21/01/2021
FROM THE OCTOBER 2020 PRINT EDITION: Our Pandemic Vacation: Pennsylvania drive-ins see summer surge
by Jonathan F. Slade, Editor
When our summer vacation plans were turned upside down this year due to the pandemic, my wife Novia and I were left looking for an adventure that would get us out of the house and still allow for social distancing. That’s when we discovered that Pennsylvania has roughly 20 drive-in theaters across the state that are still in operation. Turns out, Novia’s as addicted to Turner Classic Movies as I am to the weekend roadtrip, so we made a pact to see films in as many of these historic venues as possible.
Shankweiler’s Drive-in, Orefield, PA: Perhaps it was fitting that we started by visiting this venue outside Allentown, PA, the country’s oldest operating drive-in. The bonus was that for the first time in months we were actually able to see brand new movies on the big screen -- a double feature of James Franco’s mumblecore-influenced horror flick The Rental and Scott Wiper’s The Big Ugly, a wobbly ensemble actioner featuring well-to-do Brits taking on oilfield hillbillies in West Virginia (a muddled, low rent Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Daryls.) We loved this venue, from the neon over its entrance to the chatty, helpful young woman in the ticket booth, to the thoughtful way they had re-designed their snack bar to deal with the coronavirus. Novia started her drive-in movie T-shirt collection here. Roundtrip: 220 miles from Lineboro, MD to Orefield, PA.
Mahoning Drive-in, Lehighton, PA: We joined a packed parking lot of monster movie fans to see Ishirō Honda’s King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962) at the Mahoning Drive-In in Lehighton, PA, part of 10 film schlockfest that ran dusk to dawn throughout the weekend. This is one of the few drive-ins that allows patrons to camp overnight on site and bring pets, so Novia packed up Charlie, our 14 year old mostly deaf, partially blind Bichon Frise — along with his own portable “pup tent” — so he could see his first outdoor movie. Charlie slept through most of it, but the devoted throng of eclectic movie-goers loved it. There’s a neat behind-the-scenes documentary by Alexander Monelli about the Mahoning theater called At the Drive-In if you have Amazon Prime. Roundtrip from Lineboro, MD to Lehighton, PA: 250 miles.
Sky Vu Drive-in, Gratz, PA: On August 1, we drove through the mountains north of Harrisburg, PA and east of the Susquehanna River to visit the Sky Vu in Gratz to watch John Hughes’ iconic 1986 comedy Ferris Bueller’s Day Off -- the first of three Hughes films on a beautiful 74 degree summer evening with a bright moon arcing directly behind the screen. The snack bar was packed and the Pepsi machine was down, but we enjoyed this remote single screen venue full of enthusiastic local patrons run by an owner who clearly has a passion for drive-ins. By the way, I thoroughly enjoyed Ferris Bueller when I first saw it back in college. Now I found myself if wondering if he grew up to be a hedge fund jerk or pharma bro. How age changes us. Roundtrip: Lineboro, MD to Gratz, PA: 168 miles.
Pike Drive-in, Montgomery, PA: Our longest trek yet took us north on US Route 15 to see Columbian filmmaker Ciro Guerra’s first English-language movie Waiting for the Barbarians (2020), starring Academy Award winner Mark Rylance as a local magistrate at a desert outpost, and Johnny Depp as the brutally efficient inquisitor Colonel Joll. It’s the best film yet we’ve seen so far on our tour of regional drive-ins. The Pike Drive-in has three screens, but only two were in operation on this beautiful 70 degree summer evening, with a hazy orange moon hovering just above the one showing Back to the Future 2 & 3. We arrived at 10:20pm to catch the 10:40pm show of Barbarians, and it was a good thing we got there early because the theater actually began our feature about 10:25pm — a few drivers pulled in around 10:50pm and they’d already missed the entire first act. These stragglers stayed for about 10 minutes, then packed up and left, headlights slashing the screen. Rule #1 for drive-in viewing: Always arrive at least 30 minutes before showtime — earlier if you can. We loved this theater’s projection and sound systems, and the fact that patrons can buy a food license allowing them to bring in their own popcorn, snacks, and beverages is very convenient during the COVID-19 pandemic — lately we’ve been smuggling in mozzarella cheesesticks, pepper beef jerky, and butterscotch pudding (the three core drive-in food groups). Roundtrip: From Lineboro, MD: 254 miles.
The Point Drive-in, Northumberland, PA: Somehow it seems fitting to watch Alexandre Aja’s 2019 allegator horror flick Crawl at a drive-in movie theater in the pouring rain. The plot tells the story of a woman and her father trapped in the basement of a collapsing Florida home — with a gator — during a category 5 hurricane. Trying to watch the action unfold through snapping windshield wipers and fogged glass while listening to the rain pound on the roof of our car only added to the tense, disorienting mise en scene. At one point, the actual 35mm film print of Crawl jumped the frame, leaving the top of the movie on the bottom of the towering screen and vice versa, with a hard black wobbly line cutting horizontally through the entire image. As I dutifully prepared to climb out of our car and run through the downpour to the projection booth to tell them (no one there had yet noticed), Novia says, “Why don’t you just message them on their page?” Great idea! I do, and less than a minute later, the projectionist corrects the image on the screen — and I stay dry! A wonderful intersection of 21st century tech and 1950s entertainment. Sadly, just six days after we visited, The Point was struck by a windstorm that destroyed one of its three giant screens, and damaged another. Roundtrip from Lineboro, MD: 233 miles.
Cumberland Drive-in, Newville, PA: Our summer mission to visit as many Pennsylvania drive-ins as possible continued with a relatively short journey to this outdoor single-screen venue just off Interstate 81 near Carlisle. A well-managed place surrounded by cornfields with pleasant, helpful counter service, and a smartly modified snack bar to make social distancing easy during the pandemic. Patrons can even reserve a specific parking space online before arriving, and kids can play on the boulders in front of the screen while the adults catch up with each other. It was a beautiful late August evening in the mid-70s with a constant breeze and low humidity. We came to see the first-run film Bill and Ted Face The Music and were in line to buy tickets behind an SUV wall-papered with Grateful Dead stickers. Friendly, low stress environment. Novia added a cool pink tie-dye drive-in T-shirt to her growing collection. Worth the trip. Roundtrip: Lineboro, MD to Newville, PA: 102 miles.
Becky’s Drive-in, Walnutport, PA. Our final drive-in movie roadtrip was to see Christopher Nolan’s brand new mind-bending blockbuster Tenet at one of the only venues on the East Coast where you can safely screen it outside. We arrived at 6pm for the 8pm show and the place was already jam-packed. Still, we managed to get a prime spot in the second row. And we weren’t the only ones from out of state — we saw a number of license plates from New Jersey and New York, too. To be sure, it was worth the drive, not just for the well designed 2-screen layout, the perfectly tiered parking ramps, the cheeseburgers, and a selection of Becky-branded COVID-19 masks, but for Nolan’s upside-down inside-out storytelling full of “inverted time fistfights” (don’t ask, you just have to see it). In a normal year Tenet would rake in a gazillion dollars. For now, at least, we hope it will crank much needed dollars into any drive-in willing to screen it. Roundtrip: Lineboro, MD to Walnutport, PA: 238 miles.
In all, we visited seven drive-ins in five weeks, leaving still more adventures for next year. Many of these venues have already closed for the season, but some, like the Mahoning, continue to screen films through the end of October.
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Jonathan Slade and Novia Campbell have lived in Lineboro, MD since 2001. She is a self-described binge-watcher of all genres. He is a professor of Communication & Cinema at McDaniel College in Westminster, MD.
