I've rushed along a bit the past couple of weeks, fearing I might run short of time the last few days but, in fact, the reverse is true. Here I am in the Keystone State, unable to return to Manhattan until Tuesday (that's when the sublet of my apartment ends) with no particular plans. I don't mind, though. I had beautiful weather for the second day in a row and so simply savored a sunny afternoon's drive through the eastern Pennsylvania countryside.

I stopped for the night in Allentown. It was near here that I spent the first night of the American Odyssey, attending a showing of Hook at Shankweiler's Drive-in. I returned here because there are several other drive-ins in the area and I thought it'd be nice to catch one more outdoor flick before heading for home. Unfortunately, none of them were offering any enticing movies so instead I attended Single White Female at a theatre in downtown Bethlehem.

The movie was just okay; I wonder how many more of these you think you know your boyfriend-girlfriend-mistress-nanny-policeman until they come at you with a meat cleaver movies we'll have to endure. SWF wasn't high on my list but when given the chance to see it at the Boyd, a theatre that's been around since the '20s, I went against my better judgement. Underwhelming as the movie was, the Boyd didn't disappoint. The lobby of this grand old palace apparently underwent some ill-advised renovations along about 1965 but the auditorium still looks much as it must have looked the night it opened over 60 years ago. The interior reminded me a great deal of the Lyric, a gone-but-not-forgotten theatre on 42nd street in Manhattan, so much so that I wondered if these two theatres weren't designed by the same person.

There's a little trick I've learned as I wandered the country. One can usually ascertain whether or not a town boasts a vintage theatre by checking the movie page in the local paper. If you find a theatre listed there that has only a single screen, you can be reasonably sure that that theatre dates back at least as far as the '60s. This is how I discovered the Boyd and a few others along the way, too.

There's something special about these old places and I was mulling over tonight, as I waited for the movie to start, just what it might be. It occurred to me that most of us are not often in big spaces like this and when we are, it's usually for a special occasion - a wedding in a huge sanctuary, a Broadway play, a ball game. When one attends a movie at a shoebox in a multi-plex, it just doesn't feel very special. There's no feeling of it being an occasion. They say that the ascent of home video has hurt movie attendance but I think it has more to do with the prosaic, commonplace nature of attending a film today. Much of the magic is missing.

Continue on the American Odyssey.
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