At the Drive-in (2017) Movie Script
1
Good evening folks and a hearty welcome
to our drive-in theater.
Earlier this spring, volunteers
in Carbon County gave up
their weekends to save
a connection with their
past, they helped fix up
the Mahoning drive-in near Lehighton
and they hope their hard work would help
keep it open for summers to come.
But the theater just off Route 443
also needs $60,000 for a digital projector.
Hollywood will soon stop printing films
that run on older projectors like this one
at the Mahoning drive-in.
So many drive-ins are
abandoned, torn down, gone.
A drive-in movie theater
is back in Carbon County
despite talk it would have
to fold after being unable to
purchase a digital projector.
The manager here says if they are
still unable to purchase a digital projector
for next season one option
would be to run this
as a classic drive-in playing older movies
still available on 35mm film.
We really hit it off
with our love of our film.
And then you get to hold a piece of film
in your hand, the actual,
physical film and say
all these images that I've been watching
over all these years on
this little plastic strip.
It's not pristine, it's not spotless.
That's what I love about
film more than anything else
it's messed up in some weird little way
that makes it unique.
- That print carries with it
the entire history of
the life of that print.
This is the same piece of
film that passed through
a projector when this film was new.
24 frames per second was initially chosen
because it was the speed
at which you would trick
the brain into thinking it
was looking at something
real and moving and not
just pictures in a row
and Quentin Tarantino
points to that when he talks
about what he thinks is the
literal magic of movies.
We're up on this pedestal
that 35mm is our format,
the only format.
- We keep this retro mentality
film first and 35 forever, that's it.
And now, on with the show.
Oh yes, home sweet home.
We do have R, PG13 where we run all ratings.
I've never run an X, I
don't think I would do that.
I wouldn't want people
driving down the highway
looking at the no, no,
I would never do that.
I can't do that.
I don't know if that's
something that we can.
This was pretty much what
it was like when it closed
in October, I mean they've got a couple,
I mean they were packing up some posters
and some video tapes,
but with the decorations
I mean this is the way it was in October.
That's what I came to do today,
is finish up setting up all the sound,
finish getting the
projectors oiled and cleaned
and I'm hoping to run one
of the intermission reels
tonight just to test things.
Most drive-ins in general
have been renovated many times
and this one has not, this
one is almost original,
and that's the way I wanted to keep it.
That's why I fell in love with it
when I thought oh my goodness.
This was meant to be a
single screen drive-in,
everyone facing the same
direction at the same time,
watching the same movie at the same time.
That's how drive-ins were built.
Nobody used to build drive-ins in the 40s
with the idea of having two, three screens.
This is the way drive-ins were meant to be.
When you walk into a drive-in
that does what I'm doing,
you are stepping back in time.
If you look around you you see a field
that hasn't changed in 67 years.
You see a building, a screen,
the interior of the building
that hasn't changed in 67 years, you think
my gosh this is old and
it's still operating.
I always liked movies, ever
since I was a little kid.
I got this projector when
I was in junior high.
I mean it's an old 16mm,
it's from the 1950s.
I have my own 16mm collection,
features, shorts, cartoons.
And I've been a projectionist,
a professional projectionist
since 1978, the air
force base theater needed
a projectionist and I thought
well that would be neat,
so that's where I learned
to work professional 35mm
was in the air force, at
the air force base theater.
Yeah, the projectors I
have there are Simplex E7s,
they're the original
projectors from 1948 when the
theater was built, they've
been running 67 years.
And these are considered
heavy machinery, you used
to have to have a license to run these,
you couldn't just, you had to
have a license to run these
because they can kill you
if you're not careful.
Guys back in the 70s who had long hair
like Patrick for example...
- Ha ha, get his comment.
They with projectors, they'd get it caught
while it's running, it
ripped the hair right out
of their heads.
- Oh!
Oh yeah, it ripped the hair
right out of their heads.
- Dang it, I'm bad.
- Now everything is digital
and you press a button,
you're not working with it.
It's all exactly the same
thing, ones and zeroes
from a computer you know.
Your loops have to be the right size,
because if they're not then the sound is not
synchronized with people's lips.
You don't even have to go
into a projection booth
anymore, you can set a timer
on these digital projectors
and at the same time everyday
they'll start the movie.
You don't even have to walk into the booth.
What's the point?
What's there to do?
That's why there are no
more projectionists anymore
because it's not a profession,
there's nothing to do.
Well there isn't.
Look at computers, look at
your laptops or your desktops.
After five years, they're
obsolete they're junk.
Systems are faster, electronics are better,
they're smaller, so the digital projectors
that first came out say eight years ago
or even 10 years ago, now it's almost
that nobody wants them.
They want everybody, the
industry wants everybody
to be digital, so there's only
two ways you can go with it
and that was the juncture that I was at.
Turns out we can we get
one more summer, hopefully
this summer will be good
enough that next season
we can put in a digital projector.
If you are fortunate enough
to have one of the few
remaining drive-in theaters
there's only two directions
you can go, you're either
going to stay first run
and be digital, the only other option
is to play old movies, because
they're not making them
on 35mm anymore, so now I'm
not gonna be able to afford
to get a digital projector,
I better figure out
what to do with a 35mm
projector that I already have.
I was able to keep it
going for the first part
of 2014, this is before
Matt and Virgil came along.
This is probably not gonna do anything.
- Choke it, choke it.
- Yeah, I've got it choked.
C'mon, yeah!
I'm driving, I'm come towards Lehighton
and I'm coming down this 209,
and there's construction,
there's construction
on the bridge and traffic is backed up
all the way down 443 and up 209.
I decide I'll take a
detour, I bust out my trusty
road atlas and I don't have a smartphone,
I use maps, I'm old
school and basically track
the new route, I never gone down that road,
first time I ever drove down
it was a good couple years ago
and I was going down 443
and I see the marquee,
the big red arrow that
a first impression was
oh a bed and drive-in I
should go check that out.
Gave Virgil a call right away.
And said you'll never
believe what I'm looking at.
He says I'm standing under
the marquee of a drive-in.
That's where I met Jeff.
He invited me into the projection booth.
I sat down that old antique theater chair
and we literally talked for like an hour.
Late 50s, early 60s this was the way to go
as far as sound goes because magnetic sound
was better than optical sound,
because the only speakers
you had at a drive-in
were those little speakers
in the steel case, it's not high fidelity.
Jeff I don't know what to say about Jeff.
He's a magician.
- As soon as I met Jeff,
the first day that I met
Jeff, I knew that he was
gonna be a really important part of my life.
He's not worried about all this other shit
that everybody else
worries about all the time.
You know what I mean he is very pure.
Did you leave your hot
dog clamps on here or what?
So then I am the projectionist and the owner
of the drive-in and I lease the property,
I do not own the property, boy I wish I did,
I hope that's coming some
day, I own the business,
but the property is still owned by the guy
who's had it for decades
and he leases it to me,
but some day I would
like to buy the property
so that I actually own the
whole lock stock and barrel.
I consider Jeff's
relationship here as that piece
of the past and Matt and
myself coming in here
is a little breath of the future.
They knew an opening that
I was not familiar with.
They knew social media, where I did not,
I only knew the bare bones of it.
He saw that immediately,
that these guys want to
help me save this drive-in.
When Matt and Virgil came in, I honestly
didn't know what to think of them at first
and there's definitely a lot
of frustration I felt like
I was just pushed aside and
I wasn't important anymore,
we definitely has some
arguments, especially Matt and I.
Jess has been around longer than any of us,
with the exception of
Jeff, the hardest thing
for her I think is when we showed up,
everything just got turned on its head,
everything is different, all of a sudden.
I was very upset, I would talk to my parents
about it or Jeff, because
I'm really close with Jeff.
Well, she was a little bit worried at first
that maybe Virgil and
Matt wouldn't take to her
that much and I said don't
worry, I said I hired you.
He's always been there
for me especially with
the changeover, like he's probably
been the biggest supporter.
Jessica is nostalgia
herself because she's the last
holdover from my old crew from years ago,
Jessica is the last person still with me
that was there years ago.
When Virgil and I came into the fold,
it was in dire straits, we're looking at
four car nights at best.
We weren't getting any business really,
there was people barely showing up,
which was just heartbreaking to see.
I was driving up to the theater one day,
it's when Guardians of
the Galaxy first came out.
Everybody had Guardians of
the Galaxy and I thought
it thins out the herd too much.
We've got two great movies
for you, first of all,
we've got Guardians of the
Galaxy and that's rated PG-13.
So we finally decided okay, once we're done
with Guardians of the Galaxy,
that's our last brand new movie.
After this, we're going
retro, we're going classic.
It was up and down, it was a rollercoaster.
By the end of the season,
overall we had lost money.
I don't mind admitting that,
we had lost money overall.
I know this place went
through some scary times.
Every now and then
somebody offers to buy it,
they want to take it out from under us,
but fortunately the land
owner he won't sell it.
He will not sell it.
Yeah, sure, we'd like to
make money, that's important,
everybody wants to make
money, nobody wants to do
it for free, but the idea
is to save the drive-in
and to keep it going and get it even better
than what it is, so all three of us,
we worked for free last year basically.
We haven't taken any pay checks.
We're not paying ourselves at all.
It's a piece of my dream coming true
and that's all I can ask for you know.
That's the short story, that's basically
how it all came together.
It's a universal story and
that story needs to be told.
When he first came out, yeah,
I usually take the tickets
every night and when they're
doing work since I live
down the road, I'll just come
in and do stuff whatever.
Yeah, we just come and help out.
That's why we came here,
because we were always like
wow I wish that drive-in was
open and played old horror
movies because I would go
every time it was open.
Very good deal, I mean
free admission, free food
and free movie just for
helping out, all I do is just
take tickets, it's easy too,
because it's $10 a person
so you don't have to remember a lot of shit
and then I don't know I just
like shitty little movies,
like lower the budget the better usually.
We're gonna break to slide away our slides.
So I'm just kind of clean
sweeping everything.
We started from that
end, we're decluttering,
we're moving this way, I'm
now by our storage chest,
which are actually ancient freezers.
It goes dormant for six
months and for six months,
it gets dusty, dusty,
dirty, animals break in,
you just have to clean it, hose it all down,
power wash it, it's not a glorious job,
not necessarily a fun
job, but it's rewarding.
- I am all right.
- My name's Corey
and I'm basically just the head chef.
Was asked by Matt to help out cooking,
but I've kind of made cooking my whole life,
so kind of just fit in and all this stuff is
basic drive-in food, fries,
hamburgers, we also do
chicken nuggets, we do veggie burgers too.
They were thinking of closing two years ago
and Matt was like no that can't happen,
we have to keep this place going,
this is a piece of history.
That's what keeps me coming back,
that's what keeps me
sleeping here too sometimes
on every weekend it's kind
of a trek to get up here
so we'll just crash here, we'll sleep.
It's easier to stay there than it is
to drive all the way home.
Yes, home sweet home.
You have guys like Matt
and Corey that are staying
at the theater over night
from Thursday through Sunday.
We spent all weekend here, we basically prep
the place, clean the place
and run it when it's open
in terms of the concession end of things.
It's finding the people who will do that,
finding the company is fun to be around,
this man is the most fun to be around.
Yes, and we do it because
who else, who else but us?
And lettuce?
So lettuce begin.
- Whoa.
He and I have worked together for years.
He's one of my best friends.
Now Mark's only hope may be his last.
Well see these torches go against the...
That's probably the biggest
project we've worked on
is Demon Stone, my first feature film.
That actually premiered
last season at the drive-in.
Demon Stone, coming soon.
Ah, oh, oh yeah get me out of the car
and I'm all stiff and I can't
walk, thanks a lot.
- How are you brother?
- Hey Virgil.
Forgot one thing in the back seat, gotta get
the time clock out.
- Oh yeah, it's official,
it's official now.
- Yeah.
Want me to help you carry anything in?
Well if you want to carry that you can.
It's not that heavy, but
it's hard for one end of it.
Here we are man.
- Five days, Wings Hauser.
Wings Hauser.
35mm.
- Baby steps.
- It's been a little while
since I've been up here.
- Ooh, ooh.
- Yep, just like
I remembered it.
- Please don't.
Virgil is my film agent,
he takes care of Hollywood.
He gets all the film sent at
the right time and books them.
35mm baby we're back!
All right, you want to
hold the ladder for me?
- Looks good.
- It looks beautiful.
My film agent at the
time was not happy with me
because he was a first run film agent.
He didn't want to be booking old films
because that's not where the money is
you know that's not where
revenue is for the film companies.
The film companies aren't
gonna like the fact
that he's booking retro
so he didn't really want
to be a part of it so I gave
the film agent job to Virgil.
Guess I'll move this,
all right, so that's sent,
so literally what we just
did is is e-mailed Paramount
just like that because we had
to change in our schedule.
Originally we were
planning on trying to make
a Patrick Swayze weekend work,
Crazy for Swayze weekend work
but it's amazing honestly
that we have that type
of relationship now with the studios that
we're on a first name basis.
One of the studios had
said you guys are nuts
the fact that you're
transferring back to reel to reel
and standing on the fact
that you're gonna be able
to get 35mm for a long time.
He said literally my only suggestion to you
is go digital and was like
very true to heart about it.
And this is the same guy
now that responds to me
like that whenever we come to
him with a new 35mmm request.
We have technical standouts
now at the theater
on why it is appealing for
people to want to do shows
with us, the idea that we
have the largest CinemaScope
screen in Pennsylvania,
second on the East Coast
and in the country is for some people
they would kill to be
able to have their film
shown on that screen, not
only that but we transferred
back to reel to reel, which for some people,
that's the only way that
they will put their films
out there, so that opened up the door for us
as far as being able to
get private collectors.
Ladies and gentleman in the 1950s,
the world had 5,000 drive-ins.
For a dying medium it needs people like us
to kind of keep it alive you know
and stand on that podium I guess,
on high ground and shout it.
These are ideas of
like actors we want to do retrospectives
of certain actors and obviously directors,
some of them we've already been
able to check off the list.
Any feature that we put
in, any double that is
Mahoning-branded show is
the brain child of Virgil.
But this office in general has become like a
brainstorming center for
me as far as the booking
of the films goes, but you
know these are dream lists
in a weird way, it's like
obviously we want to do
Coen Brothers one year,
we obviously are going
to do a Coppola weekend one
year, but I think this is
I don't know a weird
little motivator for me.
Just wondering when
you guys are swinging by?
Cool, yeah, there's no
rush, just the gate opens
at six is all, all right
we'll see you soon bud.
Peace.
Said he wanted to help us
and show up right away,
I get worried, I'm like a protective mother.
I'm a helicopter mom.
I'm a helicopter Matt.
I'm bit a disjunctive personality,
meaning it doesn't exactly line up,
I have this weird intense serious side
that tends to come out
in stressful situations
that's just like all
business and no bullshit,
like get stuff fucking done.
What's going on here at the
fryer, what's going on here?
What's this?
And then there's times
where I become an alien
and chase people around
the lot so I you know.
I know, I know, don't look at the camera,
don't look at the camera.
- How you doing?
Good, good to see you guys
I'd expect nothing less.
What's up Virgil, what's going on man?
It's all happening
my friend, it's all happening.
- Ashley, hi, how you doing?
- Hi Jeff.
All right, okay, here we are.
Our season opener is always The Wizard of Oz
and Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
because it's a tradition and everybody
wants to get here for that.
- Say cheese.
- Cheese.
Show time!
Good evening, ladies and
gentleman and welcome
to the Mahoning Drive-in
Theater, one of the largest
and oldest drive-ins with
one of the largest screens
left in the United States,
we're certainly glad
you can be with us this evening, especially
you're not just here on opening weekend,
you're here on opening
night and that's fantastic.
All you folks out there,
you make us feel real good
for showing up tonight,
I think we've got a great
season ahead of us, we've
got two great classics
for you tonight of course
we have the Wizard of Oz,
1939, I don't think
anybody every remade that
unless you're talking about The Wiz,
but and then our second film tonight is
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory,
the original from 1971 with Gene Wilder.
I'm catching up on Rick and Morty
and discovering his work in that has been
another one of the many ways...
The Mahoning Drive-in Theater
is filled with characters
to say the least and
maybe one of the biggest
characters I'd say is Robert.
It is a nice image, I kind of made me gasp,
I guess you're recording now,
well what does Roger Ebert
say, movies are windows to the world,
they're like empathy machines and I love
sort of the democracy of
movies, they can be anything
and I love popular movies,
I love the small arty films
and coming here for the first
time for The Wizard of Oz
was perfect, I feel almost
blessed and I'm not even
necessarily a religious
person but movies bring me
closer to God or whatever
you want to call it.
Yeah, I'm into it, I'm a zealot.
He's the king of conversation.
I'm gonna be here, like
I counted the movies,
I think I'm already planning
on seeing 35 movies here
this summer and those are just the weekends
you've announced.
- He's very sweet,
sometimes I don't know what to say to him
because I just feel like
he has so much knowledge
on all these older films
and I just don't know
how to chime into to compare
with what he has to say.
He has an analysis of everything.
Yeah, it was a little
hard for me the first time
I watched My Son, My Son What Have Ye Done,
but I think it's worth
taking that leap of faith.
I don't even really care about
the Friday the 13th movies.
I was this close to Sam Neal once.
I'm not going to make this easy for you
in the editing room, I'm really sorry.
That was the year of the
terrible Godzilla movie.
The Brexit this morning
so stupid, so stupid.
Superhero movies even where
they're good in many cases
bore me because it feels so cookie cutter.
I fall asleep during the climaxes of Ant-man
and The Amazing Spiderman,
but then something like
Mad Max: Fury Road comes
out and I see it eight times
in theaters, I'm not sure,
I have to double check.
I actually do keep track.
Sometimes weird stuff happens out here.
Last year was mice used to run around
when we were sitting in here
after it's quiet for a while,
they start to touch your shoelaces and stuff
and you look down and then they run away,
but this year for some reason it's ants.
Try crawling in my soda and stuff
and I probably drink a whole bunch.
Some people get mad too
about the movie price
$10 per person is
apparently too much some guy
like freaked out on his wife and he was like
that's it we're going home
and they pull over there
and they just sit forever
and I can just see him
yelling in the car and then he comes back
and I tell him the price
and he goes yeah I know
and he just throws the
money at me and drives in.
Ladies and gentleman
thanks for coming out tonight
at the Mahoning Drive-in Theater
especially on opening night
you made us feel fantastic,
we hope you'll come back
and see us again soon.
Good night and God bless.
- Nice to see you.
- Me too.
- I missed you guys.
- Yes.
What do you think?
I think we had a successful show my friend.
Think so?
I'm pleased with what we did tonight.
Considering the weather
was supposed to be bad,
turns it wasn't, but that's
what people were expecting,
so I am overall pleased with tonight,
thinking about it I am I am yep.
- All right brothers.
- All right man, take it easy.
- See you soon, drive safe.
- See you tomorrow night.
Brother.
Honestly, like there are
worst things in this world
than Ewoks.
- Minions.
There are minions, there are emojis.
- They're Ice Age in Space.
- Is that a thing?
Yep.
Oh, you would think they would notice
that their headlights are
shining on the screen.
Do you think they notice that or not?
No they're shit on the brain I don't know.
- Oh thanks, enjoy the movie.
- It just makes me feel
all worm inside and nostalgic.
I haven't been to a drive-in,
there used to be one
in Limerick, Pennsylvania
and it's closed now.
I think they made it into a Target and
I think the last movie I
saw there was Funny Farm
with Chevy Chase and I saw
Beetlejuice there in the 80s.
I haven't been to one in
20 years and I'm 38 now
so this is exciting to be back here.
It's very fun.
All throughout my childhood, my dad went to
Back East and Shanklauder's, so for me
the drive-in experience
is burned into my soul
and so discovering this place, it was almost
like a calling, I was like
oh, the second I saw this lot,
I was like this is big,
this is a special place.
So for me like a lot of
people the drive-in represents
a simpler time, it's a nostalgia place,
but for me it brings me
back to a simpler time.
My initial love of storytelling
and film and theater
in general started at a drive-in.
We had the Bucks County Twin in my town,
which I saw so many double
features there with my family
I'm getting emotional talking about it.
I fell in love with film in the back seat
of my parent's car, you know what I mean and
that comradery with my family
is something that I feel like
we're trying to build
back with the drive-in.
When I was little we went
to a lot of drive-in theaters
and I don't know I remember
looking out of the car windows
and seeing all kinds of
people I didn't know walking
around the field and walking
in and out of the concession
stand and we always parked in the field
where I could see the people
going into the concession stand
and coming out and seeing the
lights on the concession stand
and of course I would see
the intermission reels
when they would play and it just made
a magical kind of thing
and it just stuck with me
even through the years that I
was running in-door theaters.
The drive-in thing always stuck with me
and I always thought gee
wouldn't that be neat
some day if I could run a drive-in?
The one we went to the most
often was the Super Skyway,
that was in Coonsville,
right outside of Allentown
and one day they pack us up in the car
it's the middle of the
afternoon, where are we going?
Well, you'll find out.
Well I thought this was neat
because it just happened
to be my birthday, right, yeah.
So all of a sudden they're
heading over towards
Coonsville towards the drive-in theater,
towards the Super Skyway and I'm wondering
why are we going over here?
It's like six hours before
the show's even gonna start,
they aren't even letting people in yet,
this is like three in the afternoon,
so we went over there and
they drive up to the gate
and they just keep on going, no tickets,
they just drive into the field, of course
there's nobody there I said what's going on
and they're like well this is happy birthday
and I was like what, and they had actually
gotten permission from the manager to let us
come on the field early and
have a birthday party for me.
And it was it was fantastic.
Oh we saw all kinds of
movies there over the years,
but that was neat, yep.
I still have both of them,
but they haven't been
in good health for several years,
so when I think back to that I remember when
they were young and in great health and
it was just a fantastic time,
it was a great time, yep.
Oh yeah, oh yeah, big
time big time, big time.
Very busy, huh, wrong
place at the wrong time,
had a couple of wonderful
girlfriends in my history,
women that I love dearly
from the air force on
and just either my working schedule
or something in well
yeah I regret not having a wife and kids,
I think that would be perfect,
but I tried gave a 150%
whenever I had a relationship,
I really gave a 150%, I tried to,
but for whatever reason I'm still single
and I've got radio and I've
got my drive-in, whoopee,
no it's cool, but I do regret it,
it's a good thing to mention.
You know we talk a lot about getting back
to a simpler time and
nostalgia and this world
is insane you know what I mean
and I mean I see why people want to escape.
Why people want to get out of their head
because life's hard as shit.
The older you get I see it, loss of love,
loss of life, like you long for simple
and long for a time that
is pure and Mahoning
is a portal into that
without a doubt you know.
Hey, what's happening my friend.
How are you?
- Hey how's it going?
- Good to see you.
- Gene, how's it going man?
- Okay, yeah.
- All right.
There, make out of that.
What does timeline mean,
what does that mean?
- Hm?
- What is timeline?
Timeline is like it's
basically, it's your profile
it's everything that you post
or people share with you.
There you are.
- Mm-hmm.
I had glasses on there but
they weren't dark frames.
They were clear glasses.
Gene is that portal back
to the days of the Mahoning
specifically that we don't have access to.
He's like the Yoda of this place,
they kind of travel to him
and get the sage wisdom of the past.
He was the original
projectionist at the drive-in.
He opened the place in 1948, I'm sorry '49.
Yeah I know, I know, I
keep I do the same thing,
it was built in '48,
let me start that again,
he was the original projectionist from 1949.
So we established it was definitely '49.
Definitely, you want to
go to the bureau building
and find out the rights, go ahead, geez.
Now I've got a copy
of the ad from opening night.
I have a copy of that.
- April 29th?
- April something.
- '49 April.
- April sign.
- April Showers.
- April Showers.
- In April.
- Ann Sothern
and Jack Carson was in it.
And everything was set up
exactly like it is now right.
- Yep.
- So the projection room...
Those E7s are still around, Jeff huh?
- Yes they are.
- Did it pay well back then?
Well yeah, well I loved it, I didn't care if
I didn't get paid nothing
I loved it so much.
- Absolutely.
- That's how I felt Virgil,
I'm telling you.
- Well we know how that is
because we don't get paid.
We're the same exact way.
Well, where did you get trained on?
Apanesca, I think I was
about 12 years old I guess.
I was working them when I was under age,
when the war broke out, the
one operator got drafted.
Wow, so you're in there at 12?
And the government left me
go, they said let them work
- we need manpower.
- They're like
ah, we'll look the other way.
- Yeah, they turned their head
the other way.
My favorite thing was I
used to love they went in
and inspect the film, we had
to inspect in those years.
- Oh yeah.
- Run through your fingers,
Jeff, you know.
- I still do it.
I still do it on most
of them not all of them.
And this was right around here, this photo?
- Banger, Rosetta.
- Wow.
Well I remember we asked
you if you had any personal
pictures and your answer was they're with
all of your old girlfriends.
They held onto them...
- A couple, a concession
that they kept coming
over to the projectioner,
I didn't get the gist of it, you know.
- Kept giving you the peek?
- Yeah.
Beautiful, that's why I got
married late in life probably,
yeah you better get
married, it's getting late.
Would she come out to the drive-in with you?
Very rarely and then
she got a kidney disease
and she got like kidney
transplant, it lasted 17 years.
It conked out, they couldn't
get it going anymore.
She passed away.
- That's a shame.
- Yep.
I miss going out there.
I just love running movies.
I used to work till one o'
clock and I'd go to work
the next morning.
- Oh me too.
Yeah me too.
- When you get used to it,
I don't mind it one bit,
three hours sleep, I'm up.
- Stop in again.
- I will my friend.
I'll see you soon.
- I can talk more and more
I can keep talking.
- Yeah, I know you can.
Today, it was 11:30, we
usually stay up pretty late,
but it was 2:30 and we were
like we need to go to sleep
because I mean it's not
that we're gonna have
a crazy night tonight, we don't think it,
but we hope...
- Yeah, it's supposed to rain
I think.
- Yeah, we hope something good
happens or we have some
kind of profitable thing.
Matt
are you dressed, hey, are you dressed?
There's this weird hole here,
used to have a door knob.
Matt, hey, are you dressed?
Are you I don't know oh yeah.
There's a gentleman here.
Breakfast.
Well I thought we had
like 32 people last night
and I think it's messier than
some of our bigger nights.
Oh the used condom that I found in the bush
behind that exit sign all the
way on the end of the lot.
That's kind of weird.
I don't know why you wouldn't
just do that back here
or anywhere else besides under that bush.
I don't know I mean it's
never happened before,
I know that there was one
time when it was raining
real bad and it was only
one dude and we still
showed the movie for him,
but there's never been
a time when it's just zero people,
you know what I mean, the
least that ever show up
would be like 20 or something like that,
and it's rare when it's that little.
Oh it's Jeff.
Hey.
Nothing like showing up
late to your own party.
Oh my gosh, do we have anybody yet?
- No.
- Nah?
- No.
- All right, but we'll see,
it's a messy night, but we may get
a couple people showing up.
- Yeah, hopefully.
- Yeah.
I remember cutting high school to go and see
the original Spiderman,
but it rained that weekend
and we got the worst attendance of the year.
- All right, all right.
- All right.
Then they're rolling, we're rolling.
Then if you only have a
couple of cars send them home.
No you don't just send them home,
how do you know how far
these people have traveled?
You don't just go, oh
I'm sorry, it's raining,
we're closing tonight, you don't do that.
You run.
Every single weekend we
have people coming from
New York, New Jersey, Maryland.
So here in Keen, New
Hampshire on this lovely
sweltering Friday morning I
usually like to start my day
roughly on the road by
10:00 at the latest.
It's amazing I think he
said it takes him five hours
one way to drive, that's
just how much he loves...
Oh, six and a half.
People think I'm crazy
when I tell them that I drive
six and a half hours to be here.
I think they don't understand
exactly what this place is.
They say, well don't you
have any drive-ins closer,
well yeah I've got one 45 minutes away,
but it's not the same thing.
The Mahoning is different
though, it is truly
a love of film, I love
it, I mean Matt and Corey
don't believe me when I tell them,
I thoroughly love what I do here,
I love dealing with the people, I basically
just run the register at the snack bar.
Thank you very much.
- Thank you.
- Enjoy.
- Yep.
I am paid nothing, I
worked my way all the way up
to being an unpaid snack bar attendant.
Pretty much true.
But for somebody's who's volunteering
and isn't really getting anything out of it,
except a free hamburger you
know or something you know,
I mean he can eat all the food he wants
if he's driving six and a half hours.
And if people think I'm crazy, let them.
I don't really mind that
much, it makes me happy.
So everything I need to be somewhat human
fits into a tidy backpack
here, along with holiday-themed
unmentionables, my Mahoning work shirts,
a change of shirt in case it's a hot day,
I am now the cleanest I will feel
for the next three days and
it is time to hit the road.
So I pass it every time
I come down here twice
and some day I will stop
when I have enough time
and enjoy the Snake and Animal Farm.
And this is why I always leave early.
Invariably, somewhere along the way
traffic is gonna come down to a crawl.
And here I am in Pennsylvania.
My heart always sinks a
little when this happens.
It always seems like the
closer I get to Lehighton,
the more chance of rain, I
don't know for me driving
rain at the drive-in
isn't a huge deal, I mean
you turn your wipers on, but
I want the place to do well
and I know most normal
people when it starts to rain
they just cross the drive-in off their list.
So today it took me about
seven hours to get here.
The first big thrill is always
seeing the Mahoning sign,
makes me happy, lets me know
I'm kind of back home again,
but really the excitement
for me kicks the first time
I see the screen, there it is,
the giant, towering Mahoning screen.
So what this has created here it's a clear
health code violation.
The flag of our people,
the symbol of our planet.
Well every weekend isn't
going to be a winner.
We had one or two weekends where the turnout
wasn't what I expected, I
thought it really would be better.
We're four months done and two left,
so we're like three quarters of the way
through the season and I
would say maybe three weekends
weren't what I thought, so
that's a pretty good record.
That's a pretty good record.
My zombie getup.
With any show that we decide to put on,
any theme that we decide
to hit, without a doubt
James has memorabilia
or something that falls
into the the love of
that theme or that film.
Right, I brought stuff
at the Wal-Mart because
only a few things.
- Oh, that's great.
It means the stuff that I buy for myself
doesn't make me a hoarder
if I'm able to share it
with other people, because
I'm already gonna get it
anyway, some of it at least.
So I met as well it's sad
when it's just sitting
in my house or my garage and nobody sees it,
except for me.
- He is the guy that
single-handedly turns our
show into an experience.
That'll be a fun and great day you know.
I'll try to come up as much as I can.
No, definitely dude.
Camp Blood though, I'm
calling dibs on this because
I'm really...
- Dibs I'm telling you
it's yours.
- Invested in this.
It's yours, it's yours, well it's yours.
Like I'm gonna try to make this as much
like you're in Camp
Crystal Lake as possible.
That's what we really
kind of need to work toward.
I'm used to at my job nobody really cares
about the things that I care about.
I can't really go and you know
up to somebody I work with
and express like oh my God, isn't this cool
that this is happening like
they don't really care,
it's not a big deal to them,
but then I get to come down
here and watch Night of the Living Dead
and dress up as a zombie and you know
it is cool to be able to show that part
of myself and have people
actually care what I'm saying
and not just be like all
right, yeah whatever,
you're a movie fan I get it you know.
But here it's like everybody
is, everyone's a movie fan.
Everybody if you're here,
if you made the trip,
there's a reason for it.
Give me a second here, so unfortunately
I couldn't make it to
most of the events prior,
because I was a server,
but I just quit my job
to make it out here and you
gotta do what you gotta do.
So now I can go to all of
the horror events I want.
This is my first time
actually I've never been here
before and I'm pretty excited about it.
Don't leave home without it.
This is just to show the
friendly horror chicks
that we're not misogynist
pigs, we have appreciation
for all genders of Disney films
and we love our heroines,
not heroin, heroines,
but yeah drive-in is like
the best way to see a movie.
And you know drive-ins
too they're kind of going
the way of the dodo, so I mean...
- Yeah, not many left.
- Not that many
that are around here,
you gotta support them.
Support the hell out of the drive-ins,
so you know I'm an old school horror guy,
my mom got me started on it,
so I have a lot of appreciation
for actual reels and all that.
I love the festival mentality
that we've brought to it
and with us working with outside people
like Exhumed Films or Grindhouse Pictures,
we're hitting the Grindhouse Market now.
They're a church in the
valley by the wild wood
No lovelier spot in the dale
No place is so dear
to my childhood
As the little brown
church in the vale
Oh come to the church
in the wild wood
To the trees where
the wild flowers bloom
You haven't lived until
you're eating a corn dog
at 2:00 in the morning.
I'm used to this after 15 years, I love it.
I don't love the temperature
and the humidity sometimes,
but I still love the job.
Come come come
Come to the church
in the wild wood
Oh come to the
church in the vale
No place is so dear
to my childhood
As the little brown
church in the vale
- Thanks man.
- Thank you.
How sweet on a clear
Sabbath morning
The international film make
Kevin Smorth finally made it.
Its tone so sweet
This is what it's all about man,
you know what I mean, the
fandom in the extreme.
Oh come to the
church in the vale
Oh you scratched.
When's the movie supposed to come out?
Because I understand you started off
wanting to make a movie
about drive-ins and then
decided to make a movie about
this drive-in, very cool.
- Yeah.
- Very cool.
I don't know I want to see more like these
documentaries that don't get
the huge national exposure,
I'm finding more and more
interesting sometimes
like I'll always watch a
Herzog or an Errol Morse film,
but there was this one film
that I barely even knew
existed but I had a chance to see it,
it was called Dwarves Kingdom and
it was this really insightful into like
all of these issues race and xenophobias
and it ended with I think
an accidental homage
to Citizen Kane, but I thought
it totally fucking earned it
and the film maker was there
so that was a pretty cool experience.
He e-mailed us actually
a couple days before,
saying I have a DeLorean
I'm thinking about coming
to the drive-in would that be cool?
Like as if that's not cool.
And he didn't confirm that he would show up,
he just said he was thinking about it
and he did, he just totally surprised us.
The illusion, it doesn't go out
as far as it looks.
- Oh Mills wasn't,
well he was made for this car.
Hell yeah dude.
I've been waiting to sit in a DeLorean,
I think this was the right place
to break my DeLorean virginity
with about to watch a
35mm Back to the Future
and sit in a DeLorean for the first time,
that was pretty sweet.
Hi guys, how's it going?
- Good.
- Not bad.
I've only missed one weekend so far,
that's because I was in Georgia.
I'm gonna volunteer Sunday of this week
for the first time as
long as nothing changes
with my plans that day, I'm
looking forward to getting
to know most of the other volunteers better,
I mean there's a different dynamic
when you're on the other side of the counter
and I've tried to respect
the fact that they're part
of an organization as friendly
and casual as I may be,
they can't always match me at that level
and I think I'm looking
to erode that a little bit
by becoming more officially part of it.
I'm assuming it's the
original Hills Have Eyes,
granted I haven't seen it.
- Yeah, yeah.
I haven't seen the remake
so I can't pass judgment,
but I can be skeptical.
Four bucks is your change man.
Thank you sir, so yeah my friend can help,
his name is Kyle and he and I have been like
basically joined at the
hip except for actually
becoming adults and moving
apart to different cities,
so it'll be something to fucking see.
It'll be like two of me
talking, yeah I've got this one.
One day I guess...
- Yeah, that's not going up...
- I feel like we do a lot
of horror films, that's
personally not my favorite.
So and I feel like kids
wouldn't come to that.
- Sebastian.
- And Stefan.
Mine is from Part 5 and I
like it because blue is my
favorite color and I like the designs on it.
It's really awesome.
I keep forgetting about this
mask from what part it is.
This mask is from Part 7,
I don't know why he chose it,
seven why did you choose that mask?
I keep forgetting that.
They know the difference between what's real
and what's fake and they
just like the entertainment
of the movies and they just really like it
I mean I don't see nothing wrong
I mean I was raised on it and my generation
was raised on it, I grew
up fine, I'm working.
I raise a family.
Not mention we also have a
six foot animatronic Jason
at home that we put out,
so the boys really get a quick out of that,
right guys?
- Yeah.
I can't get out of this room.
The fact that they're open.
Right here.
Wait, you can't see it.
It's a bitch.
Sorry.
I show up as Jason and people seem to
like need to get a picture with me,
so it's pretty sweet to
go on Instagram, Facebook,
wherever and see pictures of
me that people are posting.
It was really surreal to be walking around
during Friday the 13th Part
6 dressed up as Part 6 Jason.
Friends, we have all come here today
to witness an important day in the lives
of Tricia and Sean, they
have invited us all here
to share with them their
expression of love for
and commitment to one another.
I thought it was the ultimate compliment.
I really did, people love
your drive-in so much
they want to get married there.
And then it came down to logistics of it,
how do we put a wedding on this lot?
You know what I mean, how
do we make this a memorable
thing for Sean and Tricia?
Sean, I choose you forever and always,
in sickness and health
and failure and triumph.
I will dream with you, celebrate with you
and walk beside you through
whatever our lives may bring.
Tricia, I love you so very much
and I promise I'll always be this tall
and I'll always be this funny.
And I can't wait to spend
the rest of my life with you.
By the power of your love and commitment
and the power vested in me
I now pronounce you husband and wife,
Sean you may kiss your bride.
We just love coming to
the Mahoning drive-in,
it's a wonderful place, the
first time we ever came here,
it was I would say a few
years ago and we came
and we loved it, one of three cars here
and the last people were Tricia, Jeff and I
and we thanked them for the evening,
and we've just been trying
to come back as much
as we can ever since, it's
you don't get an experience
like this pretty much
anywhere, a triple feature
in the middle of a giant
field, screen that big.
It's magic.
Every great story starts with having a beer.
Corey and I bought this 3,000
lumen standard definition
Viewsonic projector a few
hundred bucks on Amazon
and I got it for the explicit purpose
of lighting up a small
screen in the snack bar
to project VHS tapes during
intermission and stuff,
just as an extra little bonus.
We're playing with it, we're playing tapes
and we're drinking beer and you know
a couple beers I was
pointing out the screen,
let's drag it outside and aim at the screen,
just see, let's just see,
so we get an extension cord,
we plug it into the wall
and we wander outside and just.
It's something that shouldn't have worked.
It wasn't bright, but it filled that screen,
but then one day Matt said
to me he said you know what?
He said I think if I bought
a couple of auditorium-sized
projectors and stacked them together so that
they would have a brighter output, he said
I think I could fill that screen.
What got the ball rolling with this thing
was that Jaws screening.
- I was on my way
into Allentown to pick up supplies
and I got the call from
Virgil that the prints
weren't going to show up.
I feel like I walked into Matt panicking
and he was just like
our film didn't come in,
I'm trying to figure out a solution,
this is what I'm doing.
I need you to stay here,
I'll be taking care of that,
if you really need me, come out and get me.
It was just it was a madhouse.
So comes showtime Friday
night, we have Jurassic Park,
but we don't have Jaws.
So we were totally screwed,
we promoted this thing
as Bite Night, Jaws and
Jurassic Park, a tag team.
So we thought well we already
know we have the license
to run it, we have the rights to run it.
We were scheduled to play Jaws tonight,
35mm print, obviously, that's what we do
and we got a call zero hour from Universal
saying that the print is
delayed on the deliver,
now for us we don't really have an option
as far as a backup for something like that,
it's pretty much the show
goes on or we cancel the show,
so what Matt's doing up
there if you can see it is
he's calibrating a kind
of a back door approach
to doing digital.
- I'm aligning these two
so the same image they're
the image is aligned up
on the screen and I'm
using this test pattern
here as a means of synchronizing the two
and what it does is it
increases the brightness,
so these two projectors
are going to hopefully
light up that giant CinemaScope screen.
Fingers crossed that this all goes well
because if that screen says
Jaws in about five minutes,
we're all gonna be happy.
So it was kind of a
blessing in the sense that
well none of us know what's gonna happen,
so I guess we're all in this together.
- Sorry.
- There we go.
We're jacked in, we're plugged
in, all the sounds going.
- The suspense is killing me.
- I know.
This is the first time
we've done anything like that,
literally, put on a show
actually first realized
we don't even have a print, then realized
that no one wants to see any
other print that we have,
so we have to put on this
show somehow, digital.
That was basically our first real test
of the system.
- But it worked,
the fact that it worked was enough for me
to explore the idea and begin developing
an actual system that
we could professionally
premier a film, I don't know that weekend is
pretty pivotal and that's
what really threw us
into building the actual projection booth.
And then I had the booth constructed
with projection glass,
which is low iron glass,
it's specific glass for a projection booth.
So the way this works
we've got three large venue projectors,
these are like auditorium projectors
that you'd find at like
a school or a business
and what I've done is I have routed them
all into a splitter, a VGA splitter,
that goes into a laptop,
there's also an analog splitter
here for like VCRs, DVD
players things like that,
so there's two inputs in each projector,
but it's all coming from the same source,
so each of these projectors
are getting the same signal.
And what I've done is
I've overlaid the image
to make it brighter, each
projector adds brightness,
more light in one space, so the idea is
with these three projectors
we're able to illuminate
with a presentable image the entire screen
that's corner to corner of the whole scope.
It's exciting you know as
Jeff it doesn't take anything
away, that's the important thing
that's what we wanted to do
it doesn't change the original booth,
it doesn't change the drive-in,
this is completely mobile,
this is completely unobstructive
and it basically is a
system that can it's a tool
it adds to what we can already do.
Now we can do anything.
As far as digital goes, it's a $5,000 answer
to a $100,000 question.
- Absolutely.
That's 5-6,000 including the projectors,
instead of turning this
into a $100,000 mess.
We have a means to play digital films now
and it freaked some people out.
For some people the reason
they come to the Mahoning
is to see 35mm film for a lot of people
that's the reason they come to the Mahoning.
I wouldn't want to see
a digital presentation
done like that instead of a film print.
Like I know a lot of
theaters, studios force them
to do it, but if Gene Wilder passes away,
a theater wants to run Willy
Wonka, so they go to their
video library at home
and go W, okay they pull
the disc off and just throw it up there
and I guess that works, if it looks good
and people show up and are
happy, I guess that's okay,
but for me it shows less effort,
so for me the digital
here if they're using that
to show things that they
just cannot get on film,
then I don't really have a problem with it.
And if it looks good, that's the thing too.
If people are coming from farther away
and paying money to see something,
they should get the best
presentation possible
and if they're coming that far
and they're seeing a pan
and scan copy of something
and it's advertised as being
the feature for the night,
that's a little cheesy, but...
I think it helps that
what we're doing on digital
is fucking cool.
- Hey friends,
Henrique Couto here and
I want to tell you about
something I am just so excited about
and that is the VHS
drive-in, you heard me right,
two of your favorite retro
things, VHS and the drive-in
are coming together at
Mahoning, Pennsylvania
at the Mahoning Drive-In.
It's almost like beyond
retro to call the studio
and be like we're not even
gonna play it on film,
we're gonna play a VHS
tape at a VHS-themed event
that we're gonna sell VHS tapes in.
It's just like beyond you know.
- They'd be like what?
- They'd be like hold on.
- What?
- You want to pay us
money to do that?
- Oh, you're crazy okay.
Jeff made it very clear
that this is an enhancer.
This is something that will
allow us to show things
that we couldn't play on
35mm for whatever reason.
The digital is
not a betrayal in anyway, it's not like
oh it's a Dillon Goes Electric
or something like that.
First time I saw Hateful
Eight was on digital
and it looked great, it
didn't look 70mm great,
but it looked great
and in fact I have since
seen twice on proper 70mm
and at the Museum at the Moving Image
there was either something
wrong with the print,
it was something wrong with the print
and the focus was going in and out
I'm not sure what it would I think that
there's some sort of warping of the print
that might have happened
because I can't imagine
how it wouldn't have spilled over into
we saw a double bill
that day, The Wild Bunch
and The Hateful Eight and
it was me and another guy
named Rob who comes here,
he has an orange Prius
and that was a really
cool day trip to New York.
We thank you guys so much,
2016 Mahoning Drive-in Theater.
Ah, the memories, bask in it.
Isn't he a trip, isn't he a trip?
I'm gonna miss seeing
everybody every single week for sure
some of these people are
her every single weekend
to hang out.
- It was magical.
Oh no.
Oh my brother.
I would call these people
family, I mean we sleep together,
not in that way, when
you share a cement floor
next to two other men on air mattresses,
stuff gets pretty real.
How do I look?
Do I look like a disco queen?
I guess it's all of it,
it's all good all the time,
I like being here, it's a
job where I actually feel
like I make a kind of a
difference in the world.
I always have a good time,
I always look forward to it.
I'm here every weekend.
I never call off or anything.
Yeah, just like being here.
I don't know I mean I always
feel like you come out here,
you always come out here at a time
when I have nothing to say.
Every week we did a little bit better,
and a little bit better,
finally the rollercoaster,
the up and down was
gone, it started to climb
on a gradual increase, I
thought wow, this is actually
going to work, it looks
like this is going to be
a viable thing for the
future and it's been working.
Make sure that the
sprockets are fitting right
over the sprocket holes, they fit in
so that the gates close even,
otherwise you can damage
a lot of film so you
always check to make sure
that they're seeded
properly in the sprockets.
Ladies and gentleman, for
one more time this year,
good evening and welcome to
the Mahoning Drive-In Theater,
one of the largest and
oldest drive-ins with one
of the largest screens
left in the United States.
We're certainly glad you
could be with us this evening,
especially on our very last
night of the 2016 season.
This community experience
of all of us getting together
who like zombie movies,
horror movies, sci-fi movies,
dinosaur movies and we all get to hang out
and you know shoot the shit.
It brings people together.
Some of us just being on the
computer and typing online
about how much we like something,
we could actually talk in person
again, like it used to be.
And you are literally going back in time,
a time capsule and you aren't where you live
and you aren't where you grew up
and you know you aren't
where your problems are,
it's somewhere else, it's a free place
and this is an enjoyable
escape, I think for everyone,
I think that's why everyone
comes back and stays here.
It's a place to be yourself
and it's a place to escape
lame things that yeah
I mean my personal life
is all over the place,
especially this weekend this
was a real crazy weekend
for me, I almost didn't come, but I had to,
the last weekend, there's no way I couldn't.
That's why I do it, I mean
I don't sleep on that floor
just to be up there and
I love drive-ins I do,
but it's the people and I go there
to be around those people.
But here we are, last night,
last night of the season
and I miss it already, every
weekend was an adventure,
every weekend was something different.
- It's the shit.
- It's the shit.
I feel like sometimes I'm a daughter to him
and I feel like that's how he
views me, which is really nice
because I absolutely adore
him, he'll reach out to me
on holidays and stuff or
I'll reach out to him.
He's just a great guy and he's super sweet.
I'm just glad she's hanging in there.
Every year she says she wants to come back
and I think that's great, I love her.
Thank goodness it's a beautiful night.
Look at those clouds, man it's gorgeous
and it's comfortable, last
night we were freezing.
Tonight it's beautiful.
This is the way to end a season,
if you have to end it
and unfortunately we do,
this is the kind of night
you want to end it on.
I heard a corny old
letter song on the radio
A while back I hadn't
heard one in so long
But I wanted to laugh
This is how I wanted to
break the news to everybody
here at the theater, but
we had our T-shirt guy
work on the newest edition, the onesies,
which is also gonna be my newest edition,
the newest edition to the
theater, December 1st,
we're expecting, it's a
blessing and one of those things
that like I said growing up at a drive-in
is something I always wish for my kid
the idea of trying to pass that on to
the next generation and
it's about to happen man
you know what I mean, I'm
gonna be a proud poppa,
proud drive-in poppa.
I have to get a kick shot of that sky
as I'm sure you can well
appreciate, how are you?
I've made friends here
that I've already been able
to see outside of working hours and you know
it's yeah I'm kind of I
guess I'm a little bit
without words, a little bit speechless,
maybe that's more meaningful
than anything I could say.
I was holding back
the tear drops
When the record stopped
And the last laugh on me
For you see it had
turned back the clock
And momma was rocking
to sleep again
While daddy, daddy
held the farm
And it sounded very much
like this old letter song
We hope you had a wonderful time.
Come back soon.
Good evening folks and a hearty welcome
to our drive-in theater.
Earlier this spring, volunteers
in Carbon County gave up
their weekends to save
a connection with their
past, they helped fix up
the Mahoning drive-in near Lehighton
and they hope their hard work would help
keep it open for summers to come.
But the theater just off Route 443
also needs $60,000 for a digital projector.
Hollywood will soon stop printing films
that run on older projectors like this one
at the Mahoning drive-in.
So many drive-ins are
abandoned, torn down, gone.
A drive-in movie theater
is back in Carbon County
despite talk it would have
to fold after being unable to
purchase a digital projector.
The manager here says if they are
still unable to purchase a digital projector
for next season one option
would be to run this
as a classic drive-in playing older movies
still available on 35mm film.
We really hit it off
with our love of our film.
And then you get to hold a piece of film
in your hand, the actual,
physical film and say
all these images that I've been watching
over all these years on
this little plastic strip.
It's not pristine, it's not spotless.
That's what I love about
film more than anything else
it's messed up in some weird little way
that makes it unique.
- That print carries with it
the entire history of
the life of that print.
This is the same piece of
film that passed through
a projector when this film was new.
24 frames per second was initially chosen
because it was the speed
at which you would trick
the brain into thinking it
was looking at something
real and moving and not
just pictures in a row
and Quentin Tarantino
points to that when he talks
about what he thinks is the
literal magic of movies.
We're up on this pedestal
that 35mm is our format,
the only format.
- We keep this retro mentality
film first and 35 forever, that's it.
And now, on with the show.
Oh yes, home sweet home.
We do have R, PG13 where we run all ratings.
I've never run an X, I
don't think I would do that.
I wouldn't want people
driving down the highway
looking at the no, no,
I would never do that.
I can't do that.
I don't know if that's
something that we can.
This was pretty much what
it was like when it closed
in October, I mean they've got a couple,
I mean they were packing up some posters
and some video tapes,
but with the decorations
I mean this is the way it was in October.
That's what I came to do today,
is finish up setting up all the sound,
finish getting the
projectors oiled and cleaned
and I'm hoping to run one
of the intermission reels
tonight just to test things.
Most drive-ins in general
have been renovated many times
and this one has not, this
one is almost original,
and that's the way I wanted to keep it.
That's why I fell in love with it
when I thought oh my goodness.
This was meant to be a
single screen drive-in,
everyone facing the same
direction at the same time,
watching the same movie at the same time.
That's how drive-ins were built.
Nobody used to build drive-ins in the 40s
with the idea of having two, three screens.
This is the way drive-ins were meant to be.
When you walk into a drive-in
that does what I'm doing,
you are stepping back in time.
If you look around you you see a field
that hasn't changed in 67 years.
You see a building, a screen,
the interior of the building
that hasn't changed in 67 years, you think
my gosh this is old and
it's still operating.
I always liked movies, ever
since I was a little kid.
I got this projector when
I was in junior high.
I mean it's an old 16mm,
it's from the 1950s.
I have my own 16mm collection,
features, shorts, cartoons.
And I've been a projectionist,
a professional projectionist
since 1978, the air
force base theater needed
a projectionist and I thought
well that would be neat,
so that's where I learned
to work professional 35mm
was in the air force, at
the air force base theater.
Yeah, the projectors I
have there are Simplex E7s,
they're the original
projectors from 1948 when the
theater was built, they've
been running 67 years.
And these are considered
heavy machinery, you used
to have to have a license to run these,
you couldn't just, you had to
have a license to run these
because they can kill you
if you're not careful.
Guys back in the 70s who had long hair
like Patrick for example...
- Ha ha, get his comment.
They with projectors, they'd get it caught
while it's running, it
ripped the hair right out
of their heads.
- Oh!
Oh yeah, it ripped the hair
right out of their heads.
- Dang it, I'm bad.
- Now everything is digital
and you press a button,
you're not working with it.
It's all exactly the same
thing, ones and zeroes
from a computer you know.
Your loops have to be the right size,
because if they're not then the sound is not
synchronized with people's lips.
You don't even have to go
into a projection booth
anymore, you can set a timer
on these digital projectors
and at the same time everyday
they'll start the movie.
You don't even have to walk into the booth.
What's the point?
What's there to do?
That's why there are no
more projectionists anymore
because it's not a profession,
there's nothing to do.
Well there isn't.
Look at computers, look at
your laptops or your desktops.
After five years, they're
obsolete they're junk.
Systems are faster, electronics are better,
they're smaller, so the digital projectors
that first came out say eight years ago
or even 10 years ago, now it's almost
that nobody wants them.
They want everybody, the
industry wants everybody
to be digital, so there's only
two ways you can go with it
and that was the juncture that I was at.
Turns out we can we get
one more summer, hopefully
this summer will be good
enough that next season
we can put in a digital projector.
If you are fortunate enough
to have one of the few
remaining drive-in theaters
there's only two directions
you can go, you're either
going to stay first run
and be digital, the only other option
is to play old movies, because
they're not making them
on 35mm anymore, so now I'm
not gonna be able to afford
to get a digital projector,
I better figure out
what to do with a 35mm
projector that I already have.
I was able to keep it
going for the first part
of 2014, this is before
Matt and Virgil came along.
This is probably not gonna do anything.
- Choke it, choke it.
- Yeah, I've got it choked.
C'mon, yeah!
I'm driving, I'm come towards Lehighton
and I'm coming down this 209,
and there's construction,
there's construction
on the bridge and traffic is backed up
all the way down 443 and up 209.
I decide I'll take a
detour, I bust out my trusty
road atlas and I don't have a smartphone,
I use maps, I'm old
school and basically track
the new route, I never gone down that road,
first time I ever drove down
it was a good couple years ago
and I was going down 443
and I see the marquee,
the big red arrow that
a first impression was
oh a bed and drive-in I
should go check that out.
Gave Virgil a call right away.
And said you'll never
believe what I'm looking at.
He says I'm standing under
the marquee of a drive-in.
That's where I met Jeff.
He invited me into the projection booth.
I sat down that old antique theater chair
and we literally talked for like an hour.
Late 50s, early 60s this was the way to go
as far as sound goes because magnetic sound
was better than optical sound,
because the only speakers
you had at a drive-in
were those little speakers
in the steel case, it's not high fidelity.
Jeff I don't know what to say about Jeff.
He's a magician.
- As soon as I met Jeff,
the first day that I met
Jeff, I knew that he was
gonna be a really important part of my life.
He's not worried about all this other shit
that everybody else
worries about all the time.
You know what I mean he is very pure.
Did you leave your hot
dog clamps on here or what?
So then I am the projectionist and the owner
of the drive-in and I lease the property,
I do not own the property, boy I wish I did,
I hope that's coming some
day, I own the business,
but the property is still owned by the guy
who's had it for decades
and he leases it to me,
but some day I would
like to buy the property
so that I actually own the
whole lock stock and barrel.
I consider Jeff's
relationship here as that piece
of the past and Matt and
myself coming in here
is a little breath of the future.
They knew an opening that
I was not familiar with.
They knew social media, where I did not,
I only knew the bare bones of it.
He saw that immediately,
that these guys want to
help me save this drive-in.
When Matt and Virgil came in, I honestly
didn't know what to think of them at first
and there's definitely a lot
of frustration I felt like
I was just pushed aside and
I wasn't important anymore,
we definitely has some
arguments, especially Matt and I.
Jess has been around longer than any of us,
with the exception of
Jeff, the hardest thing
for her I think is when we showed up,
everything just got turned on its head,
everything is different, all of a sudden.
I was very upset, I would talk to my parents
about it or Jeff, because
I'm really close with Jeff.
Well, she was a little bit worried at first
that maybe Virgil and
Matt wouldn't take to her
that much and I said don't
worry, I said I hired you.
He's always been there
for me especially with
the changeover, like he's probably
been the biggest supporter.
Jessica is nostalgia
herself because she's the last
holdover from my old crew from years ago,
Jessica is the last person still with me
that was there years ago.
When Virgil and I came into the fold,
it was in dire straits, we're looking at
four car nights at best.
We weren't getting any business really,
there was people barely showing up,
which was just heartbreaking to see.
I was driving up to the theater one day,
it's when Guardians of
the Galaxy first came out.
Everybody had Guardians of
the Galaxy and I thought
it thins out the herd too much.
We've got two great movies
for you, first of all,
we've got Guardians of the
Galaxy and that's rated PG-13.
So we finally decided okay, once we're done
with Guardians of the Galaxy,
that's our last brand new movie.
After this, we're going
retro, we're going classic.
It was up and down, it was a rollercoaster.
By the end of the season,
overall we had lost money.
I don't mind admitting that,
we had lost money overall.
I know this place went
through some scary times.
Every now and then
somebody offers to buy it,
they want to take it out from under us,
but fortunately the land
owner he won't sell it.
He will not sell it.
Yeah, sure, we'd like to
make money, that's important,
everybody wants to make
money, nobody wants to do
it for free, but the idea
is to save the drive-in
and to keep it going and get it even better
than what it is, so all three of us,
we worked for free last year basically.
We haven't taken any pay checks.
We're not paying ourselves at all.
It's a piece of my dream coming true
and that's all I can ask for you know.
That's the short story, that's basically
how it all came together.
It's a universal story and
that story needs to be told.
When he first came out, yeah,
I usually take the tickets
every night and when they're
doing work since I live
down the road, I'll just come
in and do stuff whatever.
Yeah, we just come and help out.
That's why we came here,
because we were always like
wow I wish that drive-in was
open and played old horror
movies because I would go
every time it was open.
Very good deal, I mean
free admission, free food
and free movie just for
helping out, all I do is just
take tickets, it's easy too,
because it's $10 a person
so you don't have to remember a lot of shit
and then I don't know I just
like shitty little movies,
like lower the budget the better usually.
We're gonna break to slide away our slides.
So I'm just kind of clean
sweeping everything.
We started from that
end, we're decluttering,
we're moving this way, I'm
now by our storage chest,
which are actually ancient freezers.
It goes dormant for six
months and for six months,
it gets dusty, dusty,
dirty, animals break in,
you just have to clean it, hose it all down,
power wash it, it's not a glorious job,
not necessarily a fun
job, but it's rewarding.
- I am all right.
- My name's Corey
and I'm basically just the head chef.
Was asked by Matt to help out cooking,
but I've kind of made cooking my whole life,
so kind of just fit in and all this stuff is
basic drive-in food, fries,
hamburgers, we also do
chicken nuggets, we do veggie burgers too.
They were thinking of closing two years ago
and Matt was like no that can't happen,
we have to keep this place going,
this is a piece of history.
That's what keeps me coming back,
that's what keeps me
sleeping here too sometimes
on every weekend it's kind
of a trek to get up here
so we'll just crash here, we'll sleep.
It's easier to stay there than it is
to drive all the way home.
Yes, home sweet home.
You have guys like Matt
and Corey that are staying
at the theater over night
from Thursday through Sunday.
We spent all weekend here, we basically prep
the place, clean the place
and run it when it's open
in terms of the concession end of things.
It's finding the people who will do that,
finding the company is fun to be around,
this man is the most fun to be around.
Yes, and we do it because
who else, who else but us?
And lettuce?
So lettuce begin.
- Whoa.
He and I have worked together for years.
He's one of my best friends.
Now Mark's only hope may be his last.
Well see these torches go against the...
That's probably the biggest
project we've worked on
is Demon Stone, my first feature film.
That actually premiered
last season at the drive-in.
Demon Stone, coming soon.
Ah, oh, oh yeah get me out of the car
and I'm all stiff and I can't
walk, thanks a lot.
- How are you brother?
- Hey Virgil.
Forgot one thing in the back seat, gotta get
the time clock out.
- Oh yeah, it's official,
it's official now.
- Yeah.
Want me to help you carry anything in?
Well if you want to carry that you can.
It's not that heavy, but
it's hard for one end of it.
Here we are man.
- Five days, Wings Hauser.
Wings Hauser.
35mm.
- Baby steps.
- It's been a little while
since I've been up here.
- Ooh, ooh.
- Yep, just like
I remembered it.
- Please don't.
Virgil is my film agent,
he takes care of Hollywood.
He gets all the film sent at
the right time and books them.
35mm baby we're back!
All right, you want to
hold the ladder for me?
- Looks good.
- It looks beautiful.
My film agent at the
time was not happy with me
because he was a first run film agent.
He didn't want to be booking old films
because that's not where the money is
you know that's not where
revenue is for the film companies.
The film companies aren't
gonna like the fact
that he's booking retro
so he didn't really want
to be a part of it so I gave
the film agent job to Virgil.
Guess I'll move this,
all right, so that's sent,
so literally what we just
did is is e-mailed Paramount
just like that because we had
to change in our schedule.
Originally we were
planning on trying to make
a Patrick Swayze weekend work,
Crazy for Swayze weekend work
but it's amazing honestly
that we have that type
of relationship now with the studios that
we're on a first name basis.
One of the studios had
said you guys are nuts
the fact that you're
transferring back to reel to reel
and standing on the fact
that you're gonna be able
to get 35mm for a long time.
He said literally my only suggestion to you
is go digital and was like
very true to heart about it.
And this is the same guy
now that responds to me
like that whenever we come to
him with a new 35mmm request.
We have technical standouts
now at the theater
on why it is appealing for
people to want to do shows
with us, the idea that we
have the largest CinemaScope
screen in Pennsylvania,
second on the East Coast
and in the country is for some people
they would kill to be
able to have their film
shown on that screen, not
only that but we transferred
back to reel to reel, which for some people,
that's the only way that
they will put their films
out there, so that opened up the door for us
as far as being able to
get private collectors.
Ladies and gentleman in the 1950s,
the world had 5,000 drive-ins.
For a dying medium it needs people like us
to kind of keep it alive you know
and stand on that podium I guess,
on high ground and shout it.
These are ideas of
like actors we want to do retrospectives
of certain actors and obviously directors,
some of them we've already been
able to check off the list.
Any feature that we put
in, any double that is
Mahoning-branded show is
the brain child of Virgil.
But this office in general has become like a
brainstorming center for
me as far as the booking
of the films goes, but you
know these are dream lists
in a weird way, it's like
obviously we want to do
Coen Brothers one year,
we obviously are going
to do a Coppola weekend one
year, but I think this is
I don't know a weird
little motivator for me.
Just wondering when
you guys are swinging by?
Cool, yeah, there's no
rush, just the gate opens
at six is all, all right
we'll see you soon bud.
Peace.
Said he wanted to help us
and show up right away,
I get worried, I'm like a protective mother.
I'm a helicopter mom.
I'm a helicopter Matt.
I'm bit a disjunctive personality,
meaning it doesn't exactly line up,
I have this weird intense serious side
that tends to come out
in stressful situations
that's just like all
business and no bullshit,
like get stuff fucking done.
What's going on here at the
fryer, what's going on here?
What's this?
And then there's times
where I become an alien
and chase people around
the lot so I you know.
I know, I know, don't look at the camera,
don't look at the camera.
- How you doing?
Good, good to see you guys
I'd expect nothing less.
What's up Virgil, what's going on man?
It's all happening
my friend, it's all happening.
- Ashley, hi, how you doing?
- Hi Jeff.
All right, okay, here we are.
Our season opener is always The Wizard of Oz
and Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
because it's a tradition and everybody
wants to get here for that.
- Say cheese.
- Cheese.
Show time!
Good evening, ladies and
gentleman and welcome
to the Mahoning Drive-in
Theater, one of the largest
and oldest drive-ins with
one of the largest screens
left in the United States,
we're certainly glad
you can be with us this evening, especially
you're not just here on opening weekend,
you're here on opening
night and that's fantastic.
All you folks out there,
you make us feel real good
for showing up tonight,
I think we've got a great
season ahead of us, we've
got two great classics
for you tonight of course
we have the Wizard of Oz,
1939, I don't think
anybody every remade that
unless you're talking about The Wiz,
but and then our second film tonight is
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory,
the original from 1971 with Gene Wilder.
I'm catching up on Rick and Morty
and discovering his work in that has been
another one of the many ways...
The Mahoning Drive-in Theater
is filled with characters
to say the least and
maybe one of the biggest
characters I'd say is Robert.
It is a nice image, I kind of made me gasp,
I guess you're recording now,
well what does Roger Ebert
say, movies are windows to the world,
they're like empathy machines and I love
sort of the democracy of
movies, they can be anything
and I love popular movies,
I love the small arty films
and coming here for the first
time for The Wizard of Oz
was perfect, I feel almost
blessed and I'm not even
necessarily a religious
person but movies bring me
closer to God or whatever
you want to call it.
Yeah, I'm into it, I'm a zealot.
He's the king of conversation.
I'm gonna be here, like
I counted the movies,
I think I'm already planning
on seeing 35 movies here
this summer and those are just the weekends
you've announced.
- He's very sweet,
sometimes I don't know what to say to him
because I just feel like
he has so much knowledge
on all these older films
and I just don't know
how to chime into to compare
with what he has to say.
He has an analysis of everything.
Yeah, it was a little
hard for me the first time
I watched My Son, My Son What Have Ye Done,
but I think it's worth
taking that leap of faith.
I don't even really care about
the Friday the 13th movies.
I was this close to Sam Neal once.
I'm not going to make this easy for you
in the editing room, I'm really sorry.
That was the year of the
terrible Godzilla movie.
The Brexit this morning
so stupid, so stupid.
Superhero movies even where
they're good in many cases
bore me because it feels so cookie cutter.
I fall asleep during the climaxes of Ant-man
and The Amazing Spiderman,
but then something like
Mad Max: Fury Road comes
out and I see it eight times
in theaters, I'm not sure,
I have to double check.
I actually do keep track.
Sometimes weird stuff happens out here.
Last year was mice used to run around
when we were sitting in here
after it's quiet for a while,
they start to touch your shoelaces and stuff
and you look down and then they run away,
but this year for some reason it's ants.
Try crawling in my soda and stuff
and I probably drink a whole bunch.
Some people get mad too
about the movie price
$10 per person is
apparently too much some guy
like freaked out on his wife and he was like
that's it we're going home
and they pull over there
and they just sit forever
and I can just see him
yelling in the car and then he comes back
and I tell him the price
and he goes yeah I know
and he just throws the
money at me and drives in.
Ladies and gentleman
thanks for coming out tonight
at the Mahoning Drive-in Theater
especially on opening night
you made us feel fantastic,
we hope you'll come back
and see us again soon.
Good night and God bless.
- Nice to see you.
- Me too.
- I missed you guys.
- Yes.
What do you think?
I think we had a successful show my friend.
Think so?
I'm pleased with what we did tonight.
Considering the weather
was supposed to be bad,
turns it wasn't, but that's
what people were expecting,
so I am overall pleased with tonight,
thinking about it I am I am yep.
- All right brothers.
- All right man, take it easy.
- See you soon, drive safe.
- See you tomorrow night.
Brother.
Honestly, like there are
worst things in this world
than Ewoks.
- Minions.
There are minions, there are emojis.
- They're Ice Age in Space.
- Is that a thing?
Yep.
Oh, you would think they would notice
that their headlights are
shining on the screen.
Do you think they notice that or not?
No they're shit on the brain I don't know.
- Oh thanks, enjoy the movie.
- It just makes me feel
all worm inside and nostalgic.
I haven't been to a drive-in,
there used to be one
in Limerick, Pennsylvania
and it's closed now.
I think they made it into a Target and
I think the last movie I
saw there was Funny Farm
with Chevy Chase and I saw
Beetlejuice there in the 80s.
I haven't been to one in
20 years and I'm 38 now
so this is exciting to be back here.
It's very fun.
All throughout my childhood, my dad went to
Back East and Shanklauder's, so for me
the drive-in experience
is burned into my soul
and so discovering this place, it was almost
like a calling, I was like
oh, the second I saw this lot,
I was like this is big,
this is a special place.
So for me like a lot of
people the drive-in represents
a simpler time, it's a nostalgia place,
but for me it brings me
back to a simpler time.
My initial love of storytelling
and film and theater
in general started at a drive-in.
We had the Bucks County Twin in my town,
which I saw so many double
features there with my family
I'm getting emotional talking about it.
I fell in love with film in the back seat
of my parent's car, you know what I mean and
that comradery with my family
is something that I feel like
we're trying to build
back with the drive-in.
When I was little we went
to a lot of drive-in theaters
and I don't know I remember
looking out of the car windows
and seeing all kinds of
people I didn't know walking
around the field and walking
in and out of the concession
stand and we always parked in the field
where I could see the people
going into the concession stand
and coming out and seeing the
lights on the concession stand
and of course I would see
the intermission reels
when they would play and it just made
a magical kind of thing
and it just stuck with me
even through the years that I
was running in-door theaters.
The drive-in thing always stuck with me
and I always thought gee
wouldn't that be neat
some day if I could run a drive-in?
The one we went to the most
often was the Super Skyway,
that was in Coonsville,
right outside of Allentown
and one day they pack us up in the car
it's the middle of the
afternoon, where are we going?
Well, you'll find out.
Well I thought this was neat
because it just happened
to be my birthday, right, yeah.
So all of a sudden they're
heading over towards
Coonsville towards the drive-in theater,
towards the Super Skyway and I'm wondering
why are we going over here?
It's like six hours before
the show's even gonna start,
they aren't even letting people in yet,
this is like three in the afternoon,
so we went over there and
they drive up to the gate
and they just keep on going, no tickets,
they just drive into the field, of course
there's nobody there I said what's going on
and they're like well this is happy birthday
and I was like what, and they had actually
gotten permission from the manager to let us
come on the field early and
have a birthday party for me.
And it was it was fantastic.
Oh we saw all kinds of
movies there over the years,
but that was neat, yep.
I still have both of them,
but they haven't been
in good health for several years,
so when I think back to that I remember when
they were young and in great health and
it was just a fantastic time,
it was a great time, yep.
Oh yeah, oh yeah, big
time big time, big time.
Very busy, huh, wrong
place at the wrong time,
had a couple of wonderful
girlfriends in my history,
women that I love dearly
from the air force on
and just either my working schedule
or something in well
yeah I regret not having a wife and kids,
I think that would be perfect,
but I tried gave a 150%
whenever I had a relationship,
I really gave a 150%, I tried to,
but for whatever reason I'm still single
and I've got radio and I've
got my drive-in, whoopee,
no it's cool, but I do regret it,
it's a good thing to mention.
You know we talk a lot about getting back
to a simpler time and
nostalgia and this world
is insane you know what I mean
and I mean I see why people want to escape.
Why people want to get out of their head
because life's hard as shit.
The older you get I see it, loss of love,
loss of life, like you long for simple
and long for a time that
is pure and Mahoning
is a portal into that
without a doubt you know.
Hey, what's happening my friend.
How are you?
- Hey how's it going?
- Good to see you.
- Gene, how's it going man?
- Okay, yeah.
- All right.
There, make out of that.
What does timeline mean,
what does that mean?
- Hm?
- What is timeline?
Timeline is like it's
basically, it's your profile
it's everything that you post
or people share with you.
There you are.
- Mm-hmm.
I had glasses on there but
they weren't dark frames.
They were clear glasses.
Gene is that portal back
to the days of the Mahoning
specifically that we don't have access to.
He's like the Yoda of this place,
they kind of travel to him
and get the sage wisdom of the past.
He was the original
projectionist at the drive-in.
He opened the place in 1948, I'm sorry '49.
Yeah I know, I know, I
keep I do the same thing,
it was built in '48,
let me start that again,
he was the original projectionist from 1949.
So we established it was definitely '49.
Definitely, you want to
go to the bureau building
and find out the rights, go ahead, geez.
Now I've got a copy
of the ad from opening night.
I have a copy of that.
- April 29th?
- April something.
- '49 April.
- April sign.
- April Showers.
- April Showers.
- In April.
- Ann Sothern
and Jack Carson was in it.
And everything was set up
exactly like it is now right.
- Yep.
- So the projection room...
Those E7s are still around, Jeff huh?
- Yes they are.
- Did it pay well back then?
Well yeah, well I loved it, I didn't care if
I didn't get paid nothing
I loved it so much.
- Absolutely.
- That's how I felt Virgil,
I'm telling you.
- Well we know how that is
because we don't get paid.
We're the same exact way.
Well, where did you get trained on?
Apanesca, I think I was
about 12 years old I guess.
I was working them when I was under age,
when the war broke out, the
one operator got drafted.
Wow, so you're in there at 12?
And the government left me
go, they said let them work
- we need manpower.
- They're like
ah, we'll look the other way.
- Yeah, they turned their head
the other way.
My favorite thing was I
used to love they went in
and inspect the film, we had
to inspect in those years.
- Oh yeah.
- Run through your fingers,
Jeff, you know.
- I still do it.
I still do it on most
of them not all of them.
And this was right around here, this photo?
- Banger, Rosetta.
- Wow.
Well I remember we asked
you if you had any personal
pictures and your answer was they're with
all of your old girlfriends.
They held onto them...
- A couple, a concession
that they kept coming
over to the projectioner,
I didn't get the gist of it, you know.
- Kept giving you the peek?
- Yeah.
Beautiful, that's why I got
married late in life probably,
yeah you better get
married, it's getting late.
Would she come out to the drive-in with you?
Very rarely and then
she got a kidney disease
and she got like kidney
transplant, it lasted 17 years.
It conked out, they couldn't
get it going anymore.
She passed away.
- That's a shame.
- Yep.
I miss going out there.
I just love running movies.
I used to work till one o'
clock and I'd go to work
the next morning.
- Oh me too.
Yeah me too.
- When you get used to it,
I don't mind it one bit,
three hours sleep, I'm up.
- Stop in again.
- I will my friend.
I'll see you soon.
- I can talk more and more
I can keep talking.
- Yeah, I know you can.
Today, it was 11:30, we
usually stay up pretty late,
but it was 2:30 and we were
like we need to go to sleep
because I mean it's not
that we're gonna have
a crazy night tonight, we don't think it,
but we hope...
- Yeah, it's supposed to rain
I think.
- Yeah, we hope something good
happens or we have some
kind of profitable thing.
Matt
are you dressed, hey, are you dressed?
There's this weird hole here,
used to have a door knob.
Matt, hey, are you dressed?
Are you I don't know oh yeah.
There's a gentleman here.
Breakfast.
Well I thought we had
like 32 people last night
and I think it's messier than
some of our bigger nights.
Oh the used condom that I found in the bush
behind that exit sign all the
way on the end of the lot.
That's kind of weird.
I don't know why you wouldn't
just do that back here
or anywhere else besides under that bush.
I don't know I mean it's
never happened before,
I know that there was one
time when it was raining
real bad and it was only
one dude and we still
showed the movie for him,
but there's never been
a time when it's just zero people,
you know what I mean, the
least that ever show up
would be like 20 or something like that,
and it's rare when it's that little.
Oh it's Jeff.
Hey.
Nothing like showing up
late to your own party.
Oh my gosh, do we have anybody yet?
- No.
- Nah?
- No.
- All right, but we'll see,
it's a messy night, but we may get
a couple people showing up.
- Yeah, hopefully.
- Yeah.
I remember cutting high school to go and see
the original Spiderman,
but it rained that weekend
and we got the worst attendance of the year.
- All right, all right.
- All right.
Then they're rolling, we're rolling.
Then if you only have a
couple of cars send them home.
No you don't just send them home,
how do you know how far
these people have traveled?
You don't just go, oh
I'm sorry, it's raining,
we're closing tonight, you don't do that.
You run.
Every single weekend we
have people coming from
New York, New Jersey, Maryland.
So here in Keen, New
Hampshire on this lovely
sweltering Friday morning I
usually like to start my day
roughly on the road by
10:00 at the latest.
It's amazing I think he
said it takes him five hours
one way to drive, that's
just how much he loves...
Oh, six and a half.
People think I'm crazy
when I tell them that I drive
six and a half hours to be here.
I think they don't understand
exactly what this place is.
They say, well don't you
have any drive-ins closer,
well yeah I've got one 45 minutes away,
but it's not the same thing.
The Mahoning is different
though, it is truly
a love of film, I love
it, I mean Matt and Corey
don't believe me when I tell them,
I thoroughly love what I do here,
I love dealing with the people, I basically
just run the register at the snack bar.
Thank you very much.
- Thank you.
- Enjoy.
- Yep.
I am paid nothing, I
worked my way all the way up
to being an unpaid snack bar attendant.
Pretty much true.
But for somebody's who's volunteering
and isn't really getting anything out of it,
except a free hamburger you
know or something you know,
I mean he can eat all the food he wants
if he's driving six and a half hours.
And if people think I'm crazy, let them.
I don't really mind that
much, it makes me happy.
So everything I need to be somewhat human
fits into a tidy backpack
here, along with holiday-themed
unmentionables, my Mahoning work shirts,
a change of shirt in case it's a hot day,
I am now the cleanest I will feel
for the next three days and
it is time to hit the road.
So I pass it every time
I come down here twice
and some day I will stop
when I have enough time
and enjoy the Snake and Animal Farm.
And this is why I always leave early.
Invariably, somewhere along the way
traffic is gonna come down to a crawl.
And here I am in Pennsylvania.
My heart always sinks a
little when this happens.
It always seems like the
closer I get to Lehighton,
the more chance of rain, I
don't know for me driving
rain at the drive-in
isn't a huge deal, I mean
you turn your wipers on, but
I want the place to do well
and I know most normal
people when it starts to rain
they just cross the drive-in off their list.
So today it took me about
seven hours to get here.
The first big thrill is always
seeing the Mahoning sign,
makes me happy, lets me know
I'm kind of back home again,
but really the excitement
for me kicks the first time
I see the screen, there it is,
the giant, towering Mahoning screen.
So what this has created here it's a clear
health code violation.
The flag of our people,
the symbol of our planet.
Well every weekend isn't
going to be a winner.
We had one or two weekends where the turnout
wasn't what I expected, I
thought it really would be better.
We're four months done and two left,
so we're like three quarters of the way
through the season and I
would say maybe three weekends
weren't what I thought, so
that's a pretty good record.
That's a pretty good record.
My zombie getup.
With any show that we decide to put on,
any theme that we decide
to hit, without a doubt
James has memorabilia
or something that falls
into the the love of
that theme or that film.
Right, I brought stuff
at the Wal-Mart because
only a few things.
- Oh, that's great.
It means the stuff that I buy for myself
doesn't make me a hoarder
if I'm able to share it
with other people, because
I'm already gonna get it
anyway, some of it at least.
So I met as well it's sad
when it's just sitting
in my house or my garage and nobody sees it,
except for me.
- He is the guy that
single-handedly turns our
show into an experience.
That'll be a fun and great day you know.
I'll try to come up as much as I can.
No, definitely dude.
Camp Blood though, I'm
calling dibs on this because
I'm really...
- Dibs I'm telling you
it's yours.
- Invested in this.
It's yours, it's yours, well it's yours.
Like I'm gonna try to make this as much
like you're in Camp
Crystal Lake as possible.
That's what we really
kind of need to work toward.
I'm used to at my job nobody really cares
about the things that I care about.
I can't really go and you know
up to somebody I work with
and express like oh my God, isn't this cool
that this is happening like
they don't really care,
it's not a big deal to them,
but then I get to come down
here and watch Night of the Living Dead
and dress up as a zombie and you know
it is cool to be able to show that part
of myself and have people
actually care what I'm saying
and not just be like all
right, yeah whatever,
you're a movie fan I get it you know.
But here it's like everybody
is, everyone's a movie fan.
Everybody if you're here,
if you made the trip,
there's a reason for it.
Give me a second here, so unfortunately
I couldn't make it to
most of the events prior,
because I was a server,
but I just quit my job
to make it out here and you
gotta do what you gotta do.
So now I can go to all of
the horror events I want.
This is my first time
actually I've never been here
before and I'm pretty excited about it.
Don't leave home without it.
This is just to show the
friendly horror chicks
that we're not misogynist
pigs, we have appreciation
for all genders of Disney films
and we love our heroines,
not heroin, heroines,
but yeah drive-in is like
the best way to see a movie.
And you know drive-ins
too they're kind of going
the way of the dodo, so I mean...
- Yeah, not many left.
- Not that many
that are around here,
you gotta support them.
Support the hell out of the drive-ins,
so you know I'm an old school horror guy,
my mom got me started on it,
so I have a lot of appreciation
for actual reels and all that.
I love the festival mentality
that we've brought to it
and with us working with outside people
like Exhumed Films or Grindhouse Pictures,
we're hitting the Grindhouse Market now.
They're a church in the
valley by the wild wood
No lovelier spot in the dale
No place is so dear
to my childhood
As the little brown
church in the vale
Oh come to the church
in the wild wood
To the trees where
the wild flowers bloom
You haven't lived until
you're eating a corn dog
at 2:00 in the morning.
I'm used to this after 15 years, I love it.
I don't love the temperature
and the humidity sometimes,
but I still love the job.
Come come come
Come to the church
in the wild wood
Oh come to the
church in the vale
No place is so dear
to my childhood
As the little brown
church in the vale
- Thanks man.
- Thank you.
How sweet on a clear
Sabbath morning
The international film make
Kevin Smorth finally made it.
Its tone so sweet
This is what it's all about man,
you know what I mean, the
fandom in the extreme.
Oh come to the
church in the vale
Oh you scratched.
When's the movie supposed to come out?
Because I understand you started off
wanting to make a movie
about drive-ins and then
decided to make a movie about
this drive-in, very cool.
- Yeah.
- Very cool.
I don't know I want to see more like these
documentaries that don't get
the huge national exposure,
I'm finding more and more
interesting sometimes
like I'll always watch a
Herzog or an Errol Morse film,
but there was this one film
that I barely even knew
existed but I had a chance to see it,
it was called Dwarves Kingdom and
it was this really insightful into like
all of these issues race and xenophobias
and it ended with I think
an accidental homage
to Citizen Kane, but I thought
it totally fucking earned it
and the film maker was there
so that was a pretty cool experience.
He e-mailed us actually
a couple days before,
saying I have a DeLorean
I'm thinking about coming
to the drive-in would that be cool?
Like as if that's not cool.
And he didn't confirm that he would show up,
he just said he was thinking about it
and he did, he just totally surprised us.
The illusion, it doesn't go out
as far as it looks.
- Oh Mills wasn't,
well he was made for this car.
Hell yeah dude.
I've been waiting to sit in a DeLorean,
I think this was the right place
to break my DeLorean virginity
with about to watch a
35mm Back to the Future
and sit in a DeLorean for the first time,
that was pretty sweet.
Hi guys, how's it going?
- Good.
- Not bad.
I've only missed one weekend so far,
that's because I was in Georgia.
I'm gonna volunteer Sunday of this week
for the first time as
long as nothing changes
with my plans that day, I'm
looking forward to getting
to know most of the other volunteers better,
I mean there's a different dynamic
when you're on the other side of the counter
and I've tried to respect
the fact that they're part
of an organization as friendly
and casual as I may be,
they can't always match me at that level
and I think I'm looking
to erode that a little bit
by becoming more officially part of it.
I'm assuming it's the
original Hills Have Eyes,
granted I haven't seen it.
- Yeah, yeah.
I haven't seen the remake
so I can't pass judgment,
but I can be skeptical.
Four bucks is your change man.
Thank you sir, so yeah my friend can help,
his name is Kyle and he and I have been like
basically joined at the
hip except for actually
becoming adults and moving
apart to different cities,
so it'll be something to fucking see.
It'll be like two of me
talking, yeah I've got this one.
One day I guess...
- Yeah, that's not going up...
- I feel like we do a lot
of horror films, that's
personally not my favorite.
So and I feel like kids
wouldn't come to that.
- Sebastian.
- And Stefan.
Mine is from Part 5 and I
like it because blue is my
favorite color and I like the designs on it.
It's really awesome.
I keep forgetting about this
mask from what part it is.
This mask is from Part 7,
I don't know why he chose it,
seven why did you choose that mask?
I keep forgetting that.
They know the difference between what's real
and what's fake and they
just like the entertainment
of the movies and they just really like it
I mean I don't see nothing wrong
I mean I was raised on it and my generation
was raised on it, I grew
up fine, I'm working.
I raise a family.
Not mention we also have a
six foot animatronic Jason
at home that we put out,
so the boys really get a quick out of that,
right guys?
- Yeah.
I can't get out of this room.
The fact that they're open.
Right here.
Wait, you can't see it.
It's a bitch.
Sorry.
I show up as Jason and people seem to
like need to get a picture with me,
so it's pretty sweet to
go on Instagram, Facebook,
wherever and see pictures of
me that people are posting.
It was really surreal to be walking around
during Friday the 13th Part
6 dressed up as Part 6 Jason.
Friends, we have all come here today
to witness an important day in the lives
of Tricia and Sean, they
have invited us all here
to share with them their
expression of love for
and commitment to one another.
I thought it was the ultimate compliment.
I really did, people love
your drive-in so much
they want to get married there.
And then it came down to logistics of it,
how do we put a wedding on this lot?
You know what I mean, how
do we make this a memorable
thing for Sean and Tricia?
Sean, I choose you forever and always,
in sickness and health
and failure and triumph.
I will dream with you, celebrate with you
and walk beside you through
whatever our lives may bring.
Tricia, I love you so very much
and I promise I'll always be this tall
and I'll always be this funny.
And I can't wait to spend
the rest of my life with you.
By the power of your love and commitment
and the power vested in me
I now pronounce you husband and wife,
Sean you may kiss your bride.
We just love coming to
the Mahoning drive-in,
it's a wonderful place, the
first time we ever came here,
it was I would say a few
years ago and we came
and we loved it, one of three cars here
and the last people were Tricia, Jeff and I
and we thanked them for the evening,
and we've just been trying
to come back as much
as we can ever since, it's
you don't get an experience
like this pretty much
anywhere, a triple feature
in the middle of a giant
field, screen that big.
It's magic.
Every great story starts with having a beer.
Corey and I bought this 3,000
lumen standard definition
Viewsonic projector a few
hundred bucks on Amazon
and I got it for the explicit purpose
of lighting up a small
screen in the snack bar
to project VHS tapes during
intermission and stuff,
just as an extra little bonus.
We're playing with it, we're playing tapes
and we're drinking beer and you know
a couple beers I was
pointing out the screen,
let's drag it outside and aim at the screen,
just see, let's just see,
so we get an extension cord,
we plug it into the wall
and we wander outside and just.
It's something that shouldn't have worked.
It wasn't bright, but it filled that screen,
but then one day Matt said
to me he said you know what?
He said I think if I bought
a couple of auditorium-sized
projectors and stacked them together so that
they would have a brighter output, he said
I think I could fill that screen.
What got the ball rolling with this thing
was that Jaws screening.
- I was on my way
into Allentown to pick up supplies
and I got the call from
Virgil that the prints
weren't going to show up.
I feel like I walked into Matt panicking
and he was just like
our film didn't come in,
I'm trying to figure out a solution,
this is what I'm doing.
I need you to stay here,
I'll be taking care of that,
if you really need me, come out and get me.
It was just it was a madhouse.
So comes showtime Friday
night, we have Jurassic Park,
but we don't have Jaws.
So we were totally screwed,
we promoted this thing
as Bite Night, Jaws and
Jurassic Park, a tag team.
So we thought well we already
know we have the license
to run it, we have the rights to run it.
We were scheduled to play Jaws tonight,
35mm print, obviously, that's what we do
and we got a call zero hour from Universal
saying that the print is
delayed on the deliver,
now for us we don't really have an option
as far as a backup for something like that,
it's pretty much the show
goes on or we cancel the show,
so what Matt's doing up
there if you can see it is
he's calibrating a kind
of a back door approach
to doing digital.
- I'm aligning these two
so the same image they're
the image is aligned up
on the screen and I'm
using this test pattern
here as a means of synchronizing the two
and what it does is it
increases the brightness,
so these two projectors
are going to hopefully
light up that giant CinemaScope screen.
Fingers crossed that this all goes well
because if that screen says
Jaws in about five minutes,
we're all gonna be happy.
So it was kind of a
blessing in the sense that
well none of us know what's gonna happen,
so I guess we're all in this together.
- Sorry.
- There we go.
We're jacked in, we're plugged
in, all the sounds going.
- The suspense is killing me.
- I know.
This is the first time
we've done anything like that,
literally, put on a show
actually first realized
we don't even have a print, then realized
that no one wants to see any
other print that we have,
so we have to put on this
show somehow, digital.
That was basically our first real test
of the system.
- But it worked,
the fact that it worked was enough for me
to explore the idea and begin developing
an actual system that
we could professionally
premier a film, I don't know that weekend is
pretty pivotal and that's
what really threw us
into building the actual projection booth.
And then I had the booth constructed
with projection glass,
which is low iron glass,
it's specific glass for a projection booth.
So the way this works
we've got three large venue projectors,
these are like auditorium projectors
that you'd find at like
a school or a business
and what I've done is I have routed them
all into a splitter, a VGA splitter,
that goes into a laptop,
there's also an analog splitter
here for like VCRs, DVD
players things like that,
so there's two inputs in each projector,
but it's all coming from the same source,
so each of these projectors
are getting the same signal.
And what I've done is
I've overlaid the image
to make it brighter, each
projector adds brightness,
more light in one space, so the idea is
with these three projectors
we're able to illuminate
with a presentable image the entire screen
that's corner to corner of the whole scope.
It's exciting you know as
Jeff it doesn't take anything
away, that's the important thing
that's what we wanted to do
it doesn't change the original booth,
it doesn't change the drive-in,
this is completely mobile,
this is completely unobstructive
and it basically is a
system that can it's a tool
it adds to what we can already do.
Now we can do anything.
As far as digital goes, it's a $5,000 answer
to a $100,000 question.
- Absolutely.
That's 5-6,000 including the projectors,
instead of turning this
into a $100,000 mess.
We have a means to play digital films now
and it freaked some people out.
For some people the reason
they come to the Mahoning
is to see 35mm film for a lot of people
that's the reason they come to the Mahoning.
I wouldn't want to see
a digital presentation
done like that instead of a film print.
Like I know a lot of
theaters, studios force them
to do it, but if Gene Wilder passes away,
a theater wants to run Willy
Wonka, so they go to their
video library at home
and go W, okay they pull
the disc off and just throw it up there
and I guess that works, if it looks good
and people show up and are
happy, I guess that's okay,
but for me it shows less effort,
so for me the digital
here if they're using that
to show things that they
just cannot get on film,
then I don't really have a problem with it.
And if it looks good, that's the thing too.
If people are coming from farther away
and paying money to see something,
they should get the best
presentation possible
and if they're coming that far
and they're seeing a pan
and scan copy of something
and it's advertised as being
the feature for the night,
that's a little cheesy, but...
I think it helps that
what we're doing on digital
is fucking cool.
- Hey friends,
Henrique Couto here and
I want to tell you about
something I am just so excited about
and that is the VHS
drive-in, you heard me right,
two of your favorite retro
things, VHS and the drive-in
are coming together at
Mahoning, Pennsylvania
at the Mahoning Drive-In.
It's almost like beyond
retro to call the studio
and be like we're not even
gonna play it on film,
we're gonna play a VHS
tape at a VHS-themed event
that we're gonna sell VHS tapes in.
It's just like beyond you know.
- They'd be like what?
- They'd be like hold on.
- What?
- You want to pay us
money to do that?
- Oh, you're crazy okay.
Jeff made it very clear
that this is an enhancer.
This is something that will
allow us to show things
that we couldn't play on
35mm for whatever reason.
The digital is
not a betrayal in anyway, it's not like
oh it's a Dillon Goes Electric
or something like that.
First time I saw Hateful
Eight was on digital
and it looked great, it
didn't look 70mm great,
but it looked great
and in fact I have since
seen twice on proper 70mm
and at the Museum at the Moving Image
there was either something
wrong with the print,
it was something wrong with the print
and the focus was going in and out
I'm not sure what it would I think that
there's some sort of warping of the print
that might have happened
because I can't imagine
how it wouldn't have spilled over into
we saw a double bill
that day, The Wild Bunch
and The Hateful Eight and
it was me and another guy
named Rob who comes here,
he has an orange Prius
and that was a really
cool day trip to New York.
We thank you guys so much,
2016 Mahoning Drive-in Theater.
Ah, the memories, bask in it.
Isn't he a trip, isn't he a trip?
I'm gonna miss seeing
everybody every single week for sure
some of these people are
her every single weekend
to hang out.
- It was magical.
Oh no.
Oh my brother.
I would call these people
family, I mean we sleep together,
not in that way, when
you share a cement floor
next to two other men on air mattresses,
stuff gets pretty real.
How do I look?
Do I look like a disco queen?
I guess it's all of it,
it's all good all the time,
I like being here, it's a
job where I actually feel
like I make a kind of a
difference in the world.
I always have a good time,
I always look forward to it.
I'm here every weekend.
I never call off or anything.
Yeah, just like being here.
I don't know I mean I always
feel like you come out here,
you always come out here at a time
when I have nothing to say.
Every week we did a little bit better,
and a little bit better,
finally the rollercoaster,
the up and down was
gone, it started to climb
on a gradual increase, I
thought wow, this is actually
going to work, it looks
like this is going to be
a viable thing for the
future and it's been working.
Make sure that the
sprockets are fitting right
over the sprocket holes, they fit in
so that the gates close even,
otherwise you can damage
a lot of film so you
always check to make sure
that they're seeded
properly in the sprockets.
Ladies and gentleman, for
one more time this year,
good evening and welcome to
the Mahoning Drive-In Theater,
one of the largest and
oldest drive-ins with one
of the largest screens
left in the United States.
We're certainly glad you
could be with us this evening,
especially on our very last
night of the 2016 season.
This community experience
of all of us getting together
who like zombie movies,
horror movies, sci-fi movies,
dinosaur movies and we all get to hang out
and you know shoot the shit.
It brings people together.
Some of us just being on the
computer and typing online
about how much we like something,
we could actually talk in person
again, like it used to be.
And you are literally going back in time,
a time capsule and you aren't where you live
and you aren't where you grew up
and you know you aren't
where your problems are,
it's somewhere else, it's a free place
and this is an enjoyable
escape, I think for everyone,
I think that's why everyone
comes back and stays here.
It's a place to be yourself
and it's a place to escape
lame things that yeah
I mean my personal life
is all over the place,
especially this weekend this
was a real crazy weekend
for me, I almost didn't come, but I had to,
the last weekend, there's no way I couldn't.
That's why I do it, I mean
I don't sleep on that floor
just to be up there and
I love drive-ins I do,
but it's the people and I go there
to be around those people.
But here we are, last night,
last night of the season
and I miss it already, every
weekend was an adventure,
every weekend was something different.
- It's the shit.
- It's the shit.
I feel like sometimes I'm a daughter to him
and I feel like that's how he
views me, which is really nice
because I absolutely adore
him, he'll reach out to me
on holidays and stuff or
I'll reach out to him.
He's just a great guy and he's super sweet.
I'm just glad she's hanging in there.
Every year she says she wants to come back
and I think that's great, I love her.
Thank goodness it's a beautiful night.
Look at those clouds, man it's gorgeous
and it's comfortable, last
night we were freezing.
Tonight it's beautiful.
This is the way to end a season,
if you have to end it
and unfortunately we do,
this is the kind of night
you want to end it on.
I heard a corny old
letter song on the radio
A while back I hadn't
heard one in so long
But I wanted to laugh
This is how I wanted to
break the news to everybody
here at the theater, but
we had our T-shirt guy
work on the newest edition, the onesies,
which is also gonna be my newest edition,
the newest edition to the
theater, December 1st,
we're expecting, it's a
blessing and one of those things
that like I said growing up at a drive-in
is something I always wish for my kid
the idea of trying to pass that on to
the next generation and
it's about to happen man
you know what I mean, I'm
gonna be a proud poppa,
proud drive-in poppa.
I have to get a kick shot of that sky
as I'm sure you can well
appreciate, how are you?
I've made friends here
that I've already been able
to see outside of working hours and you know
it's yeah I'm kind of I
guess I'm a little bit
without words, a little bit speechless,
maybe that's more meaningful
than anything I could say.
I was holding back
the tear drops
When the record stopped
And the last laugh on me
For you see it had
turned back the clock
And momma was rocking
to sleep again
While daddy, daddy
held the farm
And it sounded very much
like this old letter song
We hope you had a wonderful time.
Come back soon.