Summertime Cinema at Balboa Park

Screen on the Green is back, popular as ever

For the season’s first Screen on the Green in Balboa Park, we allowed plenty of time to drive, park and find a comfy place to watch the outdoor movie. We left an hour early and strolled down the Prado with 45 minutes to spare, congratulating ourselves on getting ahead of the rest of the movie-goers.

We rounded the corner toward the Botanical Gardens building and stopped in horror: The long lawn running up to the temporary movie screen was swarming with people. Cozy plaid-blanketed picnicking families covered almost every square foot of the grass. Smug couples on beach towels were wedged in between the families. Across the koi pond, even more people had spread out picnic feasts on a few spare inches of grass.

Finally managing to stake out a few feet of turf, we shook out the blankets and settled in for the movie. The screen was approximately a quarter-mile away, and the speakers didn’t quite manage to project the dialogue at a volume audible to those of us way back in the boonies.

As the only one in my group who had previously seen The Shop Around the Corner, I filled the others in on the drama happening between the young James Stewart and the plucky Margaret Sullavan.

“It’s You’ve Got Mail, only in black-and-white, and with snail mail instead of AOL,” I explained. But as the plot thickened and we could only hear every third word spoken, it got harder to stay focused.

“Now the boss is angry because he thinks Jimmy Stewart is having an affair with his wife but it’s really the other guy. But the errand boy catches the boss trying to commit suicide and has to go to the hospital — the boss, not the errand boy. Then Jimmy Stewart gets his job back — what? Oh yeah, he was fired. Did you miss that?”

Half an hour into the movie, all of those around us had begun carrying on whispered conversations. It had started to get chilly, and my 5-year-old niece had fallen into a remarkably deep slumber in my lap, her weight effectively cutting off the circulation to my legs and right arm.

We left halfway through the film, tiptoeing as carefully as is possible while holding a sleeping 5-year-old, and trekked back to the parking lot. We vowed that next time we would arrive two hours early, with a full picnic, thicker sweaters and a few bottles of wine. No matter what, we wouldn’t be caught off-guard again.

Screen on the Green takes place on the East Lawn, between the San Diego Museum of Art, the Botanical Building, the Timken Museum of Art and the Casa del Prado. Movies are shown every Thursday (including tonight) through August at 8 p.m. and are free. For more information, visit sdmart.org/calendar-screen-on-the-green.html. Arrive early!

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