Johnny Showtime: Return to the Drive-in!

 by JB

One thing we seldom talk about is motion picture EXHIBITION.

Last week, we hosted the Bromleys during their semi-annual sojourn in the land of Cilantro and Over-regulation. Part of the visit involved a quick trip to San Louis Obispo, home of Pismo Beach and the Sunset Drive-In. We packed up two cars and headed out for an evening’s entertainment... under the stars! Blankets? Check. Portable camp chairs? Check. Chilled bottled water? Check. A selection of fresh fruit? Check. Insecticide? Check. Paper money because this drive-in does not accept plastic? Check!

THE PLUSSES: I had not been to the drive-in movies since COVID, when some enterprising lads in Chicago and its suburbs set up “pop-up” drive-ins in big, empty parking lots. I remember enjoying Stand by Me one night (also with the Bromley family) in the social-distancing, COVID-free Sears Center parking lot in Hoffman Estates and seeing Halloween III in the city with my friend Tom. It was during the latter experience that I finally learned how to turn ALL my car lights OFF, the helpful staff told me that night that patrons who did not know how to operate their own vehicles... were not uncommon.

HONEST PLEA TO PEOPLE AT THE DRIVE-IN: Learn how your car works! When I first pulled into the Sunset, there was a lady in the spot in front of me who had pulled in backwards so that her kids could watch from the spacious back of her minivan. Her headlights shone right into my car, nearly blinding me. I walked over and asked her to turn them off. It took her almost ten minutes to figure out how to do that. Hey lady, it’s YOUR car.

Drive-in theaters long ago ditched the speakers on the poles. Those were expensive to maintain, what with customers pulling them out by the roots by driving home, forgetting to replace the speaker on the stand and rats chewing away at the wiring underground. Drive-ins now broadcast the sound on an FM frequency, assuming you will tune in on your car radio. This assumes you know how to put the car into “accessory” mode, which gets difficult, as we shall see, with modern “keyless start” automobiles. The woman in front of me was faced with this popular modern drive-in conundrum: how to turn the lights OFF... but leave the radio ON. We would return to this brain-teaser later in the evening.

Still, is there anything better than the drive-in? I think not. Just ask TV’s Rob DiCristino; he lives near the Mahoning, for the love of God. (He saw The Silence of the Lambs this past weekend with his mom.)

We got to the Sunset Drive-In nice and early, but apparently, not early enough because most of the better spots were already taken. (I later learned the Sunset holds 500 cars.) I was surprised that the lot was that crowded, but maybe I should not have been. It was opening night for the new Fantastic Four movie, a movie I quickly realized was PERFECTLY SUITED to the drive-in. I was happy that between the local population and tons of weekly tourists, the Sunset is doing well enough to stay in business. More and more drive-ins are going the way of... the drive-in. There are currently only fifteen drive-in movie theaters left, operating in California. (Remember, drive-ins in California can stay open year-round.) Illinois has a grand total of ten drive-in movie theaters left. Sobering.

We gamboled about until we found two decent spots next to each other... and waited for the fun to start.

OBSERVATION: Candy and treats always taste better at the drive-in.

ALMOST BESIDE-THE-FACT: The Fantastic Four: First Steps is a lot of fun.

OBSERVATION: One member of our party, AND I AM NOT SAYING WHO, was asleep within ten minutes. It had been a long day. It was dark. The car’s back seat was very comfy.

THE MINUSES: Problems began almost the minute the film began. My car received the FM radio signal magnificently; I paid for a better sound system in my car... and the movie sounded great in my little sixteen-speaker, subwoofer-equipped sound enclosure. The Bromleys, on the other hand, driving my wife’s car, couldn’t receive the FM signal at all. My wife high-tailed it to the snack bar, where the proprietors have the foresight to provide little portable radios for just this eventuality. Thanks, Sunset. The problem was that it took so long to make this happen, she missed the first ten minutes of the movie. Boo.

MEANWHILE, well before the movie started, I had used the Google machine on my cellphone to look up how to turn on “accessory mode” (No engine, no lights, just radio) in my now thirteen-year-old vehicle. Simple, the Internet said. Press the “start” button with your foot OFF THE GAS PEDAL. Viola! “Accessory mode!”

There was just one problem. The automobile itself is so worried that you’re going to run down the battery, it automatically shuts off “accessory mode” after ten minutes... then after nine minutes... then eight. Oh, shit. If I want to listen to this movie in “accessory mode,” I’m going to have to wait for all the speakers to go silent, then push the button again... twenty-three times during the course of the 118-minute film.

AND THIS IS WHY, back when I attended the drive-in with more regularity, I bought a cheap, battery-operated boombox and used that for the FM drive-in sound. Apparently, I lost the boombox when I moved to California. When pushing that damn button so many times to keep the radio on seemed daunting, my lovely wife dutifully trotted back to the snack bar, missing another ten minutes of the movie, only to learn they had RUN OUT OF RADIOS TO LEND.

MY SOLUTION? I turned the car on; I ran the engine. I risked killing the people behind us via carbon monoxide poisoning because I was too lazy to push a button every ten minutes. Later in the evening, I ventured forth to the snack bar... and noticed that about one car in twenty was running... and one car in ten was using some sort of portable boombox for the sound.

CONCLUSIONS:

1. If I continue to frequent the drive-in, I shall invest in another boombox. (Maybe two boomboxes to be on the safe side. And more fresh fruit.)

2. My lovely wife and I are going to a regular movie theater tomorrow to see Fantastic Four: First Steps again. We want to see all the parts we missed.

3. A week after all of this mishegoss, I talked to a service advisor at my car dealership about the whole experience. I asked him how could I keep “accessory mode” running for more than ten minutes, like maybe two hours, the length of a typical movie? He said there was no way you could do that. The car just wouldn’t do that. I asked him, “What about the drive-in?” He said, “Not enough people go to drive-ins.”

4. I think all new cars should have a special, clearly labelled, “DRIVE-IN MODE.” Lights off, engine off, radio on, and a silent warning if your battery is running low... so you can start the car for three minutes and charge your battery.

Photographs by Erika Bromley.