‘Memory Lane: A Night at the Drive-in’ (2016)

Once upon a time, Spartan warriors had to listen to this song before they went to battle.

Dagnabbit, I miss the drive-in! What could be better than packing a cooler full of snacks and going to the drive-in… to revel in Godzilla  vs. Giant Panty-Liner Bugs from Orion, or something equally edifying?

Memory Lane: A Night at the Drive-In

But around here, all our drive-ins are long since gone. The only sign they ever existed is the wasteland where the Amboys Drive-In used to be, on the bank of the Raritan River. There they tore down the drive-in and the indoor theater and never put anything in its place.

Just once more… just one more time…

Memory Lane: Drive-In Movies

Sean Connery in Zardoz | Considerable

Behold Sean Connery in hot pants and, I guess, go-go boots, starring in the 1974 science fiction classic–they kept saying it’s a classic–Zardoz. Good grief.

I turned to Patty yesterday and said, “Y’know what I’d like to do this evening? Take us to a drive-in movie.” Only of course that was looking back into the past; today the nearest drive-in is some hundred miles from here. All the ones we used to have–and enjoy–have been replaced by pack-’em-in housing and strip malls. Progress, don’t you know.

One night in the 70s we went to the dear old Amboys Drive-in to see Zardoz, which was supposed to be a classic. My brother Mark brought the beer. Patty watched the opening credits. “Oh, boy! John Alderton is in it!” She loved him in Upstairs, Downstairs. By the time Zardoz was halfway over, it was “Poor John Alderton!” With Mark in the back seat uncontrollably guffawing over the dialogue (“The ***** is evil. The ***** shoots seeds.”) Incredible, that Connery’s career survived this.

Every now and then you caught a good movie at the drive-in. But some of the bad ones were… well, indescribable. Like Caligula impersonating the Goddess Dawn. But if I listed just half a dozen of those and admitted I saw them at the drive-in, you’d think there was something wrong with me. Yeah, there was: I was in my early 20s.

We can’t go to the drive-in anymore. It’s been stuffed into extinction. People under a certain age have never seen one.

I call it a loss.

Memory Lane: A Night at the Drive-In

One of the amenities of American life that I really do miss–and I’m sure I’m not the only one–is the drive-in movie. Wasn’t that great! Especially that somewhat horrible intermission bumper, “Let’s all go to the Lobby!”

Once upon a summer night, on one of those extremely rare occasions when a babysitter just wasn’t available, my mother and father went to the drive-in to see Psycho. They must’ve really wanted to see it, because they took me along. I guess they expected me to fall asleep in the back seat. Fat chance of that!

Yup, when Vera Miles tapped ol’ Momma Bates’ shoulder, and Mrs. Bates turned around, and she was a mummy, this dreadful ghastly mummy–Yee-ow! It just about went through the roof of the car. You can imagine how I slept that night. I was ten years old, I wasn’t used to stuff like that!

Hooked me on horror movies for life, though.

Maybe someday the drive-ins will come back. And then we can all go out to the lobby and scuttle back with popcorn in time for the next feature.