The Twilight Drive-In...

I wonder how many "kids" today have never experienced a Drive-In Movie Theater.  By kids, I mean anyone under 30 years old.  There aren't many "Drive-Ins" around these days and the term is used now to describe a convenient way to bank or pick up dinner.  The Drive-Ins we knew as teenagers were movie theaters and they were opened all year long (at least on weekends).  They were a great place to take a date or just "hang out."  Muhlenberg County had two drive-ins in those "heydays," the same amount as Owensboro and one more than Madisonville and most other communities that even had them.  Unfortunately, we were only big enough for one so the "Sixty-Two" Drive-In came on hard times and closed.  That left the "Twilight."    Both of these theaters were located on Highway 62 (hence the name for the "62" drive in) less than one mile apart.  Although the area is very busy these days, back then they were pretty much out in the country between Central City and Greenville (actually between Central City and Powderly).  The Twilight was owned by the Blincoe family who also happened to own one of the drive-in theaters in Owensboro (where Don Moore Hyundai now sits...across from Towne Square Mall).  The patriarch of the family was a gentleman named J. Wilmer Blincoe.  Mr. Blincoe was a "jack of all trades" at the Twilight where he worked most nights.  It was a family run operation with his wife and kids either selling tickets or working the concession stand.  Mr. Blincoe ran the projector most of the time and while it was operating on it's own, he'd grab his flashlight and wander the row upon row of cars to see if any michief was going on outside..  He couldn't see too much about what was going on "inside" the cars because the windows were usually too "steamed up."  Mr. Blincoe was a pretty "good sized" fellow and he had a "gruffy" voice that matched his exterior.  He didn't take any "bull" and we teenagers knew better than to give any to him.

In those days, movies were simpler than they are today.  Most of them didn't require a lot of thought.  Good always prevailed over evil and the "good guy" always got the girl.  The plot was pretty much the same in all of them.  It didn't matter whether John Wayne was a frontiersman or a calvary officer or a private investigator or a WWII soldier.....he played the same person in about every movie he was in.  Movies had a lot of violence but we didn't really know it.  When someone got "shot," it wasn't very graphic.  They simply fell off their horse or dropped to the floor.  You hardly saw any blood...most of that was saved for fight scenes where someone's lip would always hava a "trickle" of blood coming down their chin.  Guns never ran out of bullets.  Gatlin guns never overheated.  Violence didn't look violent and it was necessary to kill a bad guy (the one with the black horse and black hat) every once in a while to restore civility.  The plot of these movies resembles wrestling matches of today.  The bad guy got away with pretty much anything and everyone knew it except the poor ol' "good guy."  At least it went this way until the end of the movie when the good guy would miracously "win out!"   All movies had a "Climax."  This was usually about ten or fifteen minutes before it ended and it usually involved discovering who a killer was and why they did this evil deed.  This was also time for Mr. Blincoe to finish selling his uneaten popcorn or sodas or other stuff from the concession stand before everyone left.

I remember a movie one night that was a mystery.  The movie had a person get "killed" early in the script and any one of four or five suspects could easily have done it.  Each of them had a motive (the victim was a "jerk!").  The director did a good job of keeping everyone on edge and interested in the movie and the "Climax" was about to arrive.  Just as the detective (I believe he was played by Tony Curtis) was about to "spill the beans," he gathered all of the suspects in a room, along with a few other people.  He announced he had figured out who the killer was and why they did this terrible act.  He stood in the center of the room and said, "I'll tell you who the killer was....It was" ----and about that instant, the sound went off, replaced with a short "squeal" followed by Mr. Blincoe announcing "Folks, we want to remind you that we still have plenty of cold "Chilly Dillys" here at the concession stand and all popcorn is now half-price."    About that time horns starting honking and lights started flashing and engines started cranking.  It nearly caused a riot.  Only the best of "lip readers" knew who the perpetrator was until the very end of the scene when they "handcuffed" him and drug him off.   We never did know exactly why he did it.   This happened at nearly every movie and even though we knew it was going to happen, no one was ever really prepared for it.  Mr. Blincoe had to know from all the honking and lights flashing what kind of reaction it would create, yet he did it anyway.  I wonder if he ever sold a single "Chilly Dilly" (a large full-sized dill pickle) or left over popcorn.  I doubt it.

Sometimes he'd come out in the middle of a movie and announce things like "Folks, next Friday night is special right here at the Twilight....make your plans to be with us.  Live and in person on the roof of the concession stand, next Friday Night, it's "Frank Smith and the Willing Servants!"  Again, when this announcement was made, lights would flash, horns would honk, etc.

Talk about repetitious movies....it seemed that every month Elvis Presley came out with a new movie.  Elvis always played the same character in all of them....only the theme (background and costumes) differed.  He was always a happy go lucky young dude that sang his way around Hawaii or Las Vegas or around a speedway.  The girl always had a mean ol' boyfriend she wanted to leave for Elvis or a boss that was bent on taking over the world.  One thing about his movies though, I never saw him kill anybody....he'd just beat the living crap out of them.  To be such a great singer, his acting abilities left a lot to be desired, but his movies were about the most popular of the day.  I remember his first movie when it was shown at the State Theater downtown.  It was "Love Me Tender" and it's still the longest line I ever remember seeing at any theater for any movie.  The theater seated about three hundred people tops and every showing was a sellout.   They were lined all the way up Broad Street to South Second, around the corner clear back to what is now the Sonic Drive-In.  When you finally got to the ticket booth, Miss. Pauline (remember the red-headed lady that always sold tickets at the State) not only gave you a ticket but you also got a 8"x10" glossy photo of Elvis.  All the girls went "Ga-Ga," and after the scene in the movie where he died, it sounded like a "Coyote Convention" in there.  I never heard so much "howlin'. "

Back in the fifties and sixties, most young women of character had to be home by 11:00 O'clock.  I can remember several times when us guys would tell our parents we were spending the night with one of our buddies (We didn't lie....we just didn't tell them where we were spending it).

There'd be a "dusk to dawn" special at the Twilight so we'd all meet down at the Dairy Maid.  All of us but one person (usually Richard Whitler) would climb in the trunk of a car (really, five or six of us) and head for the Twilight.  Richard would pull up to the ticket booth with the headlights of the car shining up in the air and the back bumper nearly dragging the ground.  We'd hear the lady say "how many?,"  and Richard would say "One," and hand her a dollar.  I'm sure she thought "What kind of a KINKO would go to a drive-in movie by himself?"  He'd then proceed to the back row where he'd pull up beside one of the posts (that held the speakers) and come around and unload the trunk.  We.d turn up the sound and sit on the hood or top and start to watch the movie.   Here'd come Mr. Blincoe with his flashlight.

His daughter (in the ticket booth) suspected something (I wonder why) and telephoned him in the projector booth.  He'd come back there and collect a dollar from the rest of us, usually admonishing us for our dishonesty.  This would happen two or three times a year.

One of the funniest things I remember doing involved a scenario similar to this, only I was the driver.   I had a 1966 Dodge Dart two door.  It was a compact car but had a pretty good-sized trunk.  One night (this was a week-night) some of us were gathered at the Dairy Maid and there wasn't much to do.  There was an "Elvis" movie on at the Twilight so four of us thought it might be fun to go.  We decided to put two in the trunk and the other two would pay to go in.  We felt this wouldn't gather as much suspicion as only one paying.  I was elected to drive and furnish the car, Bucky Roberts would ride in the passenger seat and Richard Whitler and Billy Bruce would ride in the trunk.  They got in the trunk while we were still at the Dairy Maid and when Bucky and I got in the front seats, I "winked" and whispered for him to "play along."  I had an ulterior motive.  Instead of going to the Drive-In, I thought it would be a lot funnier to take them over "thrill hill" at about 70 miles per hour (yeah, I know, I was pretty stupid back then when it came to common sense).  This trick would take a lot of circumstantial "props" if I were to pull it off successfully.

For those of you that don't know where "Thrill Hill" was (and still is, I guess), it was out on Youngstown Road just outside of town.  It was one of those hills like you see in the "Dukes of Hazzard" or "Bullitt" or things like that.  If you hit it just right and at a high enough speed, you could actually have all four wheels leave the ground.  It gave an instantaneous feeling of "weightlessness!"   Anyhow, I left the Dairy Maid and instead of turning right (toward Greenville) on "62,"  I went straight on "431."  The distance to Youngstown was pretty close to the same distance as the Twilight Drive-In was in the other direction.  When I crossed the Western Kentucky Parkway, I gave my left turn signal just like I would have done when preparing to turn into the Twilight.  I told my two captives in the trunk to keep quiet that we were turning into the lane leading to the ticket booth.  Here's where the "circumstantial props" came in.  The Twilight didn't have any paved roads...they were all gravel.  When I turned, I purposely drove on the side of the road (it was mostly gravel, very bumpy) for about a hundred feet (the approximate distance to the theater's ticket booth).  I came to a stop and with a high pitched voice said "How Many?"  I answered myself in my normal voice saying, "Two!"  Using the high pitched voice again, I said "Two Dollars (pause), Thank You."   Going back to my normal voice I asked them if they had a cigarette machine in the concession stand?  In the high pitched voice I said "No, they took it out!"  Once again, in my normal voice I asked if I could go back up to the "Seven-Eleven" right up the road and purchase some cigarettes and get back in, to which she ( I ) answered "sure, just be sure you come back through this lane so I'll know who you are.  You can turn around here and head out."  "Thanks" I said in my normal voice.

I then continued to drive in the gravel for a few more feet while I told the guys in the trunk "Guys, I'm out of cigarettes...I'm going back up to the Seven-Eleven to get some Marlboros."  "Hurry up," they grumbled, "It's hot back here!"   I then stopped (like I was waiting for oncoming traffic) and when I pulled back on the pavement, I "showered it down" like there was no tomorrow!  Soon I had the car up to the required 70 mph.

We hit thrill hill dead center (I knew nothing was coming because there were no oncoming headlight beams over the hill) and we were airborn for about two seconds which seemed like two minutes.  It was pure ecstasy (at least to us in the front seat).  When we hit bottom I heard two series of "bumps."  One was the tires striking the top of the fender pans and the second was the two heads of Richard and Billy hitting the underside of the trunk.  I won't repeat the language I heard that evening but it wasn't angelic so I knew we didn't kill 'em.

"You @#$&^%, let us out of here!" they asked.  "Leave my mother out of this," I told them.  "Cool down and I'll let you out when we get back to town.!   "I'm bleeding" one of them said..."My eye's swollen shut!"   Bucky and I were laughing so hard we couldn't hardly get our breath.  We got back down to the Dairy Maid and I pulled into the lot.  I told Bucky to run towards the Kentucky Grille and I'd run towards the viaduct.  That way we'd be "split up" and had a greater chance of getting away.  I went around behind the car and with my key, opened the trunk, then took off running with all my might!   Billy took off after me so I assume Richard took off after Bucky.  At any rate, they didn't catch us that evening and by the time we came back to the Dairy Maid they had cooled off.  We never went to the movie that night but whatever was on couldn't have been as funny as what happened in real life.

The Twilight Drive-In is gone now as is most other Drive-ins.  There's a multi-screen Drive-In still operating over in Reo, Indiana (just across the bridge at Owensboro) and another in Beaver Dam.  My wife and I belong to a convertible owner's club and we've been planning to go to one of them if we can get everybody together to do it.  Trouble is, with Daylight Savings Time, it doesn't get dark around here in the summer until around 9 p.m. and it's getting tougher to stay up past midnight.  We're still planning on doing it someday though.  This time we'll be legal.  I don't know of anyone our age who could even fit in a trunk if they wanted to, much less four or five of us.  It'll still be fun, I'm sure!