Before Cinemark and AMC were all the rage, some Baton Rouge residents enjoyed watching movies from the seats of their car.
As 225 details in a feature from its new issue, the city was once home to several drive-in theaters. Life-long Baton Rouge resident Mark Mitchell recalls an occasion when he and his friends hid some younger pals in the trunk of a car and snuck them into an R-rated drive-in movie.
“They had these old clunky speakers that you hung on the windows,” Mitchell says, “and they were [really] monotone, always making that ‘wa wa wa’ sound like the adults on Charlie Brown.”
Despite the mediocre sound quality and the constant risk of bad weather, Mitchell says the drive-in movie experience is incomparable to modern movie offerings.
Baton Rouge had several drive-in theaters on Airline Highway, Florida Boulevard and Government Street. Cheers Sports Bar & Grill, La Capitol Federal Credit Union and multi-family residential units now stand in what used to be the Florida Drive-in, Baton Rouge’s first outdoor theater located at 7200 Florida Blvd.
Florida Drive-in opened in December 1941 and closed in early 1976. There was one movie screen and enough parking space for 350 cars.
Seven years after Florida Drive-In opened, The Tiger Drive-In appeared at 6117 Airline Hwy. in 1948. The drive-in theater had two screens and could accommodate 600 cars. The Tiger Drive-In went out of business in mid-1978.
On Government Street, in February 1952, Rebel Drive-In opened in the area were Superior Grill, Shoppers Value Food and Baton Rouge Community College are now located The one-screen theater had enough space to accommodate 500 cars. Michael Anderson’s Around the World in 80 Days, which debuted in 1956, was among the movies shown there.
Read the full feature and learn about Baton Rouge’s other drive-in theaters, including Showtown Twin Drive-in and Airline Drive-In. Send your comments to editors@225batonrouge.com.
