During my other book club yesterday, we got to talking about movies = what we like, what we don’t like, the benefit of seeing things on the big screen, etc.
I was mentioning that I had really enjoyed seeing Conclave on the big screen (although to be fair, I have watched it a couple of times since it came to my tv). This led to the first movies we remember seeing “on the big screen”.
My family did drive-in movies when I was a kid; How the West Was Won may have been my first. I barely remember it. I clearly remember seeing Gone With the Wind when I was about 7. For some reason I have a very clear memory of the last scene from the swing set that was on the playground right below that huge screen.
The first couple of movies that I saw in a movie theatre were Disney. Bambi was traumatizing to me. Losing his mother in that fire left me bereft; I’ve never seen it since. The other was Fantasia. I adore Fantasia and have seen it many times. I love all the various bits, although the hippo ballerinas and the Arabian dance/fish from the Nutcracker rank right up there. And I am very fond of Night on Bald Mountain that blends right into Ave Maria. I have watched Fantasia 2000 a couple of times; Firebird is wonderful but I prefer the original Fantasia the best. Even on the small screen!
Do you remember the earliest movies you viewed?
Trail Baboon 
On my fifth birthday (my golden birthday), my grandfather took me out to dinner (or maybe lunch) and to see Around the World in Eighty Days at the Highland Theater in St. Paul. I must have known something about it beforehand, but I don’t know what or how I knew. I loved it. After the movie we went to Highland Drug soda counter, and had dessert; a chocolate sundae with chocolate ice cream for Grandpa Dana and probably peppermint bonbon for me. We discussed the movie and our favorite parts at length. It was a magical night ( or maybe afternoon) for me! I’m sure I had seen a movie or two before that, Wizard of Oz and Bambi come to mind, but my golden birthday remains vivid in my memory.
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Which Anonymous? If you’re new to the Trail, welcome. I loved the Highland area when we were still in the cities.
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Absolutely remember seeing Forbidden Planet at age 5. That Monster scene still frightens me.
I distinctly remember going back to the car and passing several stairways that led to basements. For a certainty, the Monster was down there ready to attack!
Like VS, I saw all the Disney films and am quite sure saw them at the Fargo Theater. There were a number of movie theaters in downtown Fargo/ Moorhead but the Fargo seemed to get the best shows.
Ben Hur and Sleeping Beauty were impressive.
I saw the Sound Of Music at the Moorhead Theater several times. It ran there for nearly a year and actually drew protests demanding something new.
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i saw sword in the stone st the gargo theater but that was not my 1st. sound of music fantasiahow the west was won bambi snow white jumboold yrller shane swiss family robinson haley mills movies pinnoccio cant remember what the order was but i loved them all. dad was tight but mom got us to the movies
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Wow, I don’t know! I imagine it might had been a Disney… I do remember staying with my grandparents when my sister was born – one day I got a bee sting, and they took me to see Snow White that night, perhaps to distract me from it? I was four, and I suppose that could have been my first.
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I think it was “Snow White” when I was maybe 4. I remember being a bit scared by the queen and the poison apple and Snow White apparently dying.
Chris in O-town
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It was the trees, grabbing it, her clothing as she ran through the forest that gave me the willies.
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Yes!
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I remember going to the drive-in. I remember the ugly gray speaker thing that was next to the car. Dad talked into it and it made him mad. That’s really what I remember about the drive-in. And mosquitoes. My parents really didn’t seem to enjoy it.
Since my parents really restricted what we watched, it must have been either The Sound of Music or Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. We didn’t go to theater or movies as a family.
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I must have been a toddler. Too young, certainly, to have any idea what a movie was. My parents took me to a drive-in so that they didn’t have to get a babysitter. Naturally I couldn’t tell you what movie they saw. All I remember from the back seat was some fire and some nightmarish turbulence.
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As with others, I’m sure it was a Disney something or other.
I do remember going with Mom and Dad to see ‘The Sting’ at the Time theater. That was my first PG movie. I was 9 or 10, and I don’t remember anything about it. And oddly enough, haven’t seen it again since. I really should do something about that.
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I remember seeing Not as a Stranger with my mother at age 8. My poor mother must have been desperate to get out of the house! I recall Robert Mitchum in it but did not remember that Frank Sinatra was too. Despite being young I don’t recall any bad or scary vibes. Likely good memories as the theater was in downtown Syracuse so afterwards we went to Edwards Dept store tearoom where my Aunt Grace worked as a waitress- she would bring me a tiny bottle of cream and a cookie whenever we came. My first kid film might have been Lady & the Tramp which I loved. Don’t recall when I saw Bambi or Fantasia.
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My dad took me to ThevSound Of Music in Sioux Falls. Luverne still has a very functional drive-in theatre.
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We lived on the Iron Range when I was little, at the end of a dirt road. The nearest movie theater was in Aurora. My first movie was either Lady and the Tramp or Bambi. Bambi really is a scary movie, between the mother’s death and the forest fire. Many years later, it was my kids being traumatized by Mufasa’s death in Lion King.
We used to visit my aunt and uncle in St. Paul during school vacations; they lived next door to a movie theater. It was called the Mound or Mounds Park–the building is still there but it’s not a movie theater. My cousin and I were allowed to go by ourselves to the Saturday matinee (usually something with Hayley Mills). We took our dolls and sat them in the seats next to us. If the movie was boring, we left and walked the few steps back to the house. Can’t imagine anyone letting their kids do that now.
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I was traumatized by Mufasa’s death as an adult! YA doesn’t understand why I don’t want to see the current Mufasa movie (it has hime and Scar as young lions). It’s kinda like Titanic – I know how it ends, I don’t need to see it. YA says but Mufasa doesn’t die in this new movie. I said it doesn’t matter because I know that eventually it goes really badly between Mufasa and Scar.
But I adored Hayley Mills as a kid. I’ve seen almost every movie she ever made.
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Better Late than Never, Baboons,
I have been taking Lou to appointments today, so I am late for the party.
The first movies I remember are Sound of Music and Mary Poppins. It was a big deal to go because we drove all the way to Sioux City for these pictures. Mary Poppins was entrancing to me. Somewhere during that time period I also saw 101 Dalmations with another family in the Sioux City theater. As a family we usually would go to the drive-in movie because you paid by the car which was cheaper. But then I did not pay much attention to the movie.
TV was actually a much more significant medium. Dad’s Aunt and Uncle had an early version of the TV. The entire family would gather on the weekends and watch together. I think Ed Sullivan was the big draw. I was very tiny so I barely remember anything except being asleep in Dad’s lap. At some point that TV broke. My Aunt and Uncle kept it in the living room as the star of the decor beside the newer working TV and next to The Bobbsey Twins books. It had a tiny picture tube and I found it fascinating.
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JacAnon
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I remember watching TV at the home of my family’s best friends (who happened to live just down the block) before we had a TV – we’d go over on Sunday nights and watch Hit Parade, fall asleep, and have to be carried home.
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I think the first movie I saw on the big screen was 101 Dalmatians. The visual style of the movie is firmly lodged in my memory, because we also had a Viewmaster with reels depicting scenes from the movie.
I also saw Mary Poppins as a pretty small kid. We had a soundtrack LP, so I remember the songs very well. I imagine my parents grew quite tired of hearing Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious over and over and over.
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Wow, I’d forgotten about Viewmaster – my best friend when I was 6 had one…
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The first movie where I actually remember the movie itself, as opposed to standing in line outside the theater to get in, was Pinocchio. I’m guessing I was five and my sister three years old at the time.
My sister and I were sitting together in the very front of the theater, where the first three rows were church-like wooden pews that were reserved for kids. Mom was sitting the back in the numbered seats that could be purchased at a higher price (and where they could smoke).
As is true with a lot of Disney films, there were a fair amount of scenes that were scary. I recall my sister being so scared by the whale that she ran screaming from her seat to find mom in the back:
Somehow, I was more traumatized by the fox who was leading Pinocchio astray, and I and a bunch of other kids were shouting warnings to Pinocchio to resist temptation; alas, to no avail. He was a bad boy and got in more and more trouble.
I recall so many of the details of that movie. I especially loved Geppetto, Pinocchio’s dad. Jimini Cricket was another memorable character. Pinocchio was made in 1940, so it was eight years old when I saw it. The memories of that film have remained remarkably clear for both my sister and I, though it was the one and only time we saw. it The one detail that I didn’t recall is that Geppetto speaks English with an Italian accent, and that makes perfect sense since I was hearing the dialog in Danish.
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I remember that one too, early on.
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With so many Disney movies in the Baboon memory bank, I believe they can all be summarized by the delightful movie, Enchanted, starring Amy Adams.
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