Drive-In

Frantic goings-on during a performance of Disaster '76, a movie showing at a Texas drive-in theatre (The Alamo), are the promising ingredients of this cod catastrophe movie. That they constitute no more than an unsatisfying hodge-podge is less the fault of Bob Peete's indulgent, idiosyncratic story (two engaging amateur crooks bungle hold-up in theatre concession stand), than the frenetic pace of its execution and Amateau's overriding concern with busy narrative mechanics. A successful directorial debut demands more than incidental charms and a string of formulary sight gags in a by now thoroughly overworked parodic style.