North Smithfield, Rhode Island: Outdoor Movies at One of the Last Remaining Drive-In Theaters at North Smithfield, Rhode Island

The Rustic Tri-View Drive-In on Route 146 in North Smithfield, Rhode Island is the last surviving drive-in in the state and one of about 20 left in New England. The 57-year-old theater draws more than 500 cars on busy summer nights. Admission is $20 per car — a reasonable deal for a family. Sound plays through 90.1 FM. The management brings out a 12-volt jump box several times nightly to revive batteries that died from radio use.

Boston Globe writer Jonathan Saltzman visited on a Wednesday night with his wife and three children, raising the hatch of the station wagon and spreading pillows and a blanket for the kids. His father had worked 43 years for Columbia Pictures and taken him to drive-ins in the 1960s; his clearest memory was a hazy recollection of Yours, Mine, and Ours and falling asleep on the ride home. That evening, 4-year-old Noah’s verdict on the feature — Voyage to the Center of the Earth — came early: “I hate this movie.” By 10 p.m., 9-year-old Juliette was dozing on the way home. “I think I’m asleep already,” she said.

From a nearby Honda minivan, Dr. Thomas Liner, a 43-year-old optometrist from Coventry, watched the same film with his wife and two pajama-clad daughters. “It’s not the movies that are memorable,” he said. “It’s the drive-in that’s memorable.” His wife Judi said that when she was pregnant with their older daughter, she went to the Rustic repeatedly because lying down in a car was the only comfortable way to watch a film.

“I think parents want to give their kids the same experience they had growing up,” said Jen Chenail, 25, general manager, who started at the snack bar seven years earlier. “On Fridays and Saturdays, I get in at 5 o’clock, and there are already four or five cars waiting.” Bob Gosselin, 36, has run the projector for five years. “I’ve always wanted to be in the movie industry,” he said, “and I guess this is as close as I’ll come to it.”