Playtime Drive-In

Twin Hills Drive-In

This is all that remains of the Playtime Drive-In on Blanding Boulevard in Jacksonville, Fla. It opened in 1948 as the Twin Hills Drive-In. Twin Hills operated until 1967, when Ray Accord and Fuhrman Burchfield acquired it. Twin Hills was the rural suburban platting designation for the area, so the name of the theater wasn’t a pun on the drive-in’s future operations.

The golden age of drive-in theaters was the 1950s, with over 4,000 locations across North America. However, by the late 1960s and 1970s, their popularity waned due to suburban expansion, the rise of multiplex cinemas, and the later advent of VCRs and cable television. As a strategy to combat declining attendance and rising real estate costs, many drive-in theaters transitioned to showing pornography.

Transition to Playtime and Pornography

Twin Hills was one such drive-in, renamed as the Playboy Drive-In until Hugh Hefner sued for copyright infringement, wherein it was then renamed to Playtime. This strategy proved extremely successful as the drive-in was expanded in the 1980s to include a second screen, and was expanded again in the 1990s, adding a third screen. Some of the films advertised playing there were Pinocchio (1971), Captain Lust and the Pirate Women (1977), Naughty Girls on the Loose (1976), and Emanuelle in Bangkok (1976). Other theaters, such as the University Drive-In and Pine Drive-In, would follow suit.

By the early 1980s, the City of Jacksonville had made the public screening of hardcore pornography illegal. So to recoup the lost revenue, the Playtime Drive-In began operating as a flea market alongside the theater, but continued showing X-rated and R-rated softcore pornography up until 1989. Since the films shown were the same found on cable television and VHS, the Playtime never found the success it had in the 1970s.

The MPAA replaced the X rating with the NC-17 rating in September 1990. This change was made because the X rating was not trademarked and had become synonymous with pornography in the public’s mind, causing confusion and limiting mainstream distribution for films with adult content. Shortly thereafter, the Playtime moved on as well, screening more first-run, mainstream, and family-friendly films. 

Owner Fuhrman Burchfield lived on the property in an apartment in the concession and projection building when he was shot in a botched burglary in 2007. Burchfield lost a leg. Likely due to this incident, the Playtime Drive-In closed down on May 31, 2008, after operating for 60 years.

A Righteous Burning

The property was sold to Christ Church Anglican for $1.4 million shortly thereafter, a 300-member congregation under Rev. Mark Eldredge. During the cleanup of the property, church members reportedly discovered over a hundred rusted film canisters of hardcore pornography in the projection house. On October 19, 2008, the church held a special Sunday service which included a ceremonial burning of the film reels and a “holy hose-down” with water from a Jacksonville Fire and Rescue truck blessed by a priest.

The old concession stand and projection house were used as a church for the congregation. Although the property has long been abandoned, it is still owned by the church. In March 2018, a fire destroyed what remained of the projection house. Some would say this was God’s way of destroying the last vestige of the drive-in’s immoral past. There have been attempts to rezone the property to residential, allowing new construction of apartments and condominiums, but those attempts have all failed, and the property remains commercially zoned. Until then, the former Playtime Drive-In will stay as a desolate shadow of a bygone era.

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