Amid the rosy glow of taillights and the crackle of a 1950s big-band tune, you could be forgiven for not realizing what year it is on a Saturday night at Bengies Drive-In Theatre.
Nostalgia beckons at Maryland’s sole drive-in theater, a Middle River mainstay.
Every evening, before the first of two movies premiere, the crowd stands at attention as “The Star-Spangled Banner” plays over FM 105.3 and the mono broadcast on AM 830. Cartoon depictions of the Battle of Fort McHenry during the War of 1812 dance across the largest outdoor movie theater screen in the U.S. (That’s 52 feet high by 120 feet wide, for reference.)
Even the theater’s name, Bengies, is a nod to a 20th century hamlet nearby.
Last weekend, around dusk, the 70-year-old institution was packed with families, couples and cinephiles in pickup truck beds, SUV trunks and camping chairs outside sedans, eager to catch a double feature of “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” on its opening weekend and “Toy Story 5.” The line for the retro snack bar wrapped around the building.
Read More
Other than the movie titles on the marquee, very little has changed over the years, said owner D. Edward Vogel.
“I fell into it,” said Vogel, explaining that his father, Jack Vogel, and uncles, Paul and Hank, built the drive-in.
It opened on June 6, 1956, two years before D. Vogel was born. Now 68, he took over in 1987. After managing another theater and a stint as a car salesman, the family business kept calling his name.
Reflecting on Bengies’ 70th anniversary, Vogel said he hopes to pass the torch to his protégé and part-owner, Ken Adam, who started working the concession stand as a 15-year-old in 1996.
“It’s a unique experience you can’t get anywhere else in Maryland,” Adam, 45, said. “People create traditions here. You can’t really create a tradition streaming at home.”
From ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ to Marvel
Faith Carper remembers the first movie she saw at Bengies: “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” in 1982.
Carper, who grew up in Baltimore, was seven.
“My mom did not filter,” she said, laughing.
Now, some forty-odd years later, Carper and her boyfriend, Brian Freels, bring their 15-year-old son Chase to the drive-in at least twice a year.
On Saturday, two of Chase’s friends, brothers Larry and Ashton Dixon, tagged along to watch the new “Spider-Man” movie.
“I love the fact that they’ve kept it just as it is ... it’s just like stepping back in time,” Carper said.
It’s hard to keep teenagers off their phones, the couple explained, and harder still to find activities that all of them can enjoy together.
Bengies, both said, is an exception.
The elder Freels, from Dundalk, distinctly remembers coming to Bengies for the first time when he was just a few years older than his son in his 1966 Chevy Nova coupe. The experience was less about the movies and more about car culture for Freels. On Sundays, drivers of historically registered cars get free admission.
“When you bring an old car down here ... make sure you bring a towel, because things get fogged up, you can’t see out the window,“ he said. ”All that’s just the fun of it, I think. You know, all the pain-in-the-butt stuff that you got to put up [with] when you come here, that’s just the stuff that you remember.”
As adults, both Freels and Carper love the nostalgia the drive-in delivers on every visit.
“As life carries forward, life changes,” Carper said. “You lose people, but you just have those childhood experiences, you know, that stay with you, and it takes you home.”
Inside the operation
After entering the box office, attendants ask customers to turn off their car’s headlights. Many newer models, however, have built-in LEDs that shine no matter what.
In that case, Adam said guests are required to cover up the remaining lights with whatever’s at their disposal: blankets, floor mats, duct tape, sweaters, etc.
General admission for adults costs $12.50 per person plus a $4 processing fee per car. Kids ages 4 to 10 cost $7.50, and those under 4 get in free.
On Saturday, Bengies’ fastidious concession stand employees juggled hundreds of customers — who watched the customary 1940s Superman cartoons the drive-in features before the main event.
During a single weekend, Bengies goes through nearly a million pieces of popcorn and 210 pounds of canola oil.
“The biggest sin that you can do in a snack bar is burn popcorn,” Vogel said.
The menu also offers a smorgasbord of deep-fried food and sugary treats, from mozzarella sticks and freshly made cotton candy to pulled pork sandwiches and funnel cakes drizzled in hot fudge.
Upstairs, Vogel’s beloved 35-millimeter film projector still occupies prime real estate, even though Bengies hasn’t shown a movie on film since 2016, Adam said. ( Movies are projected digitally these days.)
“D would use it,” he said with a laugh. “I would like to take it and put it on display in the snack bar.”
Showmanship on display
If Vogel had a motto, it would begin and end with showmanship.
“The thrill when we were kids, we had indoors ... the lights blink twice, then they start down slowly, the voices in the auditorium come down slowly, the screen starts to open and they put the picture on the curtain and as it opens up the MGM lion is roaring ... a chill goes down your spine,” Vogel said.
“It’s called showmanship and it doesn’t exist,” he added.
At Bengies, Vogel tries to replicate that lost art. In addition to the national anthem — a tradition started by his uncle Paul — Bengies plays cartoons before each movie and old-school commercials during the intermission between films.
Vogel said his father and uncles were inspired to build Bengies after amassing a drive-in theater empire across Ohio and Pennsylvania.
In those days, drive-ins were a dime a dozen, Vogel said. In the 1950s, there were over 4,000 across the country. For decades, Dundalk’s North Point Drive-In Theater competed with Bengies. It closed in 1982.
Now there are fewer than 500 drive-in theater screens, according to the United Drive-In Theater Owners Association, where Vogel serves on the board.
But no matter how many miles it takes to reach, the magic of the drive-in still entices moviegoers.
Khalid El-Sayed and his wife Magyn brought their 11-year-old daughter Yasmine, her best friend Amina Tucker and 9-year-old son Zane from Annapolis to watch “Spider-Man.”
The trio each donned Spidey masks and reenacted the finger-pointing meme before settling in for the movie.
“If you grew up anywhere around Baltimore, then you knew someone who went to Bengies,” El-Sayed said. “It was a thing.”
It still is.
Comments
Welcome to The Banner's subscriber-only commenting community. Please review our community guidelines.