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Author
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Topic: The Drive-In Experience
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Steve Klare
Film Guy
Posts: 7016
From: Long Island, NY, USA
Registered: Jun 2003
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posted June 08, 2012 09:54 PM
So the Quest continues:
Last Summer I got my family (and a couple of friends) to camp up in the Sebago Lakes region of Maine. This was the perfect storm of vacations for me:
1) It is the former home of the defunct Bridgton and Saco River narrow gauge railroad, so I'd have a couple of days to putter around and find relics (it's been gone since 1941, not a lot of relics remain...)
2) The campground was on a lake, so I'd get to haul my canoe down to the water at will.
3) The Bridgton Twin Drive-In was just up the road.
Playing that week was this double feature:
First up was Harry Potter and the something or other. You see I've never been into young Harry and all I knew about him at that point was he wears glasses and is somehow tied into the occult!
Second on the bill was "Cowboys and Aliens". This one really interested me because I wanted to see how they pulled off mixing a Western and a SciFi.
Our friends came to the rescue on "Harry". The days before we rented several DVDs and watched a bunch. I'm still not into it, but at least I felt more prepared (Since when has watching movies become so much work?)
-And so we went one night:
The Bridgton Twin is quite nice: they've recently added a second screen and the FM sound was clearer than the Sunset in Vermont two years before. I tuned in the stereo in the van and it sounded good without any twiddling at all.
Five of us went in that same minivan. This time we brought chairs, cranked up the stereo, opened the sliding doors and sat out under the stars.
What follows is a story of how theory collides with reality, and theory (as usual) loses.
The theory was we would sit through "Harry" and I would get to see "Cowboys and Aliens" under the stars basking in that rare Drive-In Movieness.
The reality is in August it's getting towards Fall in Maine and it gets pretty chilly at night. (Someone once said "Maine has but two seasons: Winter and August.")
Not very long after things started to get kinda interestin' in "Cowboys and Aliens" my wife made this announcement:
"Steve, I'm cold!"
-and not too long after that:
"Steve, I'm FREEZING!"
I couldn't really offer much of a defense, because frankly so was I!
-and ever so reluctantly I cranked over all six cylinders (Got the big block: 4.2L!!) and headed back to camp.
Maybe out of guilt, she bought me the DVD for Christmas. I didn't get to see how them fellers did against them bad compadres from another planet until January! (This is a record for me: five months to finish a feature!)
I thought the area was as pretty country as I've ever seen, so I think I will encounter the Bridgton Twin again.
-maybe next time with a thermos of coffee, a blanket and a sweatshirt!
The Bridgton Twin on Facebook
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[ June 08, 2012, 10:59 PM: Message edited by: Steve Klare ]
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All I ask is a wide screen and a projector to light her by...
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Steve Klare
Film Guy
Posts: 7016
From: Long Island, NY, USA
Registered: Jun 2003
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posted July 13, 2014 02:05 PM
Back to the Bridgton Twin
I am just back from a week long vacation in Maine’s Sebago Lakes. We rented a house on Little Sebago Lake. Even though it is over ten miles long, this one gets called “little” because it is in an area of many lakes, and many larger ones too. We did most of the things I love to do when I’m there: relax by a campfire many nights and go grab some lobsters and fresh corn to eat out on the porch. As often as I wanted I pushed off in my solo canoe and coasted around the bay our house overlooked. There were two loons with a chick going about their business in the very vocal way these birds are famous for and I saw them a lot. One afternoon they lost and then found their baby and I’m sure people knew about it a mile down the lake.
Another thing I love to do when I’m in the neighborhood is take in a drive-in movie. Maine has a pretty decent crop of operating drive-ins. Based on what was showing and who I was with, we chose to return once again to the Bridgton Twin.
This was kind of a bittersweet return. When we were there in 2011, the Twin was showing 35mm. A year or so later they went digital, simply as a matter of survival in these changing times.
Along with the conversion, they completely tore down their snack bar and built a new building containing the projection house for screen #1 plus a new snack bar and very nice comfort facilities.
Opposite the snack bar there was this pleasant surprise:
This was a 35mm machine from screen #1, along with what I think are the power supplies for the lamp house. It’s interesting to see it set up for reels top and bottom: I’d imagined all modern 35mm projection was done with a platter.
My very sharp-eyed son saw some film inside it and declared it the penguin dance sequence from Mary Poppins (-the one that Pamela Travers allegedly hated so much according to Saving Mr Banks)
It is still equipped with its anamorphic lens:
It’s nice to see that even after the conversion, the management of the theater has enough reverence for the history this machine represents that they found it a place of honor. Being that it’s a family business I bet there are some personal memories as well.
It’s interesting that watching a Drive-In movie doesn’t involve the car nearly as much as you might suspect. We, along with most of the audience found it much more comfortable sitting on lawn chairs behind the car, with the front bumper facing away from the screen, the rear hatch open and the stereo turned up. (A decent portable radio with fresh batteries might be nice next time…)
The poles for the hard-wired car speakers are still there at screen #1, but the speakers themselves are long gone. Screen #2 has been FM sound from the start, so there were never any poles there.
We learned the lessons of 2011 well: as much a July day as it started out to be it got pretty chilly after sunset. A sweatshirt and a fleece blanket each made everything right to enjoy that 75 foot wide screen under a starry Maine sky just fine and finish the movie too.
As far as the digital conversion goes, the reality of our time is that this change is coming: like it or not, ready or not. The family that owns this place doesn’t have the luxury to stay 35mm and still be an operating cinema. As much as I love film, I can’t be so much of a purist that I’d boycott them for doing what they have to do to stay in business and put food on their table.
Besides, as much as I enjoyed the fresh local corn, I’d rather see it be a drive-in theater of any kind than just another cornfield.
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All I ask is a wide screen and a projector to light her by...
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