The Last Picture Show:
The Buffalo Drive-In fades to black.
On September 2, 1991, Frank Capra passed away at the age of ninety-four. The legendary director’s most famous accomplishments, It’s a Wonderful Life and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, are symbols of a bygone era where the American dream hadn’t yet been exposed as an oxymoron. As long as you picked up your bootstraps and had faith, you’d end up blubbering like Jimmy Stewart as the greenbacks rolled in.
Sixteen years later, another symbol of a “simpler time” left us forever. The Buffalo Drive-In showed its last film on September 2, 2007, making way for the bulldozers that would tear it all down the following day. A complex of five medical office buildings will be constructed on the land. This leaves the Transit Drive-In (6655 Transit Road in Lockport) as the only outdoor theater in the area.
Although I’m too much of a young buck to remember its glory days—the theater first opened in 1949—my childhood is sprinkled with memories of the Buffalo Drive-In, like my brother and I wearing our pajamas out to see Three Amigos! or watching my father contemplate suicide during a late screening of the 1988 Bobcat Goldthwait gem Hot to Trot. (In case you missed this one, here’s the plot summary from the Internet Movie Database: “Fred P. Chaney receives as inheritance after the death of his mother a speaking horse that also has good knowledge about the stock-market.”) Thanks to the delightful, hip-thrusting choreography of Steve Martin, Chevy Chase, and Martin Short, and the maniacal stroke-victim shtick of Mr. Goldthwait, my parents didn’t have to worry about draining the car battery. After the movie, their kids would be so amped they could drag the car home.
So what is to blame for the drive-in’s status as an endangered theatrical species? As an avowed Netflixer, I find it hard to criticize the home theater technology that’s at least partly responsible for the Buffalo Drive-In’s dwindling numbers. So like any decent, God-fearing, It’s a Wonderful Life-loving blowhard, I’ll point the finger at parents. You can watch a movie anywhere these days—in cars, on your iPod, on your laptop—after dinner at Don Pablo’s—so why pack the kids in the car and sit in a gravel lot for two hours? Why not go to a bar and leave ’em in the parking lot? Just throw Shrek in the Range Rover’s DVD player and get to drinking. It’s pretty much the same thing, right?
As someone who was a child once (allegedly), I can say with authority that comparing a drive-in to any other viewing experience is like comparing Frank Capra to Quentin Tarantino. Why is it that of the hundreds of movies I saw as a kid, I remember so much about Hot to Trot? I think it’s because whether you’re a child or a horny teenager, the drive-in is a venue that lets you break the rules. Kids aren’t supposed to wear pajamas outside, stay up past midnight, and eat junk food in the car. Teenagers are supposed to wait until they’re married. So no matter what’s on the screen, drive-ins are guaranteed to please those whose parents just don’t understand. A smart parent would let the kids have these small rebellions every once in a while—they feel cool and you know they’re safe.
While I find it hard to see a silver lining in this story, at least the land is being used for something other than a giant Wal-Mart/Greens, which would be even more depressing than the cemetery across the street. Theoretically, the medical park should benefit the area. But next summer, if you’re in the mood to catch a double feature under the stars and don’t feel like driving to Lockport, you might as well take George Bailey’s advice to his daughter. When she says she’d rather look at a flower than go to sleep, Bailey responds, “You just go to sleep, and then you can dream about it, and it’ll be a whole garden.”
Appeared in the December 2007 issue of Buffalo Spree.