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For a venue emphasizing family-
friendly, the drive-in has been maligned The Drive-In On the Screen
on screen as often as it has imbued the
By David Kilderry
spirit of Happy Days. In Targets (1968)
the screen is the perfect vantage point
from which to fire a high-powered rifle
at innocent passers-by, while in Dead
End Drive-In (1986) the field is really a
concentration camp.
This is strange, considering the
screen treatment of hardtop theatres.
From the Phantom of the Opera to
Cinema Paradiso the theatre building is
lovingly rendered. Terrorists might be
plotting behind the screen - Sabotage
(1936), a coded message at the music-
hall might set off a murder - The Thirty
Nine Steps (three versions) but the
setting is a playful riff on the essence
of the theatre as a sanctuary from
killers, the police or the Gestapo. A
man may even find redemption in the
restoration of a theatre - The Majestic
(2001).
After this initial bad rap, the
innocence of Grease (1978) almost
wipes the slate clean - teens dating,
snack food, play equipment under the
screen, and the interval clock on it with
the dancing hot-dog and the song
‘Alone At A Drive-in’. (The hot-dog
sequence is run at the Lunar
Dandenong every night).
The little known comedy Drive-in
(1976) was similarly buoyant. At least
the staff at Hoyts’ drive-ins appreciated
the humour.
Ambiguity returned with Clint
Eastwood and Jeff Bridges in
Thunderbolt and Light Foot (1974), a
heist movie. While families in cars
watch a cartoon on the screen the crims
are hiding out after a bank job. Of
course it ends in a shoot-out.
It’s the slippery slope again in
Michael Mann’s Heat (1995) with
Robert De Niro and Al Pacino, when a
rendezvous goes wrong. This film was
shot at the Centinella Drive-in, south-
central Los Angeles, after it had closed.
I have been there, and it was a place
that reinforced every poor image of a
drive-in.
Perhaps this is the problem for a
celluloid drive-in - happy family
experiences are a drag on screen time.
On the examples so far, the drive-in
on film is just one notch above the
motel as a horror symbol. Perhaps it’s
just as well that Alfred Hitchcock didn't
put the drive-in on his to-do list. ★

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