I recently had a speech class and gave impromptu speech topics. One of the topics was “Movies” and a student said, “I love movies. I can remember the first one I ever saw. It was awesome. It was The Lion King.”
I felt like I was 130 years old.
Got me to thinking about my first film.
Oddly enough, I can remember going with my parents to a neighbor’s house late one night (the parents were playing cards in the kitchen) and their daughter and I got to stay up late and we watched Casablanca on their television. We were about six years old at the time. I am sure I had seen other movies before that, but strangely, seeing that film for the first time seems to be frozen in time for me, and it is still my favorite film.
Of course, I also remember watching Wizard Of Oz every Thanksgiving back in the days it was only broadcast once a year about that time.
So what was the first film you remember seeing as a kid?
The first time I remember going to the movies specifically so I could see something was The Land Before Time, in 1988. I was in second grade. The first movie I ever saw period was probably The World According to Garp, on a videotape my mother let me borrow.
The first film I remember seeing was in the theater, in the ancient days before videos. It was a Disney live action film called Toby Tyler, about a boy who ran away to join the circus.
I think I remember either Star Trek The Motion Picture or Wrath of Khan first. TWOK from a caravan bunk, my parents considering me to be too young to be exposed to ceti eels :eek:
I think it might have been Buster Keaton’s The General - or possibly Chaplin’s The Great Gold Rush. The first that caught my attention, anyway. And no, I’m not that old; in the early 80s Danish television (1 channel(!)) often showed this kind of old-timer movies on Sunday afternoons.
Therfore, my first movie would be Munster Go Home. I was 4yo and saw it at the Showboat Theater in Freeport, Texas.
The first movie on television I saw was around the same time. My father was excited that a UHF station in our area of reception was showing the classic horror films he remembered from his childhood; as a result some of the earliest memories I have are of THE MUMMY, FRANKENSTEIN, & DRACULA broadcast on bad UHF stations and with my 5-6yo butt hiding behind the biggest chair availiable. I loved it all and had nightmares for weeks. I wish this level of scare still got the kids attention today.
My Mum took me to see King Kong (with Faye Dunaway). It was awesome. Mum cried and then I was crying because she was crying. One of my favourite memories of my Mum - I was 7.
Weirdly, I’ve been told that I was taken to ‘see’ **Star Wars ** at the cinema when it came out. But as I would barely have been one year old, I’m not sure whether I believe it…
Born Free, 1966 in a cinema on (I think) Wisconsin Avenue in Washington, DC. From time to time I drive by the building and remember the facade. On the other hand I could never find it on purpose in a million years.
The first films I recall seeing on TV were King Kong and Son of Kong. Probably warped me permanently.
In the theater, I couldn’t tell you which was first, but the first films I can recall seeing were from 1959 –
Sleeping Beauty
Operation Petticoat
The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad
The Shaggy Dog
A Journey to the Center of the Earth
Definitely Mary Poppins at the 7-Hi drive-in theater back in the 60s. Thus began my continuing adoration of Dick Van Dyke.
First movie I saw on television was The Wizard of Oz, which scared the crap out of me once a year as DMark mentions. Flying monkeys are just as scary in black and white.
The first one I saw in a movie theater was a double feature: Dumbo and a live-action movie (nature documentary?) about a cougar. I don’t know if that was the spring 1972 re-release of Dumbo (when I was 3) or the autumn 1976 one (when I was 6).
Who Framed Roger Rabbit? was the first movie that I ever saw in the theater. Before that, I’d seen some Disney movies on VHS (Cinderella and Lady and the Tramp, I think), but that was the first one I ever saw in the theater. My dad took me.
My parents took me to see “The Empire Strikes Back” in the theater when I was three years old. I am told that they were afraid I’d get bored and restless but that once the opening credits started (I still remember my dad reading the screen scroll at the beginning to me), I sat on the edge of my seat riveted until the very end.