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Leaving the drive-in to look at Kubrick’s masterpiece ‘2001’ in Cinerama

7 min read
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We’ve gassed up the time machine for another look back through the Observer-Reporter’s archive to find out what was going on at area drive-in movie theaters back in the day. Let’s start out by turning back the clock 60 years to 1958.

Sunset Drive-In in Washington was playing “Raintree County” starring Montgomery Clift, Elizabeth Taylor and Eva Marie Saint. The film gained a significant amount of publicity after Clift was in a car accident during production, delaying the film’s completion by about nine weeks.

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While there was consideration to recast Clift’s role, Taylor and co-star Rock Hudson insisted that he be allowed to return. However, according to TVGuide.com’s review of the film, Clift’s behavior after the accident was very erratic, with reports of heavy drug and alcohol use, ordering a steak nearly uncooked to eat with his bare hands and running naked through the town in Kentucky where the film was partially shot.

At the time, “Raintree County” was the most expensive movie ever shot in the United States with a $6 million budget. However, the film was a major flop at the box office. The film has never been released on DVD, as MGM apparently considers the cost of restoring the film to be too expensive. There is even a Facebook group of Elizabeth Taylor fans petitioning for the film to be restored and released on Blu-Ray.

After “Raintree County” left Sunset on Saturday, June 7, 1958, it was replaced by a double feature of “Battle Hymn,” also starring Rock Hudson, and “Gun for a Coward.”

Please bear with me as I switch gears from drive-in movie theaters to indoor movie theaters when moving forward 10 years to 1968, as I found an ad in the Observer-Reporter archive too interesting to not feature here: “2001: A Space Odyssey” playing at the Warner Cinerama Theatre in Pittsburgh.

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Stanley Kubrick’s sci-fi epic was released in a “roadshow” format in 1968 that traveled to major cities before the nationwide release. Cinerama was essentially the IMAX of its day: a special filmmaking process with a very large curved screen and the image split across three projectors simultaneously to fill the screen for maximum image quality.

Cinerama films were shot with three cameras simultaneously and were quite difficult to make, so by the time “2001” was made, it had been abandoned and a single 70mm print would have been presented across the large, immersive curved screen.

From looking at the advertisement that ran in the O-R on June 7, 1968, it seems Southwestern Pennsylvania residents could reserve their tickets for the roadshow presentation of “2001” via mail order or over the phone. The advertisement included an order form to cut out of the paper, fill out and mail in with a self-addressed stamped envelope. 

And I’m not the only one looking back on the 70mm legacy of “2001” for its 50th anniversary. Christopher Nolan, famed director of “Dunkirk” and “Inception,” recently convinced Warner to make brand new 70mm prints for anniversary screenings across the country in 2018.

These prints are made from an interpositive of the original negative created shortly after Kubrick’s death with color timing based on his original notes. The prints were also created completely photochemically, as it would have been done for the original release, with no computers or digital restoration involved.

As of yet, there are no Pittsburgh dates for the rerelease, but hopefully that will change soon… and I think it’s safe to say that we will be able to buy tickets for it without needing a stamp.

Getting back to the drive-in, there was a trio of of great double feature options in the area 45 years ago in 1973.

Sunset Drive-In had the Clint Eastwood classic “Joe Kidd” paired with “Country Music” starring Marty Robbins. But a bit further north at Mt. Lebanon Drive-In, you could see Burt Lancaster in “Scorpio” and Charles Bronson in “The Mechanic” for one low price.

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But Mt. Lebanon also had two notable X-rated movies playing on their first screen. Up first was “Sugar Cookies,” an erotic thriller starring cult film actresses Mary Woronov (“Death Race 2000,” “Eating Raoul”) and Lynn Lowry (“Cat People” and George A. Romero’s Pittsburgh-shot “The Crazies”).

While not all audiences may be familiar with Woronov and Lowry – and that’s certainly a shame – I’m sure all readers will notice the name of the associate producer of “Sugar Cookies”: Oliver Stone.

That’s right, the future Academy Award-winner was involved in producing an X-rated film, as he was a school chum of producer and co-writer Lloyd Kaufman (who would go on to co-found Troma Studios and create outrageous b-movies like “The Toxic Avenger”).

Of course, that’s not saying Stone worked on a porn film: “Sugar Cookies” is a very well-shot thriller about a film producer who murders his star actress (Lowry). Her lover (Woronov) finds an exact lookalike of the actress (Lowry, in dual roles) and plots her revenge.

It’s been over a decade since I’ve seen “Sugar Cookies,” which I found on VHS while trying to watch all of Kaufman’s films. Notably, that tape had an R-rating label. I’m not sure if it was later re-edited or just re-submitted after the MPAA dropped the X-rating, but that should be enough to tell you that it’s not quite as racy as that infamous letter would suggest.

“Sugar Cookies” was followed by the erotic film “Maid in Sweden” – though the ad misspelled it as “Made in Sweden.” The film is mostly remembered today as being the film debut of voluptuous Swedish actress Christina Lindberg, who would go down in exploitation history as the eye-patched vigilante in the infamous film “Thriller: A Cruel Picture,” which was released in the U.S. under the title “They Call Her One Eye.”

Even Quentin Tarantino is a fan of Lindberg, as the character Elle Driver in “Kill Bill: Vol 1” is clearly stylized off of her character from “Thriller.” 

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Moving forward to 1988, the two screens Skyview Drive-In in Carmichaels brought four big titles to Greene County. On the first screen was “Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood” followed by “Fatal Attraction” and “Vice Versa” with “Good Morning Vietnam” on the second screen.

“The New Blood” stands as my personal favorite of the franchise, though it’s concept that can best be described as “Carrie” versus Jason has put off many fans of the ’80s most famous seemingly immortal screen killer.

“Vice Versa” was one of several films made in the ’80s to gender-swap “Freaky Friday” and portray a father and son swap bodies. This one stars Judge Reinhold and “The Wonder Years” star Fred Savage and used to frequently play on cable TV in my youth. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen it, but I remember really enjoying how committed Reinhold was to playing a child in a man’s body.

“Good Morning Vietnam” was the film that really broke Robin Williams out as an actor. While he was already famous for his high-energy standup comedy and starring in TV’s “Mork and Mindy,” “Vietnam” resulted in widespread acclaim for his role and even landed him an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. Ten years later, he would win an Oscar for his role in 1998’s “Good Will Hunting.”

That about wraps up another historic look at Southwestern Pennsylvania’s drive-in movie theaters. I’ll be back with more movie ads next Monday, including a surprising triple feature at the Malden Drive-In in Brownsville back in 1993.

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