Saturday, February 18, 2012

Three Simple Theaters

Mendon, Michigan

After photographing the colorful Capri theater in very early morning light I headed west for two theaters I'd researched online but had not been able to make contact with ahead of time. On the way, I ran into this derelict theater on the highway in Mendon. The morning light was still really nice and I made b&w 8x10 pictures and digital captures.

Dowagiac, Michigan

The 5-Mile Drive-in Theater is neat and clean but plain and simple. Except for the strange stonework component of the marquee. It had closed for the season just a week earlier, and would seem to be related to another theater not far away in Hartford, MI.

Dowagiac, Michigan

There were no speaker poles, and no instructions at the ticket booth about tuning to a short range FM broadcast, but there were large speakers mounted on top of the single screen and on stanchions at the back of the field. It's rare for a theater to rely on loudspeakers but this is a small field with no nearby neighbors so I think that's what's going on.

Dowagiac, Michigan

Strange to see a drive-in field without any speaker poles at all, not even empty ones to help with parking. There are those big loudspeakers at the top of the screen. The playground equipment is a nice touch as well. This used to be standard but insurance and liability problems have made playground equipment a rarity.

Hartford, Michigan

The Sunset is also well kept and just about as simple as you can get.

2 comments:

lyle said...

Carl, looking at the photography of the Mendon DI, and thinking about other, now out of operation DI's you have photographed, it seems that the sound poles, projection booths, fences always seem to have been taken down, but the screen remains. Is this accurate? And if so, any explanation?

Carl Weese said...

Lyle, that's not always the case, but can be. I'd guess that the poles and especially projection equipment has resale value. The screen tends to be very sturdily build—otherwise it would be knocked down by the wind, and that happens a lot even with well-built towers. In interviews, several owners have told me about trying to buy the screen of a theater that was going out of business and realizing that it would just be much too difficult and costly to dismantle, move down the highway, and rebuild. This may be why most new-builds or replacement screens are no longer the fanciful wood and metal towers but the functional, plain, ubiquitous Selby structures.