Rome’s New Drive In Cinema Aka Auto Cine (1967)

Rome, Italy. M/S taken from a car driving around the streets of Rome; two men sit on the pavement by their VW Beetle car and share a watermelon. Several shots from a moving car of the Coliseum. Various shots of a huge open-air cinema called the Auto-cine. The massive screen is held up by concrete supports. A man checks one of the hundreds of plug-in points where motorists pick up their speaker and car heater. Several shots show cars arriving in daylight; people find their spot then take their children to the playground or go to the cafe before the film starts. When it gets dark, the film starts; we see a lengthy clip of the film ’My Fair Lady’, with Audrey Hepburn, Rex Harrison and Wilfrid Hyde White performing the song ’The Rain in Spain Stays Mainly in the Plain’. This is intercut with shots of people watching from their cars and adjusting their speakers; the projectionist in the projection box. Commentator says “All this in your own car at an Auto-cine such as we hope to have in Britain ve