DEARBORN - You've waited for tonight. It's dark. It's cozy. You're sitting right next to each other and whispering in each other's ears as the movie starts. And then, you make "the move" - giving a gentle yawn and stretching your right arm over her tank-topped shoulder. But as you do, your left elbow grazes the wheel and you commit the ultimate first-date faux pas.
You've accidentally honked the horn.
If the mile-long lines of Porsches and pickup trucks were any indication last Saturday night at Dearborn's Ford-Wyoming Drive-In, the days of the drive-in are far from over. The innocent air of the 1950s sock hop may be long gone, but in the industr
 |
| SEDER BURNS/Daily Cars throng the parking lot of the Ford-Wyoming drive-in theater in Dearborn. |
The 30-acre site of the Ford-Wyoming Drive-In is one of only a handful left in the state and the only one within easy driving distance from Ann Arbor. Owner Charles Schafer said that drive-ins are nowhere near as popular as in their mid-'50s heyday, but his business still thrives.
"We've got 3,000-car capacity, nine screens and 18 pictures a night. They come in all night," Schafer said proudly, adding that once the features start just after sunset, "we don't stop until the sun comes up." Like the postal service, neither rain, nor sleet, nor threat of snow can stop the screenings, shown every night of the year with the help of a 50-person staff.
For Schafer, 75, the childlike awe of the concrete cinema is still there. A movie theater veteran, he and his brother started out in the business just helping their father, who was the general manager of Detroit's Fox Theatre when it opened in 1925.
After a few years of management practice, the senior Schafer bought an indoor theater in Wayne, in 1930, just after the stock market crash sent others into the dumps.
"My dad took his life savings for that theater, after making $8 a day," Schafer remembered. "Admission was 10 cents and no candy bar cost more than a nickel."
Later on, he said, the family built more indoor theaters in the suburbs of the metro area, but it wasn't until May, 1949, that the brothers started with drive-ins, erecting the second drive-in Detroit had ever seen. Within a few short years, Schafer said, he and his brother had landscaped the pavement for outdoor theaters in Wayne, Westland, Taylor, Dearborn Heights, Dearborn and even Ypsilanti - a small empire of 24 screens.
"When we first started, it took 20 acres to build a drive-in and you couldn't buy it in the metro area because it was too expensive," Schafer said. With land selling at $50,000 per acre in town and only $500-$1,000 outside, the brothers moved out to the boondocks to set up shop. The parked-up farm lands were illuminated nightly with visions of Deborah Kerr and Cary Grant looming large overhead.
Except for the Ford-Wyoming, all are now gone.
Schafer and his current business partner, William Clark, still own the Ford-Wyoming because Schafer doesn't want to retire. Otherwise, he might have sold it, like the approximately 50 theaters, indoor and out, that he owned.
He sold the lots not because of any lost love for the cinema, but because the land became so valuable. One became a shopping center, another a McDonald's. Ypsilanti's Willow Drive-In, located on Michigan Avenue, was sold in 1985 to become a trailer park. And Showcase Cinemas bought out Schafer's indoor theaters in Detroit.
"I sold because of all the competition and the multiplexes," Schafer said. "A six-screen theater is nothing compared to a 30- or 40-screen complex." Even Ann Arbor's quaint movie house scene will be hit with more competition soon, when Showcase adds 12 more screens to its current 14, he added.
In the old days, just as today, families went to the drive-in in droves; parents were eager to have their own semi-private date with the kids sleeping in the back seat. No babysitter is needed and at the mid-Detroit landmark, children under 12 get in free.
Traci Robinson, a 1995 LSA alumna, went to the Ford-Wyoming last weekend to see "Soul Food" with her boyfriend of two years. Though it was their first time at the drive-in together, Robinson remembered many a family trip to the Benton Harbor Drive-In some years back.
"You'd come in your pajamas, climb in the back seat, bug your parents a little, and you'd always have to take a friend," she said as she munched on nachos purchased at the concession stand. Years later, the 24-year-old said, the in-car flick is a lot more romantic than she'd remembered.
Schafer said the cozy atmosphere is part of the lure of the drive-in. "People come dressed in pajamas, T-shirts, bathing suits from the beach, tuxedos from the prom," he said. "They don't care. They're in their car. There's no dress code in your own car."
Ken Kull and his fiancee, Kim, of Wyandotte, had their own private party while watching Alec Baldwin and Anthony Hopkins spar in "The Edge." In classic dinner attire (Kim, 26, in a Wayne State sweatshirt and Ken, 31, in a Michigan Athletics t-shirt), the couple dined on Mexican bean dip, meatballs, and beer brought from home, before heading over to the next lot to see Kurt Russell's "Breakdown."
The couple said they average about twice a month at the drive-in, going for the economical but fun night out. With a ticket price of $6.25 for a double feature, the seclusion of your own car and no one else's kids talking in your ear, what's to question?
And no one seemed to, with lines of cars stretching down Ford Road to enter the toll-booth-style entrance, where the money only exchanges hands after a head count. Soon after, Chevys, Pintos and old hatchbacks were lined up in front of the nine screens, choosing to either tune into 91.9 FM for stereo-surround sound - the latest in drive-in sound technology - or to pull the metal speaker box off the yellow posts and into the nearest window.
Still others climbed out of their rusty station wagons and reclined in lawn chairs, taking in the action while enjoying the early autumn air. The kids were free to run down the lane to the bathroom or the concession stand for hamburgers, nachos, shrimp rolls, or 130 oz. popcorn buckets (only $4.40!) to share with the whole gang.
Still, not everyone is really in it for the savings or the family feel.
As his girlfriend walked by to check that he was only talking to a reporter and not volunteering his phone number, Detroit native Harry Little said he thought most of the people on drive-in dates had ulterior motives for heading to Dearborn's cozy car confines.
"Ninety percent of the people don't come to watch the movie," said Little, 23. "Especially if you came in a truck, like I did."
"You're right by the movie screen, but you don't watch it at all," he said, hiding a grin before heading back off into the enveloping darkness, towards the screen's glow.
SEDER BURNS/Daily
The Ford-Wyoming drive-in's marquee glows in the darkness.
10-02-97
| Previous Article | Next Article |
should be sent to: daily.letters@umich.edu | should be sent to: online.daily@umich.edu |