THERE'S nothing Paul Whitaker enjoys more than telling a story, writes SARAH HUDSON

Which is appropriate considering that, for the past 50 years, his family has been involved in the movie business, running the Dromana 3 Drive-In since opening in 1962.

It is the only regional Victorian drive-in still in operation, with only two others - Dandenong and Coburg - in the state.

Wander through the movie-inspired diner, in the centre of his Mornington Peninsula cinema complex, and Paul points to a curious collection of paraphernalia: a lifesize Elvis, original pinball machines, a 50-year-old working juke box (complete with original songs), old movie posters and photos - all, of course, come with their own story.

Paul indicates to two life-size fibreglass figures of the Blues Brothers, which sit overlooking the first of three screens in the complex, which can hold up to 1500 people per screening session.

"Ah, that's a great story," Paul says, a prologue he uses for many of his tales.

"Those two I saw for sale in a Los Angeles.

"I wanted to buy them, but they were $3000 and shipping would have been expensive.

"I came back to Melbourne and saw them for sale in a Caulfield shop for a much better price."

He points to the original movie poster for Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

"One of my earliest memories is watching that film as a youngster. I was three when my parents first started the drive-in."

Paul's parents, Frank and Gwen Whitaker, started the drive-in in 1962, after first establishing the now-defunct Dromana cinema in the 1930s, then the Broadway cinema in Rosebud, the Cameo in Belgrave and the Leongatha drive-in.

While the cinemas would become their main business, the Whitaker family was famous for its buses. "My father started the cinemas so he could feed people from the buses into them," Paul says.

When buses were nationalised, Frank switched his attention to his cinemas, which he sold and bought. When he passed away in 1989, Paul took over the Dromana Drive-In.

"I remember coming to the drive-in as a little boy and sitting in the kitchen bored and falling asleep," says Paul, who during his drive-in career has met many a star, from Geoffrey Rush to Bryan Brown.

"I started work here when I was 14 stacking shelves and, at 16, was legally able to obtain my assistant projectionist licence."

It was enough to tempt him into a career. In 1980 he obtained his full licence after studying the now-defunct degree for three years at RMIT.

Paul and his wife, Shelley, have overseen many changes to the drive-in, not least the addition of two new screens and the makeover of the diner. They built a projection room upstairs, where today his parent's 1960s Italian film projector still whirs each night.

Paul also developed an FM stereo system to transmit film sound, doing away with the mobile speakers, which were increasingly being souvenired.

While other independent cinemas have been bought by the big boys, or have folded after being muscled out, Paul has steadfastly held strong.

Yet he predicts the demise of many regional cinemas with the forced introduction of digital cinema in two years.

If cinemas can survive this transition, he remains hopeful for the industry.