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The film film I can remember seeing is King Kong (1933). My mother was hosting an Avon party in the living room, and I — probably four years old — was banished to my parents’ bedroom to watch TV on the tiny, ancient B&W television there. I don’t know how, but Kong ended up on, but that giant ape scared the shit out of me, thrilled me, and probably can be wholly blamed for my lifelong love affair with cinema. Today, I find my feelings for it only deeper. It’s no longer just a fun experience for me, but also a masterpiece to study. I admire its imagination, its stop-motion innovation, its surprising emotional scope. Which brings me to this week’s question:
What is the first film you remember watching and how do you feel about it when you rewatch it today?
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It’s fuzzy back there in the mid-60s, but I think it might’ve been The Incredible Mr. Limpet. I know it made a huge impact on my conflicting wishes to be both an aquatic animal as well as a cat. Maybe if I just wanted it badly enough, it could happen…. Today, it is a very fond memory. My late father (who specialized in Dad jokes before they were called that), sitting in his recliner joyfully, and for my benefit, yelling in response to “was ist das?”, “das ist das Limpet”! Otherwise it was a Disney movie, maybe The Three Lives of Thomasina (I REALLY wanted to be a cat)!
Haha! It’s an incredibly silly movie, but I love it. Don Knotts (Mr Limpet) becomes a fish and wins WWII! It was an early movie to use both real life and animation.
Maybe a Disney film like Dumbo or Bambi? I can’t remember my first film but I do remember one of the first TV shows I watched and loved: Dr. Who with Tom Baker as the doctor. This show was on PBS and directly followed the children’s programming (Mr. Rogers, Sesame Street). I was fascinated by Dr. Who. I loved the opening theme song and the aliens / monsters he battled and his zany behavior. Years later I was surprised to discover that it was a British show. When you are very young you can’t decipher different accents well I think.
I have the worst ear. I can't sing and, because my mum was Aussie in the States and I had German family around when I was young, accents just blend in together for me now. I live in Australia and sometimes I find myself chatting with Americans and don't even notice it. You have to go into obscure pockets of Scotland for me to finally go, "Oh, you sound different."
Haha! I’m going to say there is little more British than Doctor Who. You’ve also reminded me of an earlyish TV memory of being terrified of a Sapphire and Steel episode where children from Victorian photos come to life.
Mary Poppins, in the mid-sixties. It was showing in one of Sydney's grand old cinemas, most of which are gone now. It must have been some sort of premiere, because there were people dressed up as characters from the film who walked the aisles. As a small person, I thought that was quite magical. I also expected the same thing to happen whenever I went to the movies, for the actors to materialise. (Very "The Purple Rose of Cairo"!)
The next film I saw was The Sound of Music, so when I saw nuns in the audience, I assumed they were part of the performance. I was deeply disappointed to learn that they were just... nuns.
I love these memories. I recently saw a flash mob. Nuns were present in the crowd. I kept waiting for them to jump in, as I was convinced they were plants. They were not. The flash mob never managed to recover in my estimation because of it.
Mrs Frisby and the Rats of Nimh - which was terrifying with its animated Gothicky talking mice, but also I think encouraged my love of legends and myths and sagas. The one I want to remember was The Care Bears movie, filling the world with love =)
I think it’s Watership Down. At the time (I was probably 5) I was completely traumatised and I don’t think I watched it again until my late teens/ early twenties at which point I fell in love with it. I think it’s fantastic and the end never fails to make me cry.
It's been so long since I saw it. I mean, I think I was ten. I have no idea why I've never returned to it. Do you think I should show it to my six (soon to be seven) and nine year olds?
I honestly think it depends on your children. Mine would definitely not have coped but if yours can cope with animal death and savagery and are perhaps primed to expect it, they might well be fine. I personally think it resonates more with me as an adult because the themes are so much clearer and the final scene is just so moving.
I showed my kid this when he was four. It took six years for him to agree to watch it again, he was that traumatized. Emotional terror is so much worse than blood and guts, I find - at least with kids. Though probably with adults, too.
For me, The Godfather. I was only 11 and sitting in the backseat of my dad’s car with my brothers in the drive-in theatre watching it on the screen for the first time. All the gun battles, the language and that love scene in Sicily — I don’t know what my parents were thinking! But hey, I think I turned out okay.
I’ve watched the movie and its sequel more times than I know. They never get old. They’re both masterpieces and I’m a huge fan of Coppola's — yes, even after The Godfather III and Megalopolis.
That seems to be the perfect way to watch The Godfather! My father took my younger sister to see Raging Bull when she was 9 years old. Things were different back then. She turned out okay as well. But Jaws, that really messed us all up!
Wait, you don't remember seeing a film before you were eleven? Genuinely curious, as some families are very anti-screen for religious and other reasons.
I did, definitely. Can’t remember if any of them were on the big screen though. I do remember seeing a lot of films on the small screen including a few I’ve seen many times before I was 11 like The Wizard of Oz (which scared the flying monkeys out of me), The Ten Commandments, It’s a Wonderful Life, A Christmas Carol (with the wonderful Alastair Sim as Scrooge) and others. Some love stories too including, well, Love Story (?) and I think Summer of 42 and The Graduate — what were my parents thinking!
‘One Of Our Dinosaurs is Missing’. I’d have like to have said something la de dah like ‘The Umbrellas of Cherbourg’ but I was nine years old and the Carlton cinema in Salford didn’t do art house. Ever.
Dick Tracy. I even had a Breathless Mahoney t-shirt. I haven’t rewatched it as an adult because I kind of like keeping it as a dream memory. I have a feeling if I rewatched it, it might lose a little of its magic.
It would. I have memories from my childhood, of films, that I've realized I can't mess with. I sometimes try anyway, maybe making the food I used to eat with my Nana who perhaps I used to watch the film in question with. It helps, making it a ceremony, but probably not enough.
This is going to sound very strange, but I remember going to the movie theatre and seeing The Gypsy Kings. A very young Eric Roberts. I ran right home and wrote down the entire film. I'm sure that's why I wanted to enter the film industry.
I remember going to see a Star Wars/ Empire Strikes Back double bill with my Dad and my brother when I was 5. I remember getting ice cream in the interval and walking home from the cinema afterwards but I’ve seen the films so many times now that I can’t honestly say I have any recollection of actually watching them at that specific time.
The problem with STAR WARS is that most of us have seen them so many times, the memories of them are much less distinct than other films. They're just there in our consciousness like clouds and chocolate and the Beatles at this point.
I know - what were my parents thinking?!!! This was at our local cinema too, so a real 'treat' movie. It's like Watership Down, only more horrific =? Thankfully my school made up for this by showing a healthy end of term diet of Star Wars movies and the animated Pied Piper of Hamlin on repeat!
One of my favorite remembered early movie going experienes was seeing Grease in 1978 at a drive-in with my family. I still feel nostalgic anytime I watch it. Not only for the film, but for drive-ins!
The first film i remember watching was at the Levenshulme Palace (Manchester) probably around 1967 ish (I would have been 7 or 8) and was Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. It would have been the 1937 version and I remember thinking how beautiful she was. I also remember having to hide outside the back door while my little brother was put to bed because he was too young to go (I am thinking the screening would have been about 6 pm). Thanks for the memory!
I love the detail that your family had to sneak you out of the house to watch a film behind your brother's back. My parents used to do things like that for me. Thanks for sharing!
Lot of SNOW WHITES in these responses. Interestingly, there are four films I can recall seeing by five and no others with any clarity: KING KONG, EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK...and SNOW WHITE.
The description of King Kong on a ‘tiny, ancient B&W television’ captures the magic of first film memories so well. Your ability to weave personal recollection with the film’s historical and technical significance makes this piece a joy to read. It’s a celebration of how cinema continues to evolve with us.
In 1954 when I was 10 years old Mother dropped me and my friend Susie off on the city square at the Glitz Theater to see the Long, Long Trailer with Lucile Ball and Desi Arnez. We laughed and agreed that it was a stupid movie.
I have since thought all good looking men are not smart and good looking women are air heads and that I always need to have enough money for popcorn and a soda.
Rebel Without a Cause. The daredevil drag race scene where the teenager got his shirt caught in the door preventing him from jumping out before the cliff dive was seared into my 4 year-old brain.
“ La Chien d’Andalou” and the eyeball scene and the ants crawling over someone’s hand - then I discovered it was a part of a triad/ Blood of the Poet- Beauty & the Beast and Orpheus
That I had CHILLS and couldn’t sit down to watch this - I was alone in a house with menfolk so Not a football moment - I was hooked !!! Then I discovered That Luis Bunuel on my freshmen year in College - they would endlessly play that in the cafe but at least different from high school where the White Album was blasted
IMHO, the 1933 version of King Kong still stands as tall as the Empire State Building. We had a tiny black & white TV as well--that's probably why I don't recall the first movie I saw on it. The first movie I remember seeing was Bambi in the theater with my father. I was probably 6 years old. I cried my eyes out when Bambi's mother died and when his father swooped in to save him from the nasty hunters.
I remember being in the back of the family station wagon with one or more of my siblings at the drive-in watching The Odd Couple. We had blankets back there so we could go to sleep when we got tired, leaving the adults free to watch the movie.
The first I remember is Star Wars. It has probably shaped my viewing of movies since. It is weird but a lot of what I think about movies is almost in opposition to it. not that I hate blockbusters or action films -- quite the opposite. But once stopped being a kid, it seemed that there was a lot of wasted opportunity in the characters he created. So, I tend to judge a movie on how well it blends what it wants to do with its characters, if that makes sense?
The very first full-length movie I remember seeing (in a theatre) is "Fantasia," my tippy-top, all-time fave for years. Was all of five y.o. Latched onto many movies from the 1930s & 1940s, mostly watched on the old TV, but fell in LOVE with "The Maltese Falcon" along the way. That one still fascinates me...!
We were usually too broke to go to movies, but my Dad had recently moved us to Houston so he could work for NASA. The weekend it opened, he took all (6) of us kids, right down to my little brother who was 8 years old. Blew my mind. Blew all our minds. One of the highlights of my life.
I love that you just throw this sentence out there like it's not a whole short story just by itself: "We were usually too broke to go to movies, but my Dad had recently moved us to Houston so he could work for NASA." Heh. Thanks for sharing!
Pretty sure the first one I remember seeing in the cinema is Bambi (1942 so interesting that it was showing in a cinema—must have been about 20 years later). I’ll always remember it because the death of Bambi’s mother upset me greatly. My Mum’s story was that I was in floods of tears.
It's my opinion that BAMBI respects children more than just about every other Disney film released in its first eighty years...and that's why it both traumatized so many of us *and* we also still loved.
I remember the classic Disney films were never on tv and weren’t available on video for a long time, presumably because they are timeless and could be regularly rereleased in the cinema for a new generation of children. I definitely saw 101 Dalmatians, Snow White and Lady and the Tramp in the cinema. I’ve still never seen The Aristocats - probably because it was never around when I was a child.
What an interesting question, I don’t think I have ever thought about the first movie I watched. The two movies I believe I have the earliest memories of would be Austin Powers and Titanic.
1961, the Peter Pan animated film by Disney. Captain Hook and the Alligator terrified me. I was 7. (Apparently the film was released in 1953 but I saw it in 1961.)
I think it must have been Bambi. My mom took my brother and me to the theater, so I guess Disney had re-released it (late ‘60s-early ‘70s). I don’t recall being traumatized by it the way some people seem to have been.
I'm working my way through these comments and it appears SNOW WHITE and BAMBI are the two most common first memories of a film. Very interesting. Thanks for sharing!
The earliest film that I recall seeing which had a powerful impact on me as a pre-teen, was 'The Miracle Worker' with Ann Bancroft and Patty Duke. That film, in which both women struggled heroically to communicate, show love and break through seemingly impossible barriers, was an inspiring drama that conveyed to me how women can and should be as assertive and persistent as possible to achieve their best. Of course, it's as relevant as ever now.
I'm not sure I should claim it if I didn't stay for the entire film because my principal memory is my father carrying me out of the theatre as I screamed and cried. Apparently my parents had decided to take me to the movies to see Fantasia (possibly in connection with my 5th birthday and what I gather was the film's rerelease?). It's a very entertaining film and the animation is beautiful, but during the Night on Bald Mountain sequence(?) the dinosaurs appeared including the best T-Rex to appear on screen before Jurassic Park - and I lost it! It didn't help that as my father carried me away I was still seeing the T-Rex over his shoulder.
Good question. I'll answer with the one that left an impact. Imitation of Life. The 1959 version. Even though All About Eve made me a lifelong fan of Bette Davis for it's brilliant dialogue. Both of those films showed me life and all it's messiness with rich characters with real motivations. They are my go to once a year films.
First, Juin, thank you for becoming a paid subscriber. I'll do my best to earn that support. As for your picks, I love ALL ABOUT EVE, but I am thrilled you brought up IMITATION OF LIFE. I'm a huge Douglas Sirk fan, even though we spend very little time talking about him today except when Todd Haynes comes up. ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS is my personal favorite. Thank you for sharing your thoughts/memories with us!
Wow! Not only is KING KONG also the first movie that I remember seeing, it is literally my first memory that I can recall. I watched it at my grandmother's house in Denmark surrounded by family, in the darkened living room on the TV. I asked how did they do this, and my uncles who were movie lovers told me they built a giant robot. Anyway, that wasn't true, but I was fascinated by film ever since. KK seems to be lots of filmmakers first film for some reason.
Part of that might be the fact that if you grew up in the early 80s, you - like me - were the last generation to watch B&W films on TV as much as colored ones. These films were played throughout the 60s, 70s, and 80s. So, you hit three generations with KONG. The other factor might be the fact that we all saw other films before it, but it was the first one that detonated our brains and all the other boring stuff we saw was forgotten. That's my guess. Thanks for sharing!
It’s fuzzy back there in the mid-60s, but I think it might’ve been The Incredible Mr. Limpet. I know it made a huge impact on my conflicting wishes to be both an aquatic animal as well as a cat. Maybe if I just wanted it badly enough, it could happen…. Today, it is a very fond memory. My late father (who specialized in Dad jokes before they were called that), sitting in his recliner joyfully, and for my benefit, yelling in response to “was ist das?”, “das ist das Limpet”! Otherwise it was a Disney movie, maybe The Three Lives of Thomasina (I REALLY wanted to be a cat)!
I love the specificity here, Sally. Thanks for letting me time travel a little with you!
This is such a cute answer! I don’t know either of these films but I’m intrigued to know the plot of a film about a limpet.
Haha! It’s an incredibly silly movie, but I love it. Don Knotts (Mr Limpet) becomes a fish and wins WWII! It was an early movie to use both real life and animation.
It was a popular film in my house when growing up.
Maybe a Disney film like Dumbo or Bambi? I can’t remember my first film but I do remember one of the first TV shows I watched and loved: Dr. Who with Tom Baker as the doctor. This show was on PBS and directly followed the children’s programming (Mr. Rogers, Sesame Street). I was fascinated by Dr. Who. I loved the opening theme song and the aliens / monsters he battled and his zany behavior. Years later I was surprised to discover that it was a British show. When you are very young you can’t decipher different accents well I think.
I have the worst ear. I can't sing and, because my mum was Aussie in the States and I had German family around when I was young, accents just blend in together for me now. I live in Australia and sometimes I find myself chatting with Americans and don't even notice it. You have to go into obscure pockets of Scotland for me to finally go, "Oh, you sound different."
Haha! I’m going to say there is little more British than Doctor Who. You’ve also reminded me of an earlyish TV memory of being terrified of a Sapphire and Steel episode where children from Victorian photos come to life.
Mary Poppins, in the mid-sixties. It was showing in one of Sydney's grand old cinemas, most of which are gone now. It must have been some sort of premiere, because there were people dressed up as characters from the film who walked the aisles. As a small person, I thought that was quite magical. I also expected the same thing to happen whenever I went to the movies, for the actors to materialise. (Very "The Purple Rose of Cairo"!)
The next film I saw was The Sound of Music, so when I saw nuns in the audience, I assumed they were part of the performance. I was deeply disappointed to learn that they were just... nuns.
I love these memories. I recently saw a flash mob. Nuns were present in the crowd. I kept waiting for them to jump in, as I was convinced they were plants. They were not. The flash mob never managed to recover in my estimation because of it.
Jungle Book. In my pyjamas at the cinema on the Fulham Road (London)
Not a bad way to start a relationship with cinema!
Mrs Frisby and the Rats of Nimh - which was terrifying with its animated Gothicky talking mice, but also I think encouraged my love of legends and myths and sagas. The one I want to remember was The Care Bears movie, filling the world with love =)
Good god, what a terrifying film to start with! I love it, don't get me wrong, but my eldest son can watch zombie films, but can't watch this picture.
I think it’s Watership Down. At the time (I was probably 5) I was completely traumatised and I don’t think I watched it again until my late teens/ early twenties at which point I fell in love with it. I think it’s fantastic and the end never fails to make me cry.
It's been so long since I saw it. I mean, I think I was ten. I have no idea why I've never returned to it. Do you think I should show it to my six (soon to be seven) and nine year olds?
I honestly think it depends on your children. Mine would definitely not have coped but if yours can cope with animal death and savagery and are perhaps primed to expect it, they might well be fine. I personally think it resonates more with me as an adult because the themes are so much clearer and the final scene is just so moving.
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (I was born in 1997)
I showed my kid this when he was four. It took six years for him to agree to watch it again, he was that traumatized. Emotional terror is so much worse than blood and guts, I find - at least with kids. Though probably with adults, too.
Very true! Although it had the opposite effect on me. I was in tears at the end because I didn't want the little guy to go home
For me, The Godfather. I was only 11 and sitting in the backseat of my dad’s car with my brothers in the drive-in theatre watching it on the screen for the first time. All the gun battles, the language and that love scene in Sicily — I don’t know what my parents were thinking! But hey, I think I turned out okay.
I’ve watched the movie and its sequel more times than I know. They never get old. They’re both masterpieces and I’m a huge fan of Coppola's — yes, even after The Godfather III and Megalopolis.
That seems to be the perfect way to watch The Godfather! My father took my younger sister to see Raging Bull when she was 9 years old. Things were different back then. She turned out okay as well. But Jaws, that really messed us all up!
Wait, you don't remember seeing a film before you were eleven? Genuinely curious, as some families are very anti-screen for religious and other reasons.
I did, definitely. Can’t remember if any of them were on the big screen though. I do remember seeing a lot of films on the small screen including a few I’ve seen many times before I was 11 like The Wizard of Oz (which scared the flying monkeys out of me), The Ten Commandments, It’s a Wonderful Life, A Christmas Carol (with the wonderful Alastair Sim as Scrooge) and others. Some love stories too including, well, Love Story (?) and I think Summer of 42 and The Graduate — what were my parents thinking!
‘One Of Our Dinosaurs is Missing’. I’d have like to have said something la de dah like ‘The Umbrellas of Cherbourg’ but I was nine years old and the Carlton cinema in Salford didn’t do art house. Ever.
I'd like to see a mash-up of ONE OF OUR DINOSAURS is missing and THE UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG. That sounds like a fun film.
Dick Tracy. I even had a Breathless Mahoney t-shirt. I haven’t rewatched it as an adult because I kind of like keeping it as a dream memory. I have a feeling if I rewatched it, it might lose a little of its magic.
It would. I have memories from my childhood, of films, that I've realized I can't mess with. I sometimes try anyway, maybe making the food I used to eat with my Nana who perhaps I used to watch the film in question with. It helps, making it a ceremony, but probably not enough.
This is going to sound very strange, but I remember going to the movie theatre and seeing The Gypsy Kings. A very young Eric Roberts. I ran right home and wrote down the entire film. I'm sure that's why I wanted to enter the film industry.
What a unique first film to remember watching!
Star Wars, buddy. I wasn’t even 2 years old, but I remember Star Wars in the theater
My other first memory of seeing a film is RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK. KING KONG and RAIDERS kind of explains so much about me.
The original Superman is also strong in my memory as a theater experience. That movie blew my mind. How could it not be real?
I didn't see SUPERMAN on the big screen until I was in my thirties. It was glorious.
I remember going to see a Star Wars/ Empire Strikes Back double bill with my Dad and my brother when I was 5. I remember getting ice cream in the interval and walking home from the cinema afterwards but I’ve seen the films so many times now that I can’t honestly say I have any recollection of actually watching them at that specific time.
The problem with STAR WARS is that most of us have seen them so many times, the memories of them are much less distinct than other films. They're just there in our consciousness like clouds and chocolate and the Beatles at this point.
I know - what were my parents thinking?!!! This was at our local cinema too, so a real 'treat' movie. It's like Watership Down, only more horrific =? Thankfully my school made up for this by showing a healthy end of term diet of Star Wars movies and the animated Pied Piper of Hamlin on repeat!
One of my favorite remembered early movie going experienes was seeing Grease in 1978 at a drive-in with my family. I still feel nostalgic anytime I watch it. Not only for the film, but for drive-ins!
God, GREASE at the drive-in sounds amazing!
Seriously. You could find a better venue!
The first film i remember watching was at the Levenshulme Palace (Manchester) probably around 1967 ish (I would have been 7 or 8) and was Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. It would have been the 1937 version and I remember thinking how beautiful she was. I also remember having to hide outside the back door while my little brother was put to bed because he was too young to go (I am thinking the screening would have been about 6 pm). Thanks for the memory!
I love the detail that your family had to sneak you out of the house to watch a film behind your brother's back. My parents used to do things like that for me. Thanks for sharing!
Snow White. Age 3 or 4. Downtown theater, both parents there. Entire audience dressed up.
Lot of SNOW WHITES in these responses. Interestingly, there are four films I can recall seeing by five and no others with any clarity: KING KONG, EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK...and SNOW WHITE.
The description of King Kong on a ‘tiny, ancient B&W television’ captures the magic of first film memories so well. Your ability to weave personal recollection with the film’s historical and technical significance makes this piece a joy to read. It’s a celebration of how cinema continues to evolve with us.
Thanks for reading, Jon.
In 1954 when I was 10 years old Mother dropped me and my friend Susie off on the city square at the Glitz Theater to see the Long, Long Trailer with Lucile Ball and Desi Arnez. We laughed and agreed that it was a stupid movie.
I have since thought all good looking men are not smart and good looking women are air heads and that I always need to have enough money for popcorn and a soda.
It feels like you took the right lessons from this film, Ruth!
Rebel Without a Cause. The daredevil drag race scene where the teenager got his shirt caught in the door preventing him from jumping out before the cliff dive was seared into my 4 year-old brain.
What a film to have imprinted on your memory at that age. Thanks for sharing!
“ La Chien d’Andalou” and the eyeball scene and the ants crawling over someone’s hand - then I discovered it was a part of a triad/ Blood of the Poet- Beauty & the Beast and Orpheus
That I had CHILLS and couldn’t sit down to watch this - I was alone in a house with menfolk so Not a football moment - I was hooked !!! Then I discovered That Luis Bunuel on my freshmen year in College - they would endlessly play that in the cafe but at least different from high school where the White Album was blasted
I recall a moment where I saw Jean Cocteau Beauty & the Beast on Public TV / WGBH channel 2 - and in all its black & white glory Ty
Thanks for sharing these memories, Kerry!
IMHO, the 1933 version of King Kong still stands as tall as the Empire State Building. We had a tiny black & white TV as well--that's probably why I don't recall the first movie I saw on it. The first movie I remember seeing was Bambi in the theater with my father. I was probably 6 years old. I cried my eyes out when Bambi's mother died and when his father swooped in to save him from the nasty hunters.
BAMBI is a traumatic, but also amazing way to discover cinema. It was the ET of its day.
I remember being in the back of the family station wagon with one or more of my siblings at the drive-in watching The Odd Couple. We had blankets back there so we could go to sleep when we got tired, leaving the adults free to watch the movie.
Thanks for sharing!
The first I remember is Star Wars. It has probably shaped my viewing of movies since. It is weird but a lot of what I think about movies is almost in opposition to it. not that I hate blockbusters or action films -- quite the opposite. But once stopped being a kid, it seemed that there was a lot of wasted opportunity in the characters he created. So, I tend to judge a movie on how well it blends what it wants to do with its characters, if that makes sense?
It does. Thanks for sharing, KC!
The very first full-length movie I remember seeing (in a theatre) is "Fantasia," my tippy-top, all-time fave for years. Was all of five y.o. Latched onto many movies from the 1930s & 1940s, mostly watched on the old TV, but fell in LOVE with "The Maltese Falcon" along the way. That one still fascinates me...!
FANTASIA is a trippy first cinematic memory. Thanks for sharing, Sharon!
2001: A Space Odyssey
We were usually too broke to go to movies, but my Dad had recently moved us to Houston so he could work for NASA. The weekend it opened, he took all (6) of us kids, right down to my little brother who was 8 years old. Blew my mind. Blew all our minds. One of the highlights of my life.
I love that you just throw this sentence out there like it's not a whole short story just by itself: "We were usually too broke to go to movies, but my Dad had recently moved us to Houston so he could work for NASA." Heh. Thanks for sharing!
Pretty sure the first one I remember seeing in the cinema is Bambi (1942 so interesting that it was showing in a cinema—must have been about 20 years later). I’ll always remember it because the death of Bambi’s mother upset me greatly. My Mum’s story was that I was in floods of tears.
It's my opinion that BAMBI respects children more than just about every other Disney film released in its first eighty years...and that's why it both traumatized so many of us *and* we also still loved.
I remember the classic Disney films were never on tv and weren’t available on video for a long time, presumably because they are timeless and could be regularly rereleased in the cinema for a new generation of children. I definitely saw 101 Dalmatians, Snow White and Lady and the Tramp in the cinema. I’ve still never seen The Aristocats - probably because it was never around when I was a child.
1950’s The Hunchback of Notre-Dame
Well, that's a fun one.
What an interesting question, I don’t think I have ever thought about the first movie I watched. The two movies I believe I have the earliest memories of would be Austin Powers and Titanic.
Thank you for making me feel old, Matthew. Heh. And for sharing the memory!
1961, the Peter Pan animated film by Disney. Captain Hook and the Alligator terrified me. I was 7. (Apparently the film was released in 1953 but I saw it in 1961.)
Great first film memory - thanks for sharing!
I think it must have been Bambi. My mom took my brother and me to the theater, so I guess Disney had re-released it (late ‘60s-early ‘70s). I don’t recall being traumatized by it the way some people seem to have been.
I'm working my way through these comments and it appears SNOW WHITE and BAMBI are the two most common first memories of a film. Very interesting. Thanks for sharing!
The earliest film that I recall seeing which had a powerful impact on me as a pre-teen, was 'The Miracle Worker' with Ann Bancroft and Patty Duke. That film, in which both women struggled heroically to communicate, show love and break through seemingly impossible barriers, was an inspiring drama that conveyed to me how women can and should be as assertive and persistent as possible to achieve their best. Of course, it's as relevant as ever now.
I watched it with my eldest son two years ago. Still holds up. Thanks for sharing the memory!
The Dark Crystal. I was 7 and my school had given out movie passes. I loved it though it gave me nightmares for awhile.
It gave ALL OF US nightmares.
I'm not sure I should claim it if I didn't stay for the entire film because my principal memory is my father carrying me out of the theatre as I screamed and cried. Apparently my parents had decided to take me to the movies to see Fantasia (possibly in connection with my 5th birthday and what I gather was the film's rerelease?). It's a very entertaining film and the animation is beautiful, but during the Night on Bald Mountain sequence(?) the dinosaurs appeared including the best T-Rex to appear on screen before Jurassic Park - and I lost it! It didn't help that as my father carried me away I was still seeing the T-Rex over his shoulder.
I genuinely love this memory, Robert. Thanks for sharing it with us!
Good question. I'll answer with the one that left an impact. Imitation of Life. The 1959 version. Even though All About Eve made me a lifelong fan of Bette Davis for it's brilliant dialogue. Both of those films showed me life and all it's messiness with rich characters with real motivations. They are my go to once a year films.
First, Juin, thank you for becoming a paid subscriber. I'll do my best to earn that support. As for your picks, I love ALL ABOUT EVE, but I am thrilled you brought up IMITATION OF LIFE. I'm a huge Douglas Sirk fan, even though we spend very little time talking about him today except when Todd Haynes comes up. ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS is my personal favorite. Thank you for sharing your thoughts/memories with us!
Wow! Not only is KING KONG also the first movie that I remember seeing, it is literally my first memory that I can recall. I watched it at my grandmother's house in Denmark surrounded by family, in the darkened living room on the TV. I asked how did they do this, and my uncles who were movie lovers told me they built a giant robot. Anyway, that wasn't true, but I was fascinated by film ever since. KK seems to be lots of filmmakers first film for some reason.
Part of that might be the fact that if you grew up in the early 80s, you - like me - were the last generation to watch B&W films on TV as much as colored ones. These films were played throughout the 60s, 70s, and 80s. So, you hit three generations with KONG. The other factor might be the fact that we all saw other films before it, but it was the first one that detonated our brains and all the other boring stuff we saw was forgotten. That's my guess. Thanks for sharing!
From memory…