The only story I can relate without fear of banning is this one time we went as kids, and I wanted to hit the snack stand ahead of the crowd in between films. So, while the credits were rolling for the first film, I take of at a full run through the rows of cars towards Pop-Corn Nirvana.
Now, usually, you pull the car up with the driver’s window next to the speaker. You don’t run down the driver’s side of the cars, you run down the passenger side.
Except this one car. Pulled in and took the speaker from the right side and hung it in the passenger side window. Well, in the dark, I caught that wire about chest high and blew that window out, ripped the speaker off the pole. It was pretty exciting!
I hauled major ass and hid out in the bathroom for a while. I managed to sneak back to our car, sans pop-corn and keeping a very low profile.
There’s one about an hour and a half drive away, we make the trek some weekends when there’s a good double feature playing. Two screens, one currently has Detective Pikachu and Avengers.
Concessions are pretty good, but they seem to have dropped the arcade.
When I was little in the '70s we’d go to the drive-in in 2 cars. 25 years later we took our kids to the same drive-in along with their cousins. One of the movies I remember watching with the kids was Arachnophobia. Half-way through the movie the film melted.
The weather has not been cooperating otherwise the Mister and I would have went to see Detective Pikachu. It’s been playing for 2 weeks now and the line cars starts at 5pm and stretches from the pay hut to the highway.
My first drive-in movie was Shane(spoiler-He doesn’t come back).
My last drive-in movie was a double feature-Halloween and Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band(spoiler-Nobody wants it to come back).
This may be your first (and only?) British drive-in memory.
Thirtyish years ago friends moved to upstate NY for a year. We (Mrs Trep and I) flew out to spend a couple of weeks with them, and they took us to a drive-in because, obviously, you would. I remember we saw The Blob - the remake was made in 1988 (says Wiki) so that sounds about right. Tedious film, but then we didn’t go for the film particularly. (Perhaps I should explain, given the above accounts of what happened in these places, we went for the American Cultural Experience.)
What I remember most about the experience is that part-way through the film a skunk walked past the car. I had never seen a skunk before, and I was entranced - so I followed it through the lot. I suppose (given the accounts above) this may have perturbed the occupants of some of the cars; but I had no idea at the time. Also, coolly reflecting later, it was a pretty stupid thing to do. But hell, nobody died.
The Blob is exactly the sort of campy, low budget horror movie that is typically associated with American drive-ins, so I say you made the right choice if you were looking for the “American Cultural Experience”.
On that note, I’ve heard that drive-ins were the origin of the term “B-movie”. Back when drive-ins typically showed double features, they’d have the main attraction that got top billing, and the other movie was the “B-movie” (like the B side of a record), which was typical some sort of low budget horror or sci-fi movie.
Correction: looking at Wikipedia suggests 1) drive ins started a lot earlier than I thought, but 2) B movie had to do with double features whether or not they were happening in a drive in
Now I’m wondering if B-movie (the term) predated “B side”
I have two drive-ins still open within 20 minutes of me. We go to the closer one regularly. We support its ongoing existence by visiting the concession stand religiously when we go. It’s inexpensive, good food.
I’ve been to a drive-in just a handful of times but the only time I remember was a first date. The movie was “Lady Sings the Blues” which means 1972 and I was 17. I met the guy a few nights before at a Allman Brothers concert. I knew nothing about him except he was cute and seemed nice.
At first I didn’t think much when he picked me up in a van. Hippie vans were still common and popular. But after we arrived at the movie I glanced in the back and saw it was clearly a party room complete with a mattress. I felt sick and asked him to take me home. He did, without hesitation, and I felt fine shortly after he left. We dated a few times after, but this is the only memory I have of him or being at a drive-in.
In the first or second grade I went to a Jerry Lewis double feature with a classmate and his family. I don’t remember the title of the first movie but the second was Don’t Raise the Bridge, Lower the Water. That title always stuck with me partly because the drive-in was right next to a bridge over a river but mainly because the title sounded so absurd to 8-year-old me. Heck, it sounds absurd to much, much older me, too. But, hey, Jerry Lewis.
That theater died in the early seventies, as I recall. Don’t know why as other drive-ins in the area were still going strong. It stood abandoned for several years before Boeing bought the property and built an office building there. They thoughtfully put in a nice walkway alongside the river for their employees to use.
In high school, a friend of mine bought a car. (Ford Pinto. Woohoo! :rolleyes: ) We were tootling by another drive-in one night when they were showing Carrie. We didn’t want to go in because it had already started so we pulled into a gas station parking lot, where you could see the screen at an angle. We couldn’t hear it, of course, but I was hoping to see the famous bucket o’ blood scene. It was too early, though, and my friend wanted to get going so I had to wait until it was on TV several years later.
Yet many,(most?) of the old drive-ins are not an undulating parking lot, or weeds.
At least around here.
Of the 7 drive-ins that we used to go to, 2 are now fleamarkets. 1 has turned into a warehouse-style shopping center. And the other 4 are just sitting there.
The last time I saw a drive-in movie it was “Meatballs” on Long island in 1979. I thought the movie sucked ass, mostly because I could not relate to it, never having gone to sleep-away camp. The shitty experience soured me on the concept. Still, the place lasted until 1997.
A double feature of *Westworld *and Soylent Green at the Fort Twin Drive In outside Lynchburg, Va, in the early seventies. College guys, drugs, beer. Good times.
The old Red Run Drive In outside Waynesboro, Pa showed hard core porn at least into the early eighties. Uh, so I’ve been told. Yeah.
There was a spot off the Appilacian Trail in Maryland where, off in the distance, where you could see one of the last drive ins in the state.
When I was in high school and broke we used to sneak up next to the fence and watch the movies, you could hear the sound from the speakers ( the kind that hung on the door of the car) just fine.
As a little kid in the Intermountain area, drive-ins always fascinated me. The giant screens, the signs, the remarkable remoteness of some of them.
The earliest sign I remember was for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Some discussion among the adults when they saw that about whether such a racy movie should be playing in a drive-in. But didn’t go to any of those.
There was one near us when we moved to civilization. But, again, no one took us to see that one when I was a kid. Later converted to a multiplex. On a trip back I saw Mystery Men at the plex. Now even that’s closed.
I think the first movie I saw in a drive-in was Help! thanks to an older sibling. (Who also took me to see A Hard Day’s Night in a theater.) I think it was oon a double feature about a guy named “Noah” (?) leading an African tribe, etc. to new digs due to the construction of a dam. (Ring any bells?)
Finally, in late teen years starting to go to drive-ins, but not that often, for the usual reason. Typical low-budget horror/action double features.
Mrs. FtG and I went to a drive-in or two when we dated and then once in a great while after that.
I know we took the kids to maybe a couple movies at the area drive-in but can’t remember which movies. That drive-in also became a multiplex and is still open. (So I’ve seen films at two locations in both drive-in and theater formats.)
