American Drive-In

(Krishna Shah, USA, 1985)

Aficionados of B cinema will spot the debt to Rod Amateau’s Drive-In (1976) – shots from which ended up being licensed and used to reconstitute Orson Welles’ The Other Side of the Wind (2018), so there – but Krishna Shah’s riotous mosaic of teenage wildlife (played by a ‘cast of unknowns’, more or less) under the stars and at the movies is gem all on its own terms.

Deftly moving between farce, drama and whimsy – a heady teen-movie combo of affects – the multiple plots entangle in perfect correspondence with the schlock horror fodder unfolding on the screen-within-the screen … which just happens to be a previous Shah wonder in the vein of Phantom of the Paradise (1974) released the previous year: Hard Rock Zombies (1984), co-written (like this one) with the mysterious David Allen Ball.

Surely, in 2026, the mash-up of American Drive-In with Bigas Luna’s Anguish (1987) and Tsai Ming-liang’s Goodbye, Dragon Inn (2003) – both of which unfold, with no small consequence, during film screenings – cannot be far away. I may have to do it myself!

Mumbai-born Krishna Shah (1938-2013) is today a forgotten auteur. He moved, as a creator-producer, between his birth country and Broadway, where he mounted plays in the ‘60s. His wonderful compilation of popular Indian movies, Cinema Cinema (1979), was his letter of introduction to my generation of VHS-obsessed cinephiles – but his career tracks back to a debut USA feature, Rivals (1972). His other features included The River Niger (1976) starring Cicely Tyson and James Earl Jones, and the jewel-thievery adventure Shalimar (1978), second-billing Rex Harrison and Sylvia Miles (!) beneath its leading Indian players. He also worked in TV.

IMDb records only a long gap in his filmography between the apotheosis of American Drive-In and a 2011 TV series, Dance India Dance Doubles. That can’t be right (the chummy Variety obit lists at least one in-between work, the intriguing telemovie Ted & Venus [1991] which he co-produced for Bud Cort as director); so mark Shah as a ‘subject for future research’.

In the meantime, American Drive-In is a film truly worth reviving and rediscovering.

© Adrian Martin 1990 / July 2026