985 – still operating
Aceway, Morley, 1980 – 1988
Hearson’s Cove 1, 1980 – 1988
Hearson’s Cove 2, 1984 – 1988
Pannawonica 1987?

C: Listing by type (109 venues – Gosnells listed twice because it began with broadcast sound, then installed speakers)
Pre-drive-ins (broadcast sound): total = 14: 6 before World War ll, 2 in suburbs in 1950s and 1960s, 6 mixed venues in mining areas in 1960s – 1980s

Mukinbudin?
Koorda?
Wyalkatchem?
Dunsborough, 1935?
Agnew, 1938?
Sandstone, 1930s? 1950s?
Gosnells, Jan.1955
Darlington, 1960?
Dampier, 1960
Goldsworthy, 1967 – mid-1980s
Tom Price, 1971 – 1998?
Paraburdoo, 1972 – still open?
Hearson’s Cove 1, 1980 – 1988
Hearson’s Cove 2, 1984 – 1988
Conventional drive-ins: total = 96
Suburbs: (24)
Gosnells, Jan.1955 – ?
Highway, Bentley, Oct.1955 – (twinned 1986) – 1994
Skyline, Floreat Park, Nov.1955 – 1986
Panorama, Roleystone, March? 1956 – 1967
Metro, Innaloo, April 1957 (twinned 1984) – 1993
Lakeway/Oceanview, Swanbourne, April 1957 – 1985
Melway, Melville, March 1958 – 1985
Wirrina, Morley, March 1959 – 1980
Eastway, Belmont, July 1959 – 1985?
Starline, Hilton, Nov.1960 – 1986-8?
Melody, Kwinana, 1961 – 1985?
Parkline, Forrestfield, Feb.1964 – 1988
Odin, Gwelup, Dec.1964 – 1988
Waverley, Beckenham, Dec.1964 – 1989
Swanway, Midland, 17 Dec.1964 – 1984
Armadale/Daleline Aug./Dec.? 1966 – 1984
Glenway, Balga 1967 – 1985
Riverline, Riverton, 1 Apr.1969 – 1988
Twilight, Maddington, 1972 – 1980s?
Beechline, Beechboro, Feb.1971 or 1972 – 1985?
Galaxy, Kingsley, 1973 (still open)
Moonline, Wanneroo, Sept.1974 – 1988
Marmion, Jan.1975 – 1984
Aceway, Morley, 1980 – 1988
Country (72)
Community (1)
Moora, 1961 – late 1980s?
Shire Council land, operator invited in: (1)
Exmouth 1967 – 1982?
Shire built, leased to operator: (7)
Rock View, Bruce Rock 1964 – 1981
Morawa 1965 – 1980?
Star View, Southern Cross 1965 – 1984
Koorda, 1965 – 1983, 1987 – ?
Kulin 1966 – 1983?
Tammin 1966 – 1979?
Norseman 1967 – 1983?
Shire Council land, operator leased and built: (16)
Bridgetown, 1960 – 1985
Satellite, Leonora, 1960 – 1983
Mount Barker, 1963 – mid-1980s?
Broadlands, Carnamah, 1963 – 1983?
KTY, Trayning 1964 – 1981
Wyalkatchem, 1964 – late 1970s?
Mingenew, 1965 – 1984
Northampton, 1965 – 1980s?
Denmark, 1965 – early 1980s
Mullewa, 1966 – 1980s?
Pingelly, 1966 – 1986
Port Denison (Dongara), 1966 – still open?
Perenjori, 1967 – 1980s?
Three Springs, 1967 – 1980s?
Dalwallinu, 1967 – 1983
Narembeen, 1968 – 1980?
Commercial operator (bought land) (44)
Oasis, Geraldton, 1957 – 1985
Mayfair, Bunbury, 1958 – 1985?
Avonway, Northam, 1959 – 1983
Mocardy, Wongan Hills, 1959 – 1980s?
Orana, Albany, 1960 – 1991
Dowerin, 1960 – 1990?
Clayton, Narrogin, 1960 – 1993
Merredin, 1960 – 1992
Mandurah, 1960 – 1989
Viewway, Kalgoorlie, 1960 – 1999
Strathfield, Katanning, 1961 – late 1970s?
Manjimup, 1961 – 1993
Busselton, 1961 – still open?
Collie, 1961 – 1984
Twin City, Kalgoorlie, 1962 – 1985?
Wagin, 1963 – 1983
Harvey, 1963 – 1984
Hillview, Kellerberrin, 1963 – 1985
Cunderdin, 1963 – 1986
Forrest, Bunbury, 1963 – 1986?
Riverside, East Carnarvon, 1964 – 1980
Central 70, Albany, 1964 – 1983
Boronia, Albany, 1964 – 1967
Bencubbin, 1964 – 1980
Kojonup, 1964 – 1980s?
Kununoppin, 1964 – 1983
Ozone, Geraldton, 1964 – 1977?
Gnowangerup, 1964 – 1980s?
Mukinbudin, 1964 – early 1980s, 1987 – ?
Beverley, 1965 – 1975
Corrigin, 1965 – 1983
Margaret River, 1965 – still open?
Bluff Point, Geraldton, 1965 – 1988
Pink Lake, Esperance, 1965 – 1985
Esperance Drive-in, 1966 – 1986
Kondinin, 1966 – 1980s?
Quairading, 1966 – 1990?
Port Hedland Drive-in, 1967 – 1986?
York, 1968 – late 1970s?
South Hedland, 1970? – 1986
Hillcrest, Lake Grace, 1970? – 1986
Karratha, 1972 – 1985
Newman, 1972 – 1986
Hyden, 1975 – 1985
Mining companies (see also pre-drive-ins) (3)
Silver Lake, Kambalda 1969 – 1990s?
Leinster 1977 – 1982?, 1985 – still operating
Pannawonica 1987 (or earlier?)

Endnotes

[1] Peter Hughes personal email, 25 Jan.2003. I am also indebted to Peter in many other sections of this paper, where his comments were invaluable.
[2] The first national handbook covered the years from federation in 1901 to 1907, after which they were issued annually. For Western Australia, Vol.1 covered 1896-7, and subsequent volumes (prepared later by the Commonwealth Bureau of Statistics) were issued annually.
[3] Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics, Official Year Book of Western Australia, new series, vol.14, 1975, p.63
[4] There are also rumours of very early drive-ins with broadcast sound in Sandstone, Mukinbudin, Koorda, and Wyalkatchem, but the evidence is far less substantial than that for Agnew and Dunsborough.
[5] Television: A World Survey, UNESCO Report on the Facilities of Mass Communication, Paris 1953, pp.57-60
[6] Amongst many such sources, this argument is clearly expressed by Gerald Mast in A Short History of the Movies, 3rd edition, Bobbs-Merrill Educational Publishing, Indianapolis, 1981, pp.262-267
[7] Other mining towns where such mixed venues were constructed, with broadcast sound and provision for both seated patrons and cars, were Dampier (1960), Goldsworthy (1967), Tom Price (1971) and Paraburdoo (1972). Conventional drive-ins, with cars on ramps with individual speakers, were constructed for mining communities at Kambalda (1969), Leinster (1972) and Pannawonica (1977).
[8] It was introduced for one trial year, but was unpopular enough that the government decided to put the proposal to the people. Subsequently, referendums on 8 Mar. 1975, 7 Apr. 1984 and 4 Apr. 1992 all rejected the proposal (see Western Australian Electoral Commission, http://www.waec.wa.gov.au – ‘Historical information’), and it was never again implemented.
[9] Information from longtime Morley resident Mat Edwards:
Hello Ina
Just reading your webpage on the history of Drive-ins in WA.
http://www.latrobe.edu.au/screeningthepast/19/drive-ins-WA.html
Excellent work, I must say. Just one thing though. In the second last paragraph under the heading “Issues of management and ownership…”, you mention that “The commercial operators, whether suburban or rural, sold the land when they could. Suburban operators sometimes made large profits, when the land could be sold for housing (like the Highway, Bentley), public use (like the Skyline at Floreat Park, which was bought by the Shire of Cambridge for its new Shire Offices), or other commercial developments (like the Aceway, Morley, which provided the site for a shopping complex).”
The reference to the Aceway drive-in in Morley not quite accurate. The shopping centre that you have made reference to was actually built next to the drive-in site (on the northern side), not on it as such. The shopping centre opened just before drive-in closed. Basically, the drive-in comprised of all the land from the north side of Incanna Place to the filtration station (opposite Devonshire Street) and from Beechboro Road to Redgum Way.
Just for interest, the Aceway Drive-in site is one of the few, that I have seen, where evidence of the drive-in still exists. There are three landmarks that identify its location.
Firstly, directly behind the screen of the Aceway Drive-in was a row of yellow/green leafed trees. I think there were about 10 in all planted around a metre from the back of the screen and along its length. Today, if you head South along Beechboro road away from the shopping centre (towards Morley Drive), there is a house about four or five along (after the turnoff to the shopping centre on Beechboro Road) that has three evenly placed identical trees about 2 to 2.5 metres in height (recently pruned) in its front yard. These trees are all that remain of the original line of trees and mark the exact location where the screen at the drive-in once stood.
Secondly, Incana Place. Incana Place, which runs along the north side of the shopping centre, was originally constructed to link the drive-in’s alternative exit gates (these gates were opened at the end of the night so that traffic had an alternative exit point to the main entrance) to Beechboro Road. The gates to the drive-in were located roughly where Incana Place intersects with Marks Place.
Finally, in Redgum Way (at the Eastern end of the site) there is a small building just south of the retirement village; I think it is a small community centre of some sort. This building previously housed the facilities (candy bar, projection rooms ticket box, etc) for the drive in. The exterior of the building is largely unchanged since its days as a drive-in.
Finally, as I recall, there is a direct connection between the Ace-Way Drive-in and the Wirrina Drive-in. The Wirrina Drive-in once stood where the Car park (Eastern Side of Myer), Collier Road and Shops along the Eastern side of Collier Road now stand. The connection is that Ace-Way Drive-in was commissioned as a replacement for the Wirrina Drive-in, hence the closure of the Wirrina Drive-in and the opening of the Aceway Drive-in in the same year, 1980. I seem to recall that the Aceway Drive-in was built by the people who owned the Wirrina Drive-in.
The Wirrina Drive-in was on land that was earmarked for the site of a new large scale shopping centre in the area. The planning for this began in the mid to late seventies and involved linking the three existing shopping hubs to form one shopping centre. The hubs were Morley City shopping Centre (Target end of the Galleria), Kmart/Coles Building (only the K-mart part remains) and Boans Shopping Centre (roughly where Myer is now, although it was within a few metres of Walter Road).
The shopping centre was due to be constructed in the early 1980s, but disagreements between the key players over location, design and the need to divert and close major roads and move a reasonably large amount of infrastructure (i.e. several service stations; Woolworths – which stood where the main entrance to the Galleria shopping centre building is now; Bus Depot; Morley Square Shopping Centre and Specialist Centre etc) delayed construction until mid 1993. The Galleria Shopping centre is the result.
The acquisition of the Wirrina Drive-In site was the first step of many that lead to the eventual construction of the Galleria Shopping Centre. The site was earmarked as the location for a diverted Collier Road (Collier Road originally ran in a straight line and changed name at the intersection of Walter Road. The remaining stretch of the original road to the east of Walter Road is now called Old Collier Road), a commercial development and parking for the shopping centre. The result is what we see at the corner of Collier Road and Walter Road today.
Just though I would share this with you.
Regards
Mat
[10] Tess Nekrasov to Ina Bertrand, email 26 August 2002
[11] I would have liked to include a list here of venues still operating, but this proved impossible, mainly because so many operate seasonally and/or sporadically. Even the information on the web-site may well be out-of-date, as I am reliant on communications from members of the public and the trade to keep abreast of developments.

Created on: Monday, 13 March 2006 | Last Updated: 26-Apr-09

About the Author

Ina Bertrand

About the Authors


Ina Bertrand

Ina Bertrand is Principal Fellow, Cinema Programme, School of Culture and Communication, University of Melbourne, Australia. She was foundation editor of Screening the Past.View all posts by Ina Bertrand →