Thursday, April 10, 2008
At the Drive-In (1967)
So what was showing at the drive-in back in August of 1967? Sling Words (aka Joan Reeves) has kindly posted a neat show calendar from Abilene, Texas. Just click on the calendar to enlarge it to full-screen size. Some great stuff, including a double feature of Claudelle English and Susan Slade. Those were the days.
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6 comments:
INGLISH, as Caldwell had it.
I never have yet experienced a drive-in wherein I was the driver. Pretty sure that THE SHINING/THE SILENT PARTNER in 1981 was the last show I've seen in one. I think I shall remain more nostalgic about dollar-theater double features, such as BLADE RUNNER/BODY HEAT, of similar vintage.
Make that 1980. Wow. An adult lifetime and then some ago. And now I realize the last, much less pleasant experience was accompanying the rest of the family to take my younger brother to see ET in 1982.
I believe my last drive-in experience was a double feature of "Van Nuys Blvd" and "HOTS" at the old Lee Highway Drive-in. If the IMDB info is right, it must have been summer 1979. The drive-in closed in the early '80s to make way for the multiplex that still occupies the property. For a time in the early '80s, when "B" movies still played some smaller theaters instead of going straight to video, University Mall picked up the slack left by Lee Highway's demise. It was the venue to which my brother-and-law and I had recourse to watch New World releases like "Deathstalker" and "Forbidden World."
Last time I was by, University Mall Theaters in Fairfax was a discount second-run theater with perhaps a few art films. All the drive-ins were gone by the time I hit Fx Co. in '84.
Sometime between 1982 and now (I don't remember when, exactly) the University Mall theater moved from the lower level of the mall to the upper level. In the old days, the posters for the New World B-movies they would show (like the Boris Vallejo poster for "Deathstaker") were usually better than the movies themselves.
The last local drive-in in my area has been saved for at least one more season. The elderly couple who own it had an offer to buy that fell through so they'll operate it for another year and then see. There used to be four drive ins in Saskatoon in the 1960s, where as you can imagine the season is fairly short. In fact when a guy was a smooth operator with the ladies they used to say that he could get her to the drive-in in February.
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