I loved going to the movies as a child. I remember watching drive-in movies while sitting on the tailgate of the family station wagon or waiting with anticipation to see the newest Disney film at Christmas time.
I grew up in Spokane, Wash., so drive-in movies were strictly a summertime activity. Mom was the local Tupperware lady, selling the brightly colored plastic containers at parties she gave in our home once we were all in bed.
I always snuck downstairs to steal a few after-dinner mints while all the ladies oohed and aahed over the latest plastic innovation from Mr. Tupper’s factory. While they waxed ecstatic about mayonnaise-jar spatulas, I secreted pillow-shaped mints and petit-fours into the folds of my pajama top.
Mom also owned a lot of Tupperware, and special pieces were reserved for drive-in movie nights. There was the rectangular, flat container that held chunks of her delicious, home-made fudge and the round, two-gallon Kool-Aid dispenser with pastel-hued drinking cups.
But our favorite container was the big-ass brown paper bag filled with freshly popped, buttered popcorn. We’re talking real butter here, which is why I now wear big-ass pants.
When I was small, drive-in movies usually meant seeing a musical, war movie, or Western. The drive-in was near a dairy farm, so Westerns always involved smell-o-vision! I would fall asleep, later waking in my dad’s arms as he hoisted me out of the back of the station wagon and upstairs to bed.
When I was 5, Walt Disney premiered a new animated film, and I begged my mother to take me to see it. It was winter and had been snowing for days. The downtown stores sparkled with holiday lights as Mom and I huddled in line against the walls of the Fox Theater, waiting to see Sleeping Beauty.
She has never let me forget how she stood there freezing in weather that was colder than Maleficent’s heart, as the wind blew snow at us, while I kept asking “Can we go in yet, Mamma? When can we see the movie?”
Five years later, I begged Mom to take me to see the Beatles’ movie A Hard Day’s Night. Fortunately, this film came out in the summer and that meant the drive-in! I must have drove Mom buggy as I squealed and screamed at each Beatles song that played on the radio on the way.
When she paid our admission, she was handed a photo of the Fab Four with their autographs printed on it. I squealed and screamed some more as I clutched it to my chest. I hardly partook of any of the fudge, popcorn, or grape Kool-Aid as I watched my mop-haired heroes cavort across the screen!
Years later, I saw another British film, on the sly! I was a senior in high school when I snuck into the drive-in to see A Clockwork Orange. The film was then rated X, for adults 21 and older only! I think this is because Malcolm McDowell’s twig and berries were prominently visible. Has anyone noticed that this seems to be the case with most of his films? Is it written into his contract, “Mr. McDowell’s full Monty must be prominently featured!” Sounds like a lot of cock-and-bullocks to me, but I digress.
Some friends of the appropriate age invited me along. But IDs were being checked, so I hunkered down in the trunk of the car until we were safely inside. It’s funny, but I recently saw A Clockwork Orange while hunkered down in my own living room on Turner Classic Movies. Wait, maybe that’s not so funny. Crumbs. Now I feel old.
My favorite movie moments were spent at the swanky Cine Capri Theater in Phoenix, Ariz. I waited in line one hellacious summer to see the midnight showing of Star Wars in 104-degree heat! At 11 p.m. At night. Even now I break out in sweat at the recollection.
The Cine Capri seated more than 1,000 patrons and had “continental seating,” with no center aisle. The rows were continuous from side to side, curving away from the huge screen. It was quite the movie experience.
My high-school friend, Robin, and I have birthdays two weeks apart and decided to celebrate them by ditching school early to catch a matinee showing of The Godfather. Clad in our Marymount plaid, Catholic-school uniforms, we headed to the theater.
It was R-rated, so the age requirement was 18 and older to get in. Rob (my nick-name for her) had her 18th birthday two weeks prior, but mine wasn’t until the next day, so the manager refused me admittance. Robin, always sensible, asked him, “What is she going to know at midnight that she doesn’t already know?” I got in.
We had skipped school before lunch, and I needed sustenance. No way can I watch a bunch of mobsters kill each other on an empty stomach. The matinee was filling up, so we ran to get the best seats in the center of the center row. Then I headed back to the lobby for snacks. “Hurry up,” advised sensible Robin. “It’s about to start!”
I gathered up my giant tub of popcorn to share and two large sodas and headed back into the now dark theater. The previews were showing, and I realized I had made a fatal error by not counting the rows from where we sat. All I could see in the dark were rows of heads. The place looked like a giant abacus!
I started down what I thought was my row, got to the middle, and kept going to the other side to the annoyance of everyone. No empty seat for me! I stealthily skulked up and down the aisle, spotted my row, and proceeded to my seat. Nope! Wrong again!
I tried to be subtle as I made my way down yet another row whispering, “Rob! Rob!” This choice of verbiage made the people in front of me nervous and my arms began to shake with the weight of a jumbo tub of popcorn and two huge sodas.
“Rob!” I whispered frantically as the film started and Marlon Brando’s face loomed on the screen. Forget the mob in the movie, the theater patrons were about to become one! I exited another row, popcorn now spilling down the necks of the people seated in front of me, and an usher begged me, for the love of God, to find a seat.
“I’m trying to!” I whimpered. “There’s only one empty seat left in this place and it’s mine!” Suddenly, an entire row of people started doing what we now call The Wave. Robin had been trying to flag me down, but in the dark I couldn’t see her. Soon everyone in the row was waving at me frantically as Don Corleone made an offer I couldn’t refuse. Take a seat or sleep with the fishes!
“Why didn’t you just stand up so I could see you?” I fumed as I finally sat down.
“Look behind us,” Robin whispered.
God help us both, there was Sister Mary Faith, the school principal, with two other nuns watching The Godfather. They never realized who we were in the dark! Which proved to me two things: There is a God, and things like this do not just happen only in the movies!
Ariel Waterman still loves going to the movies with her Brit and Britween. Send movie tickets and homemade fudge via her editor, Ryan Miller, at rmiller@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in May 29 – Jun 5, 2014.
