Ever since Grease I’ve wanted to go to a drive-thru cinema. The next best thing – actually better as it’s zero carbon – is The Scoop‘s outdoor film screenings, held in a mini Roman amphitheatre on the banks of the Thames (just in front of City Hall).
“Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again,” began Hitchcock’s Oscar-winning Rebecca, last night. With a rug to warm our chunk of wide stone step, a punnet of strawberries for snacking and a thirst for some good old-fashioned suspense, I was in cinematic bliss from the opening credits, an emotional state that snowballed with Laurence Olivier‘s all-out gorgeousness as the troubled Maxim de Winter, Joan Fontaine maintaining impeccable manners as his sweetly confused second wife, and Hitchcock’s inimitable layering of chills and thrills.
The Scoop’s free films continue with some supernaturally good movies: The Usual Suspects is on tonight, one of the best films of the decade Michael Clayton screens Friday 20th June, Withnail & I on Wednesday 25th, the terrifying Don’t Look Now on Thursday 26th and the essential Sound of Music on Friday 27th. Instructions are: turn up in time to take a seat by 9.15pm, wrap up warm or at least bring layers and maybe a cushion (though you can hire them there) and take some change to buy an ice-cream, booze or a kebab from Amano, who run a barbecue station at the back. And enjoy.
