Auto Vue perseveres in video age
I discovered what killed the drive-in movie. Or at least I know what murdered ours Friday night:
Mom: “Timothy. You’re not going to sit on the hood of the car.”
Timothy: (climbing onto the hood) “Uh-huh.”
Mom: “I mean it. I said you’re not going to sit on the hood of the car.”
Timothy: (from the hood) “Uh-huh.”
Mom: “Don’t blame me if you slide off and get hurt.”
Timothy: “Uh-huh.”
Mom: “Timothy. You stop kicking that windshield. Right now!”
Timothy: (blue sneakers clunking) “Uh-huh.”
On and on went the nattering from the white compact car parked beside us. If only the CIA had recordings. The exchanges between nagging mother and willful brat could be used to break down suspected terrorists.
A few hours of Timothy Tapes and we’d know where bin Laden is.
Unfortunately, the incessant bickering my wife, Sherry, and I encountered at Colville’s venerable Auto Vue Drive-in illustrates one of the built-in flaws of this dwindling industry.
In a movie house you can just move away from a noisy neighbor.
Once dusk settles over a drive-in, you’re pretty much moored for the duration.
Our trip to the Auto Vue was to be a romantic ride down Nostalgia Boulevard. It also seemed like the perfect place to take the cherry red 1967 Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser station wagon I bought last week.
I was hoping for a horror flick. One of best times I ever had at a drive-in was watching “Night of the Living Dead.”
Nothing makes your sweetie hang onto you tighter than watching flesh-eating zombies.
“Shrek 2,” alas, was the first movie showing at the Auto Vue.
We went anyway. With the nearest drive-in 70 miles away, who can be choosy?
Like chrome wheels and loud rock ‘n’ roll, the drive-in is a revered institution for anyone who grew up in the 1950s and 1960s.
Drive-ins represented independence for American teens. Drive-ins were steamy-windowed date destinations.
The night I slipped an engagement ring on Sherry’s finger we celebrated with a trip to Spokane’s East Sprague Drive-in. Neither one of us remembers what movie was playing. But 32 years later, that ring is still there.
One by one, drive-ins went the way of the Desoto. From a high of 4,000-plus outdoor theaters in 1958, the national drive-in tally is a 10th of that today. Rising commercial real estate prices did a lot of them in. The land occupied by a drive-in became far more valuable than the revenues generated from showing movies.
The video boom was a big killer. After all, why go to a drive-in when you can watch any movie you want from your couch?
Spokane’s last drive-in, the North Cedar, disappeared in the mid-1990s.
Yet the Auto Vue defied the trend.
Now one of only a handful of Washington drive-ins, the Auto Vue has continued its seasonal operation since 1953.
You can find it on Highway 395, about four northerly miles past Colville. The theater beams the sound through your car radio and is open six days a week during the summer. It’s now operating just on weekends through the end of the month.
The price is great considering you get a double feature: five bucks for adults; a buck for kids 11 and under. Sunday is the bargain at $10 a carload.
Steve Wisner’s family has owned the Auto Vue since 1974. He laughs at the memory of one flatbed truck on carload night. It was crammed with at least 15 people who thought they were pulling one over on him.
Timothy aside, I’d still encourage everybody with a car to take a trip to the Auto Vue while it’s still around. Nothing beats the smell of popcorn hanging in the drive-in air.
Mercifully, Timothy stopped causing trouble about halfway into the movie. Suddenly it was so incredibly peaceful.
Sherry and I fell asleep.
We woke up just as the credits were rolling. Too tired to stick around for “Spider-man II,” we admitted we were done in at the drive-in. I fired up the Vista Cruiser and we faded to black.