{"id":2664,"date":"2024-08-22T03:23:06","date_gmt":"2024-08-22T03:23:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=2664"},"modified":"2024-10-13T18:54:18","modified_gmt":"2024-10-13T22:54:18","slug":"drive-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/08\/22\/drive-in\/","title":{"rendered":"Drive-In"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Drive-In <\/strong>(1976)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Columbia\/Comedy-Drama\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 96 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG (language, violence, sexual material, drug use)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Rod Amateau\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Bob Peete\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Lee Osborne\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Robert Jessup\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: May 26, 1976 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Glenn Morshower, Lisa Lemole, Gary Cavagnaro, Billy Milliken, Lee Newsom, Regan Kee, Andy Parks, Trey Wilson, Gordon Hurst, Kent Perkins, Ashley Cox, Louis Zito, Linda Larimer, Barry Gremillion, David Roberts, Phil Ferrell, Joe Flower, Carla Palmer, Carrie Jessup, Bill McGhee, Gloria Shaw, Robert Valgova, Jessie Lee Fulton, Michelle Franks, Jack Isbell, Dejah Moore, Curtis Posey, Billy Vance White, Hank Stohl.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: N\/A<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ***<\/p>\n

\u00a0Talk about a blast from the past! I stumbled across the low-budget comedy Drive-In <\/strong>while looking for something to watch on Tubi. My mind instantly went back to the first time I saw it. It was way, way back in February 1979. I was a mere lad of 11 and on a President\u2019s Day weekend vacation in Lancaster, PA with my family. It was the Friday Night Movie on one of the network channels. It looked good to me, so I tuned in. Sadly, I fell asleep before it was over, but I loved what I saw of it. I finally got to see the whole thing when it showed on TV again a couple of years later. It would be about another ten years before I finally got to see the unedited version courtesy of a local Mom & Pop video store.<\/p>\n

\u00a0This weekend\u2019s re-viewing of Drive-In<\/strong> was the first in nearly 32 years. It\u2019s funny how some films hold up regardless of how dated they are. The day and age of the drive-in movie theater is long gone, but the sweet memories linger on. True, there are still a few of them scattered around the country, but the experience is nothing like it was back in the mid-70s. Back then, you could see two or three dopey exploitation flicks for $5 a carload. Nowadays, it\u2019s not much different from seeing a film at a multiplex. They show the same movies as the local AMC theater. The only real difference between the two venues is you\u2019re sitting in your car (or outside if you prefer) instead of inside a climate-controlled cinema.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Rod Amateau, the auteur behind illustrious cinematic achievements like The Seniors, Lovelines and The Garbage Pail Kids Movie, takes us back to a more innocent time and place, a small Texas town on a typical Friday circa 1976. What a time to be a teen! He kicks things off with a fly-over shot to the titular location while The Statler Brothers\u2019 \u201cWhatever Happened to Randolph Scott\u201d plays over the soundtrack. In a town as small as this one, there\u2019s not much to do. By day (i.e. after school), the youngsters hang out at the roller rink where they skate in a circle to C&W music. By night, everybody goes to the Alamo, the local drive-in theater that serves as the town\u2019s social hub. Tonight\u2019s feature attraction is Disaster \u201976 which might have been Team ZAZ\u2019s inspiration for Airplane a few years later. The movie-within-the-movie is a riot, but it takes a back seat to the hijinks and drama going on below the screen.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The central story of this loosely plotted tale is the budding romance between virginal Orville (Morshower) and the more experienced Glowie (Lemole). Orville, who has no luck with the opposite sex, is taken aback when Glowie expresses interest in him. She\u2019s looking for a nice guy now that she\u2019s through with her abusive and possessive ex Enoch (Milliken), the leader of The Widow Makers, a local gang out for blood after one of their own is assaulted by rival gang The Gear Grinders. Despite all the encouragement from his horny 12YO brother Little Bit (Cavagnaro), Orville isn\u2019t convinced Glowie is a sincere girl. He\u2019s more afraid of getting pounded by Enoch. Nevertheless, he agrees to meet up with her at the drive-in that night.<\/p>\n

\u00a0They\u2019re not the only attendees with a story. Two inept criminals, Gifford (Wilson) and Will (Hurst), plan to hold up the place when the manager (Zito) cashes out for the night. Local stud Bill (Perkins) is getting grief from his girlfriend Mary Louise (Cox) after proposing to her. She\u2019s not sure she\u2019s ready for marriage yet. A black couple, Dr. Demars (McGhee) and his wife (Shaw), are a little concerned about being in \u201cKlan country\u201d. He doesn\u2019t want any trouble, yet he always seems to be around when trouble rears its ugly head. A redneck (Valgova) is there with his mother (Fulton) who nags him endlessly until he gets her high on weed.<\/p>\n

\u00a0While all the real life comedy and drama plays out, a reel life story involving every disaster you can think of plays out on the screen. Disaster \u201976 pays homage to all the biggies like Airport, The Poseidon Adventure, The Towering Inferno and Jaws as well as some non-biggies like Flood! What we get to see of it is hilarious with the bad acting and cheesy special effects. I wish Amateau had thought to turn it into a real feature-length movie.<\/p>\n

\u00a0As much as I like Drive-In<\/strong>, it does have its share of problems. It doesn\u2019t always follow through on the plot threads it introduces. It\u2019s mentioned more than once that Mary Louise is the daughter of the local sheriff. This would appear to set up a rivalry between Bill and his potential father-in-law, but nothing ever comes of it. We don\u2019t even meet the dad. The only law enforcement in town seems to be a couple of not-too-bright deputies.<\/p>\n

\u00a0There\u2019s also an issue with tonal imbalance. For the most part, Amateau keeps things light. As such, it comes as surprise when we see Enoch slapping Glowie around for the usual reasons creeps beat up on women. It\u2019s an abrupt shift in tone that is thankfully reset when Glowie finally stands up to Enoch. One thing, I didn\u2019t know a van waterbed had that much water in it.<\/p>\n

\u00a0In many ways, Drive-In<\/strong> is like a C&W version of American Graffiti with teens hanging out at a drive-in movie instead of cruising the strip. Like AG, the song selections are perfectly fitting. It\u2019s a virtual cornucopia of country tunes by popular artists like Ronnie Milsap (\u201cPure Love\u201d), George Jones and Tammy Wynette (\u201cGod\u2019s Gonna Get\u2019cha for That\u201d), Jerry Reed (\u201cLast Train to Clarksville\u201d) and Ray Stevens (\u201cMisty\u201d).<\/p>\n

\u00a0Drive-In <\/strong>has an amiable, shaggy quality that makes it pleasing and likable. The cast is made up of unknowns (at the time) which gives it a sense of realism. The most familiar face of all (again, at the time) is young Cavagnaro who played Mike Engelberg in The Bad News Bears. He would make one more movie, the 1979 made-for-TV drama Crisis at Central High, before he quit acting. The whole cast does a decent job. It would hard to single out any one actor; they\u2019re all varying degrees of good. I\u2019ll leave it at this; it\u2019s solid ensemble work.<\/p>\n

\u00a0While not hilarious, Drive-In<\/strong> is sufficiently funny. The running gag about Enoch\u2019s customized van getting damaged bit by bit never gets old. The bits with the manager trying to keep the place under control work extremely well.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Drive-In<\/strong> is a movie that doesn\u2019t get the recognition it deserves. Nobody even seems to remember it. On the few occasions I brought it up, I got a lot of blank stares. I highly doubt it would go over with today\u2019s audiences. The milieu depicted here would be positively alien to Gen-Z youngsters who order tickets on their phones and sit in pre-chosen reclining seats in gigantic cinemas without personality. I missed the whole drive-in era by about 10 years, but I\u2019ve heard stories. Also, I tend to favor the trashy movies that typically screened in such establishments. Drive-In<\/strong> is a nice, mostly sweet reminder that going to the movies could be eventful.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Drive-In (1976)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Columbia\/Comedy-Drama\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 96 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG (language, violence, sexual material, drug use)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Rod Amateau\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Bob Peete\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Lee Osborne\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Robert Jessup\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: May 26, 1976 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Glenn Morshower, Lisa Lemole, Gary Cavagnaro, Billy Milliken, Lee Newsom, Regan Kee, Andy Parks, Trey Wilson, Gordon Hurst, Kent Perkins, Ashley Cox, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3575,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2664","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hidden-treasures"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Drive-In-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2664","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2664"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2664\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3576,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2664\/revisions\/3576"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}