Going to the Movies

I’ve mentioned it before but when I was a kid we saw lots of movies, mostly at the drive-in. For a buck both of my parents and a carload of kids could all go to the movies and we would go just about once a week. It’s not that we were fantastically well-off at the time. We lived in an extremely modest home in a working-class neighborhood and my dad was working two jobs (associate at a law firm and teaching law at St. Louis University). It was more a question of priorities and one of the priorities was getting out of the house.

My parents had, well, peculiar ideas of what constituted family-friendly viewing. I don’t think my dad much cared for genre pictures so nearly all of the movies we saw were dramas, comedies, or musicals and I wouldn’t be surprised if I’ve seen just about every drama, comedy, or musical made between about 1950 and 1960, nearly all of them at the drive-in.

Here are some of the movies that I definitely remember seeing:

The Robe (1953)
The Rose Tattoo (1955)
Lili (1953)
Wild Is the Wind (1957)
Trapeze (1956)
East of Eden (1955)
Rebel Without a Cause (1955)
Giant (1956)
Elephant Walk (1954)
Executive Suite (1954)
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958)
The Hustler (1961)
Wind Across the Everglades (1958)
Baby Doll (1956)
Anatomy of a Murder (1959)
Singin’ in the Rain (1952)
7 Brides for 7 Brothers (1954)
Jupiter’s Darling (1955)
The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
Written on the Wind (1956)
The Long Hot Summer (1958)
Ben Hur (1959)
The Ten Commandments (1956)
The Conqueror (1956)
Around the World in 80 Days (1956)
All That Heaven Allows (1955)
Magnificent Obsession (1954)
Marty (1955)
Athena (1954)
The Rains of Ranchipur (1955)
The Night of the Hunter (1955)
The Tender Trap (1955)
The Catered Affair (1956)
Tammy and the Bachelor (1957)
The Mating Game (1959)

and that’s just off the top of my head in no particular order. I’m sure if I thought about it for a while I would remember more. A lot of those I haven’t seen since seeing them at the drive-in but if I start watching them I’ll remember them immediately.

Kiddie pictures we saw in the theater, probably at a Saturday matinee although my memory is a little fuzzy about that. I know we saw all of the Disney full length animated cartoons, nature pictures, and live action pictures of the period in the theater. I remember seeing Hondo (1953) in the theater (it was in 3D and we wore glasses). And I think I’ve told you the story of going with my mom to see Forbidden Planet (1956). Those are the only western and science fiction movies, respectively, I can remember seeing when I was a kid although there must have been more westerns. The only Hitchcock picture I remember seeing as a kid was Dial M for Murder, in the theater in 3D.

People just don’t go to the movies like that any more. It’s too expensive. They watch TV or DVDs or streaming but that’s a very different experience.

4 comments… add one
  • … Link

    LULZ, the barn raising scene in 7 Brides for 7 Brothers must have been terrifying on a drive-in screen! “Aaaaaaah, giants have come to smash us!”

  • Janis Gore Link

    I went to drive-ins sometimes with my brothers and sisters. My brothers would take me with them on dates, when they were serious about a girlfriend.

    I saw “Cincinnati Kid” and “Play It As It Lays” with brother Ron and my sister-in-law to be.

  • Ben Wolf Link

    There’s nothing like Forbidden Planet to see in a theater any more, or Bridge on the River Kwai. Even the few movies with such pretentions are so uninspired (one friend said today’s actors and directors seem bored with their jobs) as to be worse than the meaningless fluff spewed out to meet Hollywood’s quarterly projections.

  • Forbidden Planet, of course, is The Tempest, transferred to outer space. The Bridge on the River Kwai is Greek tragedy. You can’t go wrong with the classics.

    Today’s problem is that you can’t make the same mindless story of car wrecks, explosions, and casual sex over and over again and expect faithful audiences.

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