Drive-in movies have gone through many ups and downs since the first theater opened in Camden, New Jersey, on June 6, 1933. After a slow beginning, the popularity of the drive-in theater skyrocketed in the 1950s. There were more than 4,000 of them across the country in 1958 before they began to decline decades later.
Almost since their inception, drive-ins have been associated with schlock. First-run movies stuck to indoor theaters that screened all day, so drive-ins played B-movies. Many of the most memorable titles from that era were sci-fi movies, and audiences could often catch a nighttime double feature of these cheesy flicks, distasteful horror pics, and the like.