Drive-in Blues.

• Author: Rothenberg, Robert S.

This affectionate look back at a dying breed--the drive-in the-ater--is long on nostalgia, though short on substance. The video depicts the rise of an industry stemming from the first drive-in built in 1933 in Camden, N.J., at the heart of the Depression. In its post-World War II heyday, there were more than 5,000 screens nationwide as Americans discovered suburbia and cars began to roll off the assembly lines again. It then depends on testimony from last-ditch survivors--owners trying to eke out one more season for what had become a dinosaur as television and increasing demands for the land the drive-ins stood on to build housing...