WOODLAND- It was 75 years ago when the first the neon marquee lit up and the first ticket booth opened its window for visitors at the Super 322 Drive-In, located along state Route 322 near Woodland.
The drive in, originally built and operated by the Grants family, has seen different owners and many changes over the years, but one thing has remained, fun family entertainment at a fair price.
Currently owned and operated by Bill and Barb Frankhouser, who are the fifth owners, the theater has withstood the fate of far too many drive-in theaters.
At one time there were over 4,000 such theaters across the United States, but now there are about 487, according to the United Drive-In Theater Owners Association, with Pennsylvania boasting the most with 41, and there are even some in other countries.
The 21st century has actually seen a resurgence of the format, with 2020 and 2021 being peak years. And new technology has allowed for different and sometimes better viewing experiences.
Still, 75 years is unusual, and the Frankhousers will be the first to tell you how lucky the area is to have this particular theater still in operation.
Bill began his career with movies as a teenager when his father taught him how to operate the projectors at The Ritz, something he said he was technically not supposed to do because of union rules.
Then one day one of the other theaters in town (at one time Clearfield boasted three movie theaters) needed help and Bill was sent over to help out. From there it was getting his apprenticeship and taking the test and soon he was a full-fledged projectionist.
He has worked all over the area in movie theaters and drive-ins, from State College to Altoona and even went to Mifflintown to help get things up and running there after flooding during Hurricane Agnes.
“I just fell in love with drive-ins,” he says.
Eventually he became engaged to Barb and returned to Clearfield, working for the sheriff’s department for three years before moving onto PennDOT, but always keeping his fingers in the movie business, coming to the Super 322 when Frank Royer and Joe Favazza purchased it, with Barb eventually jumping in as a ticket seller.
“I always figured we would end up with it,” Bill remarks.
They had joined UDIOTA and would travel around to visit other drive-in theaters to see how they operated, and over time collected ideas they would eventually start to implement.
The Frankhousers do not keep any of the profits from the drive-in. Instead, they use that money for the benefit of the theater whether to make much needed repairs or to make desired upgrades.
“Most people don’t know that we get very little money from ticket sales,” Bill explains. The movie studios take most of the money, and so theaters depend on their snack bars to keep things running, and it takes a lot of work, and the unexpected has a way of happening.
For example, only a few short weeks after purchasing the theater in 2001 a tractor-trailer crashed into the marquee, and with no advertising they had a terrible year as far as sales went, and so the money set aside to upgrade the ticket office and snack bar went into a new marquee.
As it turned out, it was a fortuitous event as they worked with Neon Exposure who helped to create not only a beautiful sign for the new (and extremely solid) building for the marquee, they also helped restore an old sign on the fence and created signs for Barb’s new ticket booth.
The current sign is the second one after the first rusted. Bill said, “Dave’s such an artist when it come’s to neon, we just let him run with it.”
The snack bar has seen upgrades, as has the kitchen, but the biggest upgrade and one that gave nightmares to theater owners across the nation, was the digital upgrade. But eventually that, too, was accomplished.
This year, they would like to steam clean the screen and then repaint it, which takes special paint, and the fence needs work and repainting, the field needs to be graded again after years of wear.
And the Frankhousers believe that, while it has often been tough, it has been well worth all their efforts as well as those from their staff.
Barb noted how more and more young people come to the theater now, often arriving separately and then parking together and enjoying the experience.
And they see a lot of people from other states and even other countries, including Israel, France, China, the Czech Republic and many more.
“We just love drive-ins,” Bill says, adding that all the work they are doing now is to benefit today’s theater goers and also set it up so that the theater is still operational long after he and Barb are gone.
They have done their best to document every step of renovations so that others have something to refer to.
They have pictures of the theater’s past and have pieced together much of it’s history and are always interested in any stories people might have about the theater.
In addition to showing this summer’s latest films, the theater will be hosting a visit from actor Butch Patrick who played Eddie Munster from the hit television show The Munsters, on June 23.
