Minnesota's drive-in movie era fades to black

Drive-in movies were once a staple of small-town Minnesota summer life, according to Bob Collins of MPR, reporting from Litchfield, Minn.

In the 1950s, there were nearly 80 across the state. Now, there are only six, including the Starlite and screens in Elko, Long Prairie, Warren, Lake Elmo and Luverne, Collins writes in an online article for MPR.

Collins reports that Dave Quincer's family once owned the Prairie Drive-in in Perham, Minn. That closed in 1987. Their Wadena drive-in went black in 1989 after the anxiety got to be too much for Quincer's dad.

Quincer is a fourth-generation theater owner who comes by his worry honestly. He's managed to keep the films rolling, but Hollywood's demands and the changing economics of movies are making it nearly impossible for drive-ins like his to survive.

Quincer, 53, has been pouring money into the Starlite since he bought it a few years ago. He knows one of the projectors is bound to give up the fight one of these nights.

Collins says Quincer wouldn't have bought the place if the ancient projectors, which required a projectionist and the splicing of huge reels of film, hadn't already been replaced with digital equipment — a demand by Hollywood studios that turned thousands of drive-ins into Walmarts. But they're old now, and the projector needs a new motherboard and software update. That's a $4,000 fix.

"I used to play on the floor of the ticket booth while my dad sold tickets," Dave says. "To me, being at the drive-in in the summer was a fun thing. My dad was always working so if I wanted to see him, I needed to work there."

The family had a cabin by the lake in Perham, too. So, whoever worked at the drive-in got to stay at the lake.

As the drive-ins closed, the Quincer family kept only The Cozy, an inside theater in Wadena, which his son, Matt, runs on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays when Dave, his wife, Lynn, and their son, Thomas, drive 100 miles each day to Litchfield to keep a cultural icon alive.

Collins reports that when the Starlite came on the market for $70,000, the Quincer i family held a vote. "I was the only one to vote 'no,'" Lynn Quincer said. with good reason: it's a And two-hour-plus ride from Wadena, often late at night when deer rule the road.

Lynn Quincer knows the theater business. She met her husband when they were teenagers; she worked the concession stand. That's how Quincer's parents met. That's how his grandparents met, too.

There's always time for a little worry in the drive-in theater business. With Litchfield, like much of Minnesota, in the grips of a heat wave, Collins reports people might decide to stay indoors. And then there's that cold front heading Litchfield's way.

"It's all weather dependent; if we get rain at 5, even if the sun is out at 8, people have already decided," Quincer says.

The competition is also fierce, he said. The same movie is playing at the Hollywood theater, a venue with ties to the Starlite. Fred and Lloyd Schnee opened the Starlite on June 28, 1956. They owned the Hollywood on Litchfield's main street.

"If you had a theater in town, you didn't want someone in town building a drive-in to compete with you," Quincer said.

At one point, there were five screens at the Starlite, but the Schnees sold the place in 1976. It closed five years later and stayed closed until Minneapolis resident Tim Eller, who made his living in the theater projector installation business, reopened it 17 years later, selling it to Quincer in 2015.

"Tim was going to close the place if he didn't find a buyer," he said. "There's six drive-ins left in Minnesota, and there's a generation of people who haven't experienced it."

The studios get a cut of the box office — half or more — but he'll get enough cars to at least break even or better, unlike his recent test to open on Thursdays. Few people showed up. The Starlite is closed on Thursdays now.

"There's so many aspects of this business I can't control. People complain about mosquitoes," he says. "I'm surrounded by farm fields that are full of drainage ditches and water with all this rain."

By midnight, the snack bar is clean, the second feature is halfway done, a colleague is keeping an eye on things, and the family piles into the SUV for the drive back to Wadena.