The Last Picture Show: Saying goodbye to the drive-in

 

I knew I was close when I could smell the diesel fumes.

The prosaically named 88 Drive In is the last existing drive-in movie theater in the Denver metropolitan area. It sits at 88^th and Rosemary Streets, northeast of the city, lodged in an industrial pocket called Irondale, part of Commerce City. Its distance from the hum of gentrification in the region spared it for decades from decease.

Now, at last, with the explosion of growth in the city, even condemned and inconveniently placed parcels of land are being sold, for ridiculous prices, to the highest bidder. And the Kochevar family, which owns the drive-in, finally felt it was justifiable to sell the land. It has become economically unfeasible for them to run the business, which would also require substantial capital improvements in the off-season.

Relics at the concession stand.

So they sold. By this time next year, the theater’s lot will be crowded with warehouses.

So, this is the end of the line for the 88, and I just had to go one last time.

Fun facts: the theater opened in 1971, and was distinctly unprofitable. Therefore, the next season it started to show X-rated movies. This did not go over well with the neighbors, and they had to build a fence on top of a nearby school so that students couldn’t clamber up at night and watch porno.

On February 11,1973, someone set off a bomb in the concession stand. The city and the neighbors crusaded against the theater. Finally, it was sold to another party and the X-rated films stopped. After a few changes of owners, Bill Holshue, who also managed my beloved Lake Shore Drive In in Edgewater, bought the place – his daughter Susan still runs the 88.

The screen -- fighting light pollution.

The Kochevars have run it since 1976, which is when I finally got my driver’s license and started going with gangs of friends or on dates. I have kissed many girls at the 88 over the years. (Note to my wife: OK, really not that many.) Back then, cars were a passport to freedom, and drive-ins were among the very few places where we teenagers could go and do what wanted, without dreaded parental or institutional supervision. God knows how many children were conceived there.

I chose to go on the night of a triple horror feature, the best possible way to say goodbye to the old place. These movies weren’t completely current – the evening started with the kid-frienddly animation Monster House (2006), then drifted into the Marvel misfire Morbius (2022), and concluding in cheesy greatness with The Nun II (2023).

The entrance was still somewhat obscure to locate, but soon I found myself at the cinderblock hut that held the ticket-taker. He gave me a handy snack-bar menu and list of rules and instructions. “Park by any blue-striped pole,” he informed me, and off I went.

Unfortunately, I can’t see that well at night and I’m color blind. The main body of the lot is row upon row of hummocked spaces, dotted by posts that used to hold the theater’s speakers (now, you run your car’s battery down listening to the movie on 93.7 FM). You pick at post, you park next to it. I finally gave up and stayed in the back, among the trucks and SUVs.

Now, the visuals of the 88 have always been somewhat compromised. The backdrop of the screen is the well-lighted facades of warehouses, which tends to wash out the image in front of it. If a scene is exceptionally dark, and since this was horror there was, it becomes incredibly difficult to track it. Ironically, this leaves the viewer riveted to the action in front of them, if only to keep track of what the hell was going on.

There is a major highway and rail route next to the theater, so the rumble of vehicles and the bray of horns routinely punctures the night. You get used to it. But you can see how the site is aesthetically challenged.

I cruised the concession stand one last time. (The long trough in the urinal was still there.) The family was grouped behind the counter, prepping food, making sales. I checked out the offerings, but since I pride myself on being cheap, I didn’t get anything. Then I broke down and got a commemorative T-shirt.

Having done my part to contribute to the welfare of the Kochevar family, I returned to my vehicle. Things were not going well onscreen. Monster House was surprisingly good, though definitely family fare. Morbius? He takes serum that cures his life-long physical disabilities, but also turns him into a vampire. Darn it.

I think that’s what it was. The action was getting darker and darker, and Jared Leto was bashing the hell out of Matt Smith (English, unnaturally large head, former Doctor Who). He kills him, I think. But his girlfriend gets killed, too. So he flies off all perturbed, surrounded by bats.

But oh! Dear Reader! The Nun II! Like The Nun (which I’ve not seen), only nunnier! It’s a classic B-movie, run-of-the-mill horror just the way you like it with jump scares and music that tips you off when to pay attention. It’s Saints versus Demons in a somewhat-scary showdown. This movie was made for the drive-in – simple enough to follow, blatantly entertaining, and easy to summarize for your parents so they won’t think you spent all your time there making out.

Demons defeated, the good restored to stability. I made it to the end. The full moon had arced long up into the sky. It was 1 a.m., time to go.

The NFR Project: 'Hands Up!' (1926)

Hands Up!

Dir: Clarence D. Badger

Scr: Monte Brice, Lloyd Corrigan

Pho: H. Kinley Martin

Ed: unknown

Premiere: Jan. 14, 1926

70 min.

There was a lot more to silent comedy than Chaplin, Keaton, and Lloyd (thank goodness we are beginning to forget about poor Harry Langdon), though we are never exposed to it, much less educated about it. For every comic superstar of the period there was a multitude of lesser lights, each of some appeal in their own way.

First of all, I must direct you to the superlative explanatoryessay on this film by Steve Massa, on the National Film Registry website. (It rightly credits the writing of Walter Kerr in The Silent Clowns as being responsible for reviving interest in him.) It covers the backgrounds of most of the principals involved in Hands Up!, and provides many new facts about the life of its lead player, Raymond Griffith.

An aspiring comic film performer, Griffith’s early lack of success was due to his lack of a comic persona. Quickly, he moved behind the camera and gained a reputation as a solid gagman. Finally, in 1922 he devised a comic character utterly unlike that of the sad, sentimental heroes of most comic features – Chaplin the winsome Tramp, Keaton the stolid buffoon, Lloyd the eager beaver.

Griffith styled himself as a calm, debonair, and quiet man about town – complete with white tie and tails, opera cape, top hat, and cane. His character was intelligent, and much faster on the draw than those around him. He is seldom surprised and never shamed, moving gracefully from one trajectory to another, as fortune whiplashes him, with effortless grace. In a world of crazy people, Griffith is the grown-up in the room.

This film, one of his few surviving creations, takes place in the same period as Buster Keaton’s The General, the Civil War. (Released the same year, Griffith’s film did surprisingly better business than Keaton.) Griffith is Jack, a Confederate spy whose mission is to thwart the shipment of Yankee gold from Nevada to President Lincoln.

Even in the wildest of wild wests, Griffith is at gentlemanly ease. Slapstick events may transpire, but Griffith is nonplussed. He never mugs for the camera – that would be far too unseemly. Instead, he relentlessly underplays his reactions, letting the jokes do the work. He befuddles a squad of men sent out to shoot him as a spy. He mistakes an Indian attack for that of a bee. He foils the plans of the tribe by shooting craps with its chief (played by the versatile Noble Johnson), and ends up teaching them the Charleston.

He deftly juggles the affections of two sisters while struggling with his Union counterpart (Montagu Love). His efforts backfire. His attempt to blow up the gold mine just reveals a bigger vein. He can’t get the wagon full of gold out onto the road. Eventually, he gets the horses out but nothing else. And so on.

Throughout, Griffith retains his sense of calm equanimity. In defeat, he is graceful. And he comes up with an unexpected solution to his dilemma of loving two women at the same time.

Griffith starred in 10 features. Unfortunately, he had a damaged voice that rendered him incapable of working in sound film. His last role was as the poignant, nonspeaking soldier who dies in a shell hole in All Quiet on the Western Front (1930). After this, he turned his assured hand to producing, crafting a number of winning films. Now, we only have fragments of an output to mark his fascinating, short-lived silent comedy career.

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: Mighty Like a Moose.

 

 

 

The NFR Project: 'Ella Cinders'

 

Ella Cinders

Dir: Alfred E. Green

Scr: Frank Griffin and Mervyn LeRoy, story; George Marion Jr., titles

Pho: Arthus Martinelli

Ed: Robert Kern

Premiere: June 6, 1926

75 min.

Ella Cinders was a syndicated cartoon that was launched in 1925. It began as a modernized version of the story of Cinderella, but later expanded into the continuing adventures of its title character.

Ella’s look could easily have been taken from Colleen Moore, who was already a movie star when the cartoon debuted. It is singularly appropriate then that Moore portrays Ella in this screen adventure. Pert, coy, with large expressive eyes and a banged, bobbed hairdo, Moore was a renowned incarnation of the flapper, the good-time girl of the period.

The film was produced by Moore’s husband, John McCormick, and released by First National Pictures. Ella is the put-upon domestic slave of her evil step-family, the Pills. When word of a contest comes to town, promising a trip to Hollywood and a film role for a lucky winner, Ella determines to enter. She submits her photo, unwittingly one with her eyes crossed. Surprisingly, the judging committee selects her as the winner due to her comic facility. She goes to Hollywood, but finds that the contest was a sham. She is determined to literally break into the studio, and after a few misadventures, she finds herself with a career in show business. In the meantime, it turns out that her iceman boyfriend back home is actually a rich young football hero; he seeks her out and weds her.

Moore’s winsome charm and spunky attitude drive the film. She shines as the symbol of a more carefree time.

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: Hands Up!.