Most fans who were around during the days of the classic trilogy can almost certainly remember catching at least one of the first Star Wars movies at a drive-in theater -- a warm memory, to be sure, witnessing Star Wars under the stars, literally.
I grew up in the Los Angeles area during the 1970s, where drive-ins were still a community fixture as they were across most of the country. Had my dad, who worked in downtown L.A., decided to take the family to see Star Wars just east of the city on the night of July 21, 1978, I may have gotten to witness a bit of Star Wars history made that night.
The Fiesta Drive-In Theater in Pico Rivera, a community with a large Spanish-speaking population, had the quiet distinction of presenting Star Wars for the very first time in both English and Spanish to a single audience. How could both the English and Spanish-dubbed version be viewed simultaneously, you ask? By a short-lived innovation exclusive to drive-in theaters called "Cine-Fi".
Developed in Japan and brought to the US in 1977, the Cine-Fi system allowed drive-in patrons to attach a wire to their car aerial instead of mounting the cumbersome and squawky speaker boxes to the side of their cars. This allowed the movie's soundtrack to be heard on the viewer's AM car radio, the quality limited only by the sophistication of the auto's sound system. Of course, being AM, it was limited to monaural sound, but by broadcasting both English and Spanish soundtracks at different frequencies, either could be chosen by viewers for listening.
The Cine-Fi system had actually been installed at another L.A.-area drive-in during Star Wars' first run in 1977 (at the Winnetka in San Fernando, which I did visit many times, but years later), which distributor 20th Century Fox had initially resisted until listening to the sound clarity offered by car sound systems. The Winnetka Drive-In only broadcast in English, however -- the simultaneous English/Spanish presentation would have to wait for Star Wars' 1978 re-release at the Fiesta Drive-In.
While it was a great innovation, there was some risk to playing the dubbed version to Spanish-speaking audiences in the US. Interestingly, in the '70s at least, these audiences almost always preferred subtitles to voice-overs, since most of the time the dubbing had been recorded by Castillian Spanish speakers in Spain which carried an unfamiliar accent to many living in the U.S. The Spanish Star Wars presentation at the Fiesta seemed to be received enthusiastically, however, likely due to the exotic nature of the movie itself.
While there were ambitious plans to install Cine-Fi systems across the country for higher fidelity and bilingual presentations at outdoor theaters, the technology ultimately went the way of most drive-ins, which have sadly been all but erased from the landscape. The Fiesta itself was closed nearly 22 years to the day after that first bilingual presentation of Star Wars, quietly becoming a footnote to the vast expanse of other Star Wars firsts.
For more Cinco de Mayo-related coverage, see this story here.
Thanks to Paul Wilson at starwarsmovieposter.com for the Spanish-dubbed poster image.
