But that's not really what Farmer wants to talk about before his 14-inch pizza leaves the oven. He wants to talk about HIS first visits to the drive-in with his parents, when the Rat Pack mesmerized him with their slicked hair and crisp, cool gangster suits and fedoras _ flics such as "Robin and the Seven Hoods."
"Dean Martin," he says. "Never forgot what he looked like then. Funny how that sticks in your mind."
Seven in the evening on a recent Friday, the tailgaters are lined up at the box office, the speakers are crackling with Bruce Springsteen's "Dancing in the Dark," and the Silver Moon's "Boss," Harold T. Spears Jr., is giving the joint his nightly once-over.
Spears, originally from Atlanta, moved to Lakeland and came into the business in 1954 as a manager trainee and couldn't pull himself away from it.
Forty-two years later, his employer, a holding company with theaters across central Florida, asked him to liquidate the last of its drive-ins. So, at age 67, Spears started his own company, buying the Silver Moon and two other outdoor theaters.
"I felt there was a place in America for drive-ins, still do," says Spears, now 79. "There are a lot of folks around here who can't afford the indoor theaters. If we close, where'll they go for entertainment?"
He does his best to keep the Silver Moon affordable. Patrons 11 or older pay $4 admission. Thursdays, with a Silver Moon flier, it's half price, and on Tuesdays, for those wearing a black, Silver Moon 60th Anniversary T-shirt, entrance is gratis. Kids under 10: $1.
Spears has a theory about the gradual disappearance of drive-ins _ and it's got little to do with the advent of VCRs, multiplexes, the Internet, rising property taxes and land values. "It's all about keeping your theater in good physical shape," he says. "People want to be respected. You show them that, and they will come."
And they do, in downpours and nights chilly enough to see your breath, in limousines and convertibles, in the rear of pickups lined with tarps and filled with water _ a bathtub in a truck.
On this night, a decent crowd turns out at Screen 1 for "Igor" and "The Long Shots," a larger one at Screen 2's "Death Race" and "Tropic Thunder." During intermission, Spears hears his name over the PA. A customer at the box office has an urgent matter.
It's Rick Delong, 33, from Lakeland but now living in Carson City, Nevada. He needs a favor. "Sir, could you do me the honor and the kindness of announcing to the world that I love my girlfriend?"
Spears adjusts his striped tie. "What's her name, son?"
Some minutes later, standing outside the concession stand, Delong is ecstatic. "Hear that? Now, that's why I come to the drive-in ... They treat you like a SOMEBODY, not just another wallet."
His passion, 24-year-old Diana Quell, emerges, pizza in hand. Well, did she hear the announcement?
"No," Quell says. "What was it?"
She is informed.
"Oh, he did that the last time we were here," she says. "C'mon, let's eat."
There are times, Spears will admit, when congeniality complicates business _ like the night a gentleman stormed up to the box office halfway through the movie, quite agitated, and demanded to see the manager.
"My wife's here with another man," he snapped, "and I want to find him."
The gentleman was adamant, refusing to budge until somebody did something. After some discussion, the film was halted and the manager got on the PA.
Apologizing for the interruption, he announced that one very angry husband at the box office was looking for his wife, who'd apparently snuck off on a date with another man.
"And believe it or not," Spears says, with a shrug and a sly smile, "25 cars exited the theater immediately."
