There was a time when Murfreesboro was reduced to just two movie screens. There was the Martin Theatre in its pre-Twin days and there was the Marbro Drive-In with its one huge screen. The Princess Theatre had closed its doors and the Cinema One was several years away. It would open April 17, 1974 with The Three Musketeers. You could go see if a movie was playing on campus at M.T.S.U., but the the theatre and screen was very small. Your other best option was to drive to Nashville, but luckily on this night in 1972 there are a couple of great movies playing. 2001: A Space Odyssey is at the Martin Theatre playing for just three days. The movie had been out for 4 years at this point and it was to re-released in 1974, 1977, and 1980 so I'm perplexed why it would be playing in 1972. Gone With The Wind which had been re-released in 1971 had run from February 23-26. Diamonds Are Forever would follow it. 2001: A Space Odyssey is a stellar (get it) movie. Even if you've never seen it there are parts of it that have become pop culture totems. HAL-9000 may be fictional, but Siri and Alexa owe him some respect. Stanley Kubrick is often credited with filming the "faked moon landing" based on his direction of this sci-fi classic. If you have never seen it, you should set aside an afternoon to do so.
The Marbro Drive-In had future cult favorite Two-Lane Blacktop which starred rock musicians James Taylor and Dennis Wilson. One of my favorite character actors Warren Oates is also a big part of this enigmatic film. Laurie Bird is wonderful as The Girl. Yes, that's right. She's just called The Girl. James Taylor is The Driver. Dennis Wilson is The Mechanic. Warren Oates character drives a brand new Pontiac G.T.O. Judge model so he's known as G.T.O.. His is perhaps the most developed character in the movie. Taylor and Wilson don't have many lines and what few they have are about the car The Driver drives. It's a 1955 Chevrolet. There were three used for the film and one of those became the 55 Chevy rolled in the American Graffiti drag race scene at the end. The main characters just drift from town to town looking to win enough money to keep going. There doesn't seem to be much purpose in the Monte Hellman directed film. When The Driver and The Mechanic run into Warren Oates's G.T.O. character he talks them into racing across the county to Washington D.C. for the pink slips of the cars, but as the movie goes on you see there will be no final scene showing who gets there first. The moment is the only thing that matters and it's exemplified by Laurie Bird's The Girl who plays all of the male characters off each other before leaving with a guy on a motorcycle. She's just drifting too. A hippie haze hangs over the film, but in a mild buzzed out way. I love its aimlessness and the rootlessness of the characters. Universal Pictures was probably hoping it would be the next Easy Rider, but it was a flop. Laurie Bird would tragically commit suicide in 1979. Dennis Wilson would drown in 1983. I have the Criterion DVD release of Two-Lane Blacktop. The movie is definitely not for everyone, but I love its languid pace when its about the speed of automobiles. The racetrack scenes were filmed at Memphis's now long gone Lakeland Racetrack. There's also a scene at Deals Gap on the Tennessee-North Carolina border. What a treat it would have been to have seen this movie at a drive-in.
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