Rob Price
Gutbrain Records
rob + gutbrain.com = email

2010 August 06 • Friday

Happy birthday, Robert Mitchum!

One South Carolina operator split his films between X-rated soft porn and religious-type material sich as The Robe, The Sign of the Cross and The Ten Commandments. Anything with Elvis Presley was also a guaranteed big draw. Owner Terry Holman said:

The Pentecostals will line up for Pat Boone's "The Cross and the Switchblade" and anything with an Art Linkletter voice-over. But then there's a lot of folks down here who would just as soon see what Linda Lovelace is doing, too. You want to know the best drive-in movie ever made? Thunder Road. Don't ask me why. Maybe it's the chases, maybe it's Robert Mitchum. But it's a doorbuster. I could bring it in tomorrow and I'd be packed.

—Kerry Segrave, Drive-In Theaters: A History from Their Inception in 1933, 1992