The Drive-in Movie Theater Is The Bastion Of Normalcy We All Need Right Now

Source: SF Gate, Alyssa Pereira
Photo: Alyssa Pereira/SFGATE

I don’t remember whose idea it was, but we ran with it.

There wasn’t a lot to do in the suburbs on nights no one was throwing a party, and we were too young and broke for bars. When someone suggested “drive-in movie,” we crammed into a paint-peeled sedan and drove to the West Wind Solano.

That was more than 10 years ago. I don’t know what movie we paid to see and none of my friends do either. But I do remember the dry Concord summer heat and that one of my friends nevertheless decided to tuck himself into the unventilated trunk with contraband snacks – and, probably, awful and very contraband beer – to get past the admissions gate. (Don’t feel bad for that guy, he has a Grammy now.)

It’s now been two months since San Francisco’s shelter in place began. Eight weeks of washing groceries, apartment workouts and three-hour Zoom calls. We’re nowhere near regular life.

The idea of going to the movies seems so distant now. The last one I saw in cinemas was “The Gentlemen” in February, and I’ve missed the experience, stale popcorn and all. I hadn’t thought about the drive-in in years, but the vague memory of it — a gauzy vestige of an ordinary thing I did once with my friends long before all this — and the opportunity to go, after the West Wind Solano reopened May 9, was enough to bring me back. I’ll do anything to feel normal these days.

The drive-in movies, this stubborn, nostalgic relic of mid-century American life, could become a new refuge. These places can exist in a vacuum, nearly unmoved by the threat of infectious disease, so long as you’re willing to keep your windows rolled up and wear your cloth mask to the bathroom. At West Wind Solano, with its rusted welcome marquee and retro theme park arches, it’s just $5.50 for a mid-week double feature — an absolutely outsized value, easily worth the cost of entry.

Nationwide, drive-in theaters are having an unexpected, anachronistic moment. Since their late-1950s heyday when 4,000 were in operation across the U.S., their numbers have been decimated. Now there are only about 300 left. But the state of California allowed the few drive-in movies left to reopen in early May, despite the ongoing lockdown. The Bay Area has two of them – this West Wind Solano location in Concord and its sister venue in San Jose – and both have to operate under strict guidelines. Visitors must stay in their cars unless they need to use the restroom, over by the shuttered snack counter between the two screens. Only a few people can be in the restroom (wearing cloth masks) at a given time, and vehicles must be parked 10 feet apart. To ensure that last rule, employees painted throughout the expansive pavement to guide guests to find a spot.

Nationwide, drive-in theaters are having an unexpected, anachronistic moment. Since their late-1950s heyday when 4,000 were in operation across the U.S., their numbers have been decimated. Now there are only about 300 left.

But the state of California allowed the few drive-in movies left to reopen in early May, despite the ongoing lockdown. The Bay Area has two of them — this West Wind Solano location in Concord and its sister venue in San Jose — and both have to operate under strict guidelines. Visitors must stay in their cars unless they need to use the restroom, over by the shuttered snack counter between the two screens. Only a few people can be in the restroom (wearing cloth masks) at a given time, and vehicles must be parked 10 feet apart. To ensure that last rule, employees painted throughout the expansive pavement to guide guests to find a spot.

“You need to park right over the orange-painted line,” the ticket attendant explained when we arrived. “Or green line — we ran out of the orange.”

The West Wind Solano reopened last week to apparent fanfare, and it’s easy to understand why. People like me are looking for any reason to be entertained outside of their living rooms. And in this peculiar and dangerous year, it’s one of the safest places to be.

And in this peculiar and dangerous year, it’s one of the safest places to be.

By the time we decided on a spot, it was 7:30, an hour before showtime. There were 10 other cars there. By 8:15, the expansive lot looked full: families in four-doors, SUVs full of kids and couples huddled up with blankets on open truck beds. I doubt any of us came for the movie itself. The first film of the double feature,

By the time we decided on a spot, it was 7:30, an hour before showtime. There were 10 other cars there. By 8:15, the expansive lot looked full: families in four-doors, SUVs full of kids and couples huddled up with blankets on open truck beds.

I doubt any of us came for the movie itself. The first film of the double feature, “The Hunt,” has been available for streaming on Amazon Prime since late March. (In fact, drive-in movie selections have been limited by film companies holding back their new releases for the distant post-COVID era.)

It’s not a particularly great movie. I’m still not sure who its intended audience was, though star Betty Gilpin was, as usual, excellent.

But the experience wasn’t about watching Gilpin jump a train wearing a shotgun or Glenn Howerton eat caviar or business suit Hilary Swank become a martial arts master. It wasn’t actually about the movie at all. It wasn’t even about feeling the warm fuzzies of saving some lost American tradition, as much as I’d like to say it is.

But the experience wasn’t about watching Gilpin jump a train wearing a shotgun or Glenn Howerton eat caviar or business suit Hilary Swank become a martial arts master. It wasn’t actually about the movie at all.

It wasn’t even about feeling the warm fuzzies of saving some lost American tradition, as much as I’d like to say it is.

It’s about the effort required of you just to be there. It’s about putting on your hard pants and tying your shoes and leaving your house for a purpose other than to stand in a long and socially distanced Trader Joe’s line. It’s about suffering the dulled anxiety of needing to be in a certain place at a particular time. It’s even about thinking of how much traffic might be on Highway 24 – the headache! – and if you’ll need cash for your ticket (you don’t, they take credit card). It’s about mundane things I never anticipated missing. In 10 years, I’ll remember this one completely inconsequential evening, like I do the last one. Maybe I again won’t remember the film, but when I look back at a bleary haze of stay-at-home days, this will shine through. It was a lucid, perfect, absolutely normal night. You should try it.

It’s about the effort required of you just to be there.

It’s about putting on your hard pants and tying your shoes and leaving your house for a purpose other than to stand in a long and socially distanced Trader Joe’s line. It’s about suffering the dulled anxiety of needing to be in a certain place at a particular time. It’s even about thinking of how much traffic might be on Highway 24 — the headache! — and if you’ll need cash for your ticket (you don’t, they take credit card).

It’s about mundane things I never anticipated missing.

In 10 years, I’ll remember this one completely inconsequential evening, like I do the last one. Maybe I again won’t remember the film, but when I look back at a bleary haze of stay-at-home days, this will shine through. It was a lucid, perfect, absolutely normal night. You should try it.

Alyssa Pereira is an SFGate digital editor. Email: alyssa.pereira@sfgate.com | Twitter: @alyspereira

https://www.sfgate.com/sf-culture/slideshow/West-Wind-Solano-Drive-In-Movie-Theater-Concord