Retrospective/Memories: Drive-In Movies [View all]
Do you have any memories about drive-in movies? Do post them, please.
If you don't know about drive-ins, ask about them. Someone will be sure to oblige with an answer.
In the summer of 1980, my hopes of going to Los Angeles Baptist College in the fall of 1981 were dashed by their financial assistance office. That summer, I went one night to the Fountain Valley Drive-In to console myself with Superman II. It worked a treat. That summer, in my screaming yellow Toyota Corona, I saw the film 22 times. My disappointment was numbed. (Why save money? I wasn't going to college. But in early 1981 I received a Pell Grant and my dream came true. (If only I'd known.))
A few years before this, they'd replaced all the heavy, clunky, metal sound boxes with little yellow clips that one attached to the car's aerial. The sound would then come through the car radio. It was said that one could pick up the sound without the yellow clip, and it proved true.
My favorite trip ever to the Fountain Valley Drive-In didn't involve paying at the kiosk or driving across the hilly rows to just the right spot. In 1977, in her very yellow Plymouth Arrow, my sister drove the two of us to the top of a hill just behind the drive-in. We could see the screen perfectly. She tuned the radio and we heard the sounds of the previews. I jumped when I heard the first notes of the Star Wars overture. (Who didn't?) That night with my sister is one of my best memories. It didn't matter that we'd cheated to see the movie. I was with my sister.
The Fountain Valley Drive-In opened in 1967 (with Snow White and Tammy and the Millionaire). It was demolished in 1984. I cried when I heard. In its place now sits the MemorialCare Orange Coast Medical Center. (If I have an emergency, I go about eight miles down PCH to Hoag Hospital ER. It would take a lot for me to go half a mile down the street to MemorialCare.)
Tell us your drive-in memories.
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