Theater of pain

RWF

5 years ago

Looks like nobody was injured in this mishap except the marquee.

Route 128 Drive-In, Burlington MA — Looks like nobody was injured in this mishap except the marquee.

The Loew’s 128 Drive-In movie theater is now the Burlington Crossroads shopping center at 34 Cambridge Street. As soon as the theater opened in 1954, and even before it opened, it provided plenty of real-life drama that probably exceeded anything on the movie screen. Look at these entries from the 1954 Burlington police blog.

HOLLYWOOD CLIFFHANGER — A worker rappels along the 128 Drive-In screen to wash it off.

Here’s the affiliated drive-in on Route 3A and Cook Street in Billerica. The entrance is now home to Steve’s Pinehurst Tavern, and the theater area is now an unexciting office park behind the tavern.

Pinehurst, Billerica during the early 70s gas crisis (Jeff Benrimo photo). The drive-in screen is visible on the left in the distance. Below, the same spot today.

So what happened to drive-in movie theaters? They fell victim to soaring cost of property in populous areas, the rise of comfy mall-based theaters with shopping as an attractive sideshow, and the advent of cable TV, and the challenge of poor weather, and the lousy sound quality, and the cost of high-resolution projectors demanded by the industry. And now even indoor theaters are under pressure from Netflix. Movie theaters are doomed, inside or outside!