Double Features

[Amor de Cosmos]

Almost gone the way of the Passenger Pigeon. There's one theatre left on Vancouver's west-side that struggles on showing second-run pairings of the if you blinked you missed them variety. Still a family business, the granddame, a charming old girl, sits on an one of the original seats in the tiny lobby most nights and regales anyone who's interested with tales of the glorious past and difficult present. The staff are her grandchildren and (usually) a handful of Japanese students. Wednesday evening the quarter-full house took in The Counterfeiters and The Band's Visit. I was in my all-time favourite movie seat, front and centre in the Loge, (I love that word, it's short but rolls around your mouth and emerges with trumpets and cymbals, much more satisfying than balcony.) As a kid it was the best place to scope out the place and "accidentally" push Butterkist and orange peel onto anyone sitting in the stalls. Down the row a couple — he and he — argued about their upcoming trip to Russia: "But what about money? Where do we get it changed?" "Just grow up and take your fucking debit card. If anyone thinks you've got cash you'll be beaten up and don't expect me to help." A group of six the other side were, based on intermission conversations, there mainly to practise their German. On leaving we we're each treated to a "Good-night, I hope you enjoyed yourself and please come again" by the Matriarch. I shall. But not for much longer I'm afraid.

[Incandenza]

Double Features

The only place that does double features in LA as far as I'm aware is the New Beverly, which is also the only remaining strictly-repertory theater in the area. They usually do double features of films by the same director, or on a theme.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Double Features

Here's mine:



It's an old-fashioned neighbourhood theatre. There's nothing at all special about it architecturally, except that it's just about the only one left, and it hasn't been tarted up. Still has the original exterior ticket booth and the washrooms have these honking great ceramic pedestal sinks. They've recently bought new "Now Showing" signage, it looks the same as before just in better nick.

How many drive-ins are left in L.A? We have one in Greater Vancouver, I think there are less than a dozen in Canada.

[Guest]

Double Features

And Flash Gordon was there
In silver underwear
Claude Rains was The Invisible Man

[matt j]

Double Features

The Paramount theater in Austin runs/ran double-features pretty regularly. It rocked.

[Incandenza]

Double Features

Amor de Cosmos wrote:

How many drive-ins are left in L.A? We have one in Greater Vancouver, I think there are less than a dozen in Canada.

Drive-ins showing films? I think there's still one left, way out in the boonies. All of the others have either been torn down, or are now permanent swap-meets.

I never went to a drive-in--my parents never wanted to take me.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Double Features

Tsk. I was hoping there'd be more, given the size of the place and the weather. I suppose they were always a small-town/burbs kind of thing though. You should probably go at least once, if you can. Once they're gone they ain't comin' back.

[Reed John]

Double Features

I went to the drive-in in State College once, with my family, to see ET and Gremlins, which I'd alreayd seen. There might have been a third feature too, I forget. I don't recall thinking it was a particularly good way to watch a movie. Sitting in an air-conditioned theater with quality surround sound is much better, I think. In fact, I don't really understand why drive-ins came to be.

The drive-in I went to was part of a small empire of a notorious local "businessman" universally known as Smokey. In that same area, he had a giant junk shop with the word DISCOUNT painted roughly on the outside, a porno theater, and a bowling alley that he burned down for the insurance. All of that disappeared around 1985-86, replaced by a Wal-Mart, a supermarket (the supermarket that had been across the road changed to a TJ Maxx and a Mike's Video), and associated shopping center (mostly small restaurants catering to the students who live in the apartments they built near there at the same time), a McDonald's (where some people I know got married after winning a radio contest), and an Eat-N-Park. There's a Red Lobster and a Best Buy across the road where the bowling alley was.

It's probably one of the few spots on earth where everyone agrees that the Wal-Mart really classed up the area.

There was another drive-in on the outside of town in the other direction. It closed fairly recently, but the property just sold last year. I don't know what's going in there.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Double Features

In fact, I don't really understand why drive-ins came to be.

Because they brought together automobiles and movies. Probably the two most significant cultural factors in 20th Century North American life.

Of course drive-ins were a wretched place to watch films, but almost no one was there for that. You went to make out, to lark about with your buddies, most of all to be alone collectively — something that defined both the driving and movie-going experience back then, maybe still does.

[Reed John]

Double Features

"You went to make out, to lark about with your buddies, most of all to be alone collectively — something that defined both the driving and movie-going experience back then, maybe still does."

You can do all of those things in a dark theater.

In my town, most parents handed over grandma or grampa's old car to their kid as soon as they turned 16. It was a relief for the parents to no longer have to cart their kids to and from every activity that wasn't within walking distance (and its a big enough town geographically that this was often the case).

Somebody's car - usually a massive late 1970's chevyoldsmobuick handed down from somebody's grandmother - was the venue for most of the important conversations and interactions I had with my peers when I was aged 15-18 and I think that was true for all my schoolmates as well. Even before I got my license at 16, I was regularly hitching rides hither and yon with older kids, usually my brother or his friends.

And I don't mean the stereotypical sex and doobage stuff you see in the films (I never did either in school). I mean those deep soulful conversations one has when you're a teenager and think you need to figure out everything as soon as possible.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Double Features

You can do all of those things in a dark theater.

But not while you're still in your car. That I think, was the essential point of the Drive-in.

[Reed John]

Double Features

True.

As long as I can remember (so the late 1970s) my parents described the drive in movie as something that people did purely for the sake of nostalgia.

However, a friend of mine told me that his parents often took him and his brothers to the drive in there massive 1963 Buick (this was the early 1980s so it was conspicuous by its size) because it was a cost effective way to take a family of five to the movies. I imagine they told the two younger kids to hide as they pulled into the lot so they didn't have to pay.

I'm told our local drive-in also had cars just sitting there that people who didn't drive in could pay to sit in for the movie. That might just be urban legend.

Air conditioning was common in theaters long before it was standard in cars. I suspect that was one of the first blows against the drive-in.

And the sound in theaters got better.

There seems to be an upsurge in parks, especially in urban areas, offering outdoor movies in the summer. People bring a blanket and a picnic and so forth. I'm not a fan. I've found it's incredibly uncomfortable to watch a movie on a screen 100 yards away while sitting on the ground. If you bring a lawn chair, the people behind you can't see.

And it's hot. And their are bugs.

I hate summer.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Double Features

I'm told our local drive-in also had cars just sitting there that people who didn't drive in could pay to sit in for the movie.

That's great, if true. I wonder how they got there though?

[Reed John]

Double Features

Edit: It occurs to me that you meant the people, not the cars.

This drive in was relatively "in town." So people could bike or walk there or take the bus.

Most drive ins are out in the sticks a bit, however.

This thread has given me a Bryan Adams earworm.

[Incandenza]

Double Features

Reed of the Valley People wrote:

There seems to be an upsurge in parks, especially in urban areas, offering outdoor movies in the summer. People bring a blanket and a picnic and so forth. I'm not a fan. I've found it's incredibly uncomfortable to watch a movie on a screen 100 yards away while sitting on the ground. If you bring a lawn chair, the people behind you can't see.

I know what you're saying, and I've noticed more of these screenings also, but I guess in something like that, the movie isn't really the point. It's probably a film that everyone's already seen numerous times, so it's more of a nostalgia/fun community thing. The park in volunteered at when I was a kid held movie screenings at the pool, so people would have inner-tubes and pool chairs, or they could sit outside of the pool and watch the screening. Of course, Jaws was a mandatory pool movie.

Something that's gotten really popular in LA is film screenings at the Forever Hollywood cemetery. A lot of the films they show feature actors that are buried at the cemetery. It just sounds too creepy for me.

[Reed John]

Double Features

But to sit in a field in the dark and not be able to talk (because some people want to watch the movie) is pretty boring unless you watch the movie.

[WOM]

Double Features

How many drive-ins are left in L.A? We have one in Greater Vancouver, I think there are less than a dozen in Canada.

Actually, there are still 23 (many of them multi-screen) in Ontario alone. There was a thing on CBC tv last year about the resurgence of them in smaller towns. There's even one on the waterfront in downtown Toronto.

[Reed John]

Double Features

I looked up the list. It seems like they're resurging in small towns in Northern states and Canada. Perhaps because those places attract vacationers and summer home types who want something family friendly to do in the evening.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Double Features

Hmm so there are. Can't think where I got those numbers from. Never mind I'm officially 'old' tomorrow so can no longer be held responsible for anything I say.

[Reed John]

Double Features

You're turning 80?

[Amor de Cosmos]

Double Features

Ha!

Sixty. But, as best as I can figure, that's old.

0–30 = Young
30–60 = Middle-aged
60-90 = Old
90+ = fuck it, where's the box!

[Reed John]

Double Features

60 isn't "old" it's just "too old for this shit."

[Reed John]

Double Features

Shifting slightly, how many diners still do car service? Are there any where the waitresses wear roller skates?

I've been to The Red Rabbit which is on the way from State College to Harrisburg on 322 near the river. It still does car service, but not on roller skates (gravel parking lot). It's very popular even though it's only open on weekends in the summer.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Double Features

Long gone locally. According to spouse #1 White Spot's (home of the Papa Burger, Mama Burger and Teen Burger) had car service on skates when she was a kid. The waiters had uniforms like bell-hops too.

[WOM]

Double Features

The Papa, Mama and Teen burgers are A&W products out east he-ah. And oddly, that was the only place I can (vaguely) remember enjoying car service, as a kid.