Exton Drive-In
137 W. Lincoln Highway,
Exton,
PA
19341
137 W. Lincoln Highway,
Exton,
PA
19341
3 people
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Closed on October 5, 1984 with “Last House On The Left” and “Impulse” as its last films.
if you look at video of philly group the hooters and we danced that was filmed at exton drive inn yayyyy dance dance
July 11th, 1956 grand opening ad in the photo section.
You can see a copy of the ad on my facebook page
https://www.facebook.com/AbandonedDeadMovie/
Yes, I just checked it was 1968. I found an ad from the Philadelphia Inquirer.
https://books.google.com/books?id=plztfOxO1HoC&pg=PA208&lpg=PA208&dq=Walter+Reade+Continental+Films&source=bl&ots=jWtTrSFXPr&sig=tacvLA6T1I15_MDPB42unCuepZM&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwin_KTu35vMAhUS2mMKHQYiDbwQ6AEIOzAG#v=onepage&q=Walter%20Reade%20Continental%20Films&f=false
Sorry Marc. My bad. Memory fades as you get older.
NOLD was released on October 1, 1968 and not 1969 so there may have been playdates in summer of 1969. I saw it around Halloween (or shortly thereafter) in Reading PA in 1968 and not 1969.
I know NOLD sometime either in 1969 or 1970 on the bottom half of a double bill with Tod Browning’s Freaks. Then still later around 1972 (I think) as the bottom half of a double bill with ‘Slaves’ which was also released by Walter Reade’s Continential Films.
Muviebuf – thanks for this reply – hopefully someone out there might have a movie ad for the Exton drive-in when NOLD played there – I remember it was very hot that evening if I recall so it must have been Summer. Maybe it was the Summer of 1970? The drive in was a perfect place for one of these kind of movies – especially with cornfields and old farmhouses nearby!
Mark C – you wont find any advertisements for Night of the Living Dead from the summer of 1969. NOLD was not released to theatres until October 1, 1969 with the premiere held in Pittsburg PA area where it was filmed.
The initial release of NOLD was very spotty due to its being handled by the Walter Reade Organizations’s Continental Films who really had no idea what they had on their hands nor what to do with it. Because I knew some people involved with the audio production on the film I went out of my way to see NOLD as soon as I could.
I first saw NOLD about two weeks before Halloween in October 1969 at the Embassy Theatre in downtown Reading PA on the bottom half of a double bill with ‘The Fiendish Ghouls’. Fiendish Ghouls was a re-cut and retitled version of the 1960 British film about grave robbers Burk and Hare called ‘Flesh and the Fiends’ and starred Peter Cushing.
Many great memories of this Drive-In for me. I saw many movies here for the first time as a kid. One of my fondest memories was watching the movies from the backyard of my father’s rented apartment just behind the theater during long summer nights in Exton. I also saw George Romero’s classic Night of the Living Dead here in 1969, with my mother, and it scared me to death.
[Many years later I would direct Night of the Living Dead’s star ‘Judith O'Dea’ in my own horror film, ‘Abandoned Dead.’]
Truth is stranger than fiction.
Would love to find the original newspaper ads for Night of the Living Dead from the Summer of ‘69.
If anyone has any photos of the Exton Drive In please share here.
Mark W. Curran Los Angeles, CA.
April 2016
I’m looking for one or two vintage pictures of the Exton Drive In for a vintage picture book of West Whiteland Township that I am working on. My deadline is fast approaching. Please contact me if you may be able to e-mail me a picture or two that I could use (high-resolution). I would give you contribution credit along under the caption. Thank You.
I grew up in Exton during the 1950s and 60s – and spent a lot of time at this place, both as one of four kids my parents used to take here for movies during the summer, and as a kid running around the property. I knew the family that lived at the Rt 30 end of the long driveway, the Gannons – and my other buddies Steve Ashbridge and Ted Rogers lived within spitting distance, too. Speaking of spitting, Steve and I climbed up the back of the screen one summer day when I was about 12 or 13, and had fun spitting over the edge, as 12 year old boys are wont to do. Until the manager saw us up there and hollered at us to come down. Got in a bit of trouble..not too much, just enough to chasten both of us.
Approx. address for this drive-in was 137 West Lincoln Highway. The box office was actually closer to Hwy 100 due to the very long driveway.
Thanks ronnie21.
1985…. was the video..
Exton Drive-in was razed for a Shopping Center called Whiteland Towne Center.
View link
If you look at the map of the center by typing it into , say, Google Earth, it essentially takes up the exact footprint of the original drive-in.
View link
“The Hooters” (a band from the 80’s) filmed a music video (And We Danced) there that features the marquee at the beginning of the video which is from the Rt 30 entrance.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOoU_0PAKoI
There was also an entrance from Rt 100, which is the narrow section of property you will notice on the gray outline of the property on a map.
The video shows EXACTLY what the Drive-in looked like til the day it was closed. All of it was shot on site in one evening. People wanted to leave as filming pressed on late into the evening and some individuals became very agitated, not understanding how long it takes to do a shoot. In the end, it was a nicely made music video and a great archive of a part of the history for our area, although most people don’t know about this video or the drive-in, since it has been gone for 20 years.
Barry DiLibero
www.usflagballoon.com
It looks like this theater was built in the early 1950s, according to this suit:
This action was commenced in 1956 when Exton Drive-In, Inc. (Exton) filed a complaint in assumpsit against The Home Indemnity Co. (Home) seeking damages under a performance bond in which Home and W. Arnold Blythe (Blythe) had bound themselves jointly and severally to Exton in the sum of $52,000. The bond was conditioned on the full and prompt performance by Blythe of a contract between him and Exton for the grading and paving of a site for an out-door motion picture theater. Exton alleged that this contract had not been fully and promptly performed and claimed damages in the amount of $42,500, being the profits allegedly lost because of delay in performance plus the estimated cost of remedying the defects in performance. Because the bond was a joint undertaking of Blythe as principal and Home as surety, Home impleaded Blythe as an additional defendant asserting joint and several liability. In his answer to the third party complaint, Blythe denied that he had breached the contract and brought a counterclaim against Exton for the unpaid balance of the contract price and for payment for certain additional work he had performed, allegedly at the request of Exton.
The case came on for trial before a judge sitting without a jury in May, 1960. Not until June, 1967, over seven years after the trial was completed did the judge enter his decision in this case. This decision was in the form of a verdict in favor of defendants Home and Blythe on plaintiff’s original complaint and a verdict for Blythe on his counterclaim against Exton in the sum of $ 13,692.49; there were no findings of fact or conclusions of law. Exton filed numerous exceptions to this decision, which were overruled by the court en banc in June, 1968. This appeal followed. Not until April 18, 1969, seventeen days before this appeal was argued, did the trial judge file an opinion explaining the overruling of Exton’s exceptions.
I also worked at the Budco Twin cinema from 92-94. I was only 14 when they hired me, it was the only job I could get. By them it was an AMC theater and already on it’s way to being ripped down. Budcoboy71, do you have any pictures of that theater that used to be next to Kmart? I’ve still got friends I met while working there 15 years ago.
My family moved to Downingtown in 1987. In 1993, after graduating highschool, I worked for Hechinger, which was part of the shopping center that now occupies the land of the former theater.
In the late 80’s, in HS, I worked at the Budco Twin Cinema in Exton — on the opposite east side of Rt. 100 — near Exton Mall & K-Mart. This was after the drive-in closed, but before they demolished it to build a shopping center. A local (West Chester PA) rock/pop group in the 80’s called The Hooters, who gained national notoriety with a video on MTV, filmed part of one of their videos (And She Danced), on the grounds of the closed Exton Drive-In. My uncles (who ride motorcylces) were actually in the video. Kind of interesting.