# Describe your first movie memory **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 30, 2005, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-your-first-movie-memory/310522 "2005-06-30T15:06:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2005, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-your-first-movie-memory/310522/1 "2005-06-30T15:06:48Z")
People near my age (and older) may have an easier time of this since there won’t be a conflict with TV movies (movies first seen on TV). But what is your first memory from a movie you saw at a theater? In my own case, I can’t be 100% sure, since I don’t remember seeing a complete feature until well after the snippets I got from being in the theater with my mother or an aunt or somebody. In any case, I would have been 4 or 5 or so. I remember sequences from **Red River** with John Wayne, Montgomery Clift, John Ireland, etc. There was some Red Skelton comedy involving beds being shifted from room to room in a hospital. I had nightmares over this one! The Claudette Colbert and Clark Gable **It Happened One Night** but only the scene where she hikes her skirt up to hitch a ride. There are also some scenes from some WWII movie that I saw from across the street. The stupid theater had the screen so you could see it from outside if the main doors (lobby and screening room) were open. It could have been anything from the mid-40’s with a bunch of guys running around getting shot at. I have checked IMDB for dates to try to square my age at the time and the release date of the movie, but all I can rely on are some fragmentary memories that are a big jumble. I can’t even remember what that first full length feature would have been. Most likely a western or a film noir, and most likely something before 1948. ---
**Author:** ![TwoTrouts](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a9adbd/32.png) [@TwoTrouts](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TwoTrouts)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2005, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-your-first-movie-memory/310522/2 "2005-06-30T15:16:10Z")
I remember the joy I felt at looking at all the puppies in “101 Dalmations”. I wlaked out of that movie one happy little kid! ---
**Author:** ![ArrMatey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/arrmatey/32/3522_2.png) [@ArrMatey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ArrMatey)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2005, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-your-first-movie-memory/310522/3 "2005-06-30T15:26:28Z")
I remember it as if it were yesterday. A local theater (which still stands, but has gone multi-screen corporate, sadly). A warm friday afternoon. My mother wanted to take me and my friends to see a movie for my birthday. ‘The Jungle Book’ was in theaters, but she wasn’t sure if it was suitable for children our age, so she took me the day before to see my reactions. It opened with a black and white Zorro short, which began my life-long infatuation with said character. The Lone Ranger with a sword! How could I dislike that?! Then The Jungle Book. I remember being in awe of the movie, and singing a lot of the songs from it all the way home (okay, so it was only two miles. It’s not like I was trying out for the Mormon Tabernackle Choir or anything). One thing I brought out of it (and seeing both movies again the next day with my friends) was a certain… Sacredness… Of the theater. My mom and I were pretty much the only ones at the Friday afternoon matinee, and it felt like this entire mystical, darkened space was just -for me-. I still go to movies in the theater looking for that feeling. Sometimes I find it, sometimes I don’t. _sigh_ good memories. ---
**Author:** ![An\_Arky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/87869e/32.png) [@An\_Arky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Arky)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2005, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-your-first-movie-memory/310522/4 "2005-06-30T15:26:40Z")
I went to see [The Green Slime](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064393/) at the Joy Theater in Dardanelle, AR when I was 5 in 1968/early69. It cost 45 cents to get in, and you could get a big pickle for a dime. ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2005, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-your-first-movie-memory/310522/5 "2005-06-30T15:28:52Z")
I’m pretty sure the first movie I was was **Ben-Hur** , when I was about four. We went for my brother’s birthday (he’s five years older). I remember the lepers and the chariot race, but nothing else. The first one I remember with any clarity is also **101 Dalmatians** (hey **TwoTrouts** – long time no see!). I also remember that because I also got the board game for that and there was some weird sort of card that they forgot to explain the purpose of, like a no-bark zone or something. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2005, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-your-first-movie-memory/310522/6 "2005-06-30T15:32:01Z")
Disney’s _The Jungle Book_ at a drive-in. I thought the jungle caught fire but it was just the film melting. ---
**Author:** ![delphica](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e9a140/32.png) [@delphica](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/delphica)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2005, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-your-first-movie-memory/310522/7 "2005-06-30T15:36:11Z")
Mary Poppins – we’re talking about 1974, when I was 5 years old. I was very excited, I remember dressing up in nice clothes. I did research before the movie, by reading my Mary Poppins picture book (the Disney tie-in). The feeding the birds scene put me over the edge, my mother had to remove me from the theater until I calmed down. It was just so _sad_, the birds were hungry, the old lady was homeless … other than that, I enjoyed it very much. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2005, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-your-first-movie-memory/310522/8 "2005-06-30T15:38:52Z")
The merchants in the nearby “big town” had a free old movies for kids on the Friday after Thanksgiving to draw in shoppers. With 6 kids in the family and not terribly well off, those were the only movies I saw at first. I remember one of them was one of the “Boys Town” movies with Spencer Tracy and Mickey Rooney. (Odd mind-blurt: I just remembered that one of Mickey’s exes lives in the region.) ---
**Author:** ![Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e47c2d/32.png) [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2005, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-your-first-movie-memory/310522/9 "2005-06-30T15:41:45Z")
The wicked queen in **Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs**. _Yow!_ ---
**Author:** ![NoCoolUserName](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/5fc32e/32.png) [@NoCoolUserName](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NoCoolUserName)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2005, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-your-first-movie-memory/310522/10 "2005-06-30T15:54:34Z")
The Blob, with Steve McQueen. I had nightmares for weeks, maybe months. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2005, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-your-first-movie-memory/310522/11 "2005-06-30T15:56:17Z")
Bits of **Sleeping Beauty**. And though I never actually saw it at the time, I do remember the ads for **Plan 9 From Outer Space** ---
**Author:** ![Trunk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/87869e/32.png) [@Trunk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trunk)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2005, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-your-first-movie-memory/310522/12 "2005-06-30T16:00:11Z")
My earliest memories are a vague recollection of the theater and seeing “Return from Witch Mountain”, some Jesus movie, and “The Bermuda Triangle”. Around the same time, at a drive-in, I remember seeing “Star Wars” and “The Apple Dumpling Gang” (might have been ADG Rides Again). I could use IMDB to figure out which one I actually saw first. I probably caught the re-release of Star Wars in '78, was it? ---
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2005, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-your-first-movie-memory/310522/13 "2005-06-30T16:02:23Z")
I’m not quite sure, as per release dates, but the odds are strong it was either Bambi or Pinnochio. I have vauge memories of seeing both… but I can’t tell you which was first. The odds are strong, though, that my first memory of a movie was Star Wars, on the first release, at the age of something around three. I wasn’t sure about that till last month, truthfully, and I bothered to ask my mother. It seems I was equally interested in the ships on the screen… and trying to figure out how the projectors changed back and forth. That, I do remember intensely. ---
**Author:** ![Jayn\_Newell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Jayn\_Newell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jayn_Newell)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2005, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-your-first-movie-memory/310522/14 "2005-06-30T16:04:18Z")
I remember going to see The Jetsons movie with my aunts and (I think) grandmother. I would’ve been 5 at the time. ---
**Author:** ![LittleSable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d6d6ee/32.png) [@LittleSable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LittleSable)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2005, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-your-first-movie-memory/310522/15 "2005-06-30T16:07:48Z")
The earliest movie memory I have is burying my face in my dad’s chest whenever Ursula was on screen during “The Little Mermaid.” Since that came out in 1989, I would have been three. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2005, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-your-first-movie-memory/310522/16 "2005-06-30T16:12:57Z")
My first movie memory was from TV, not the theater. It was a broadcast of **Son of Kong** , right about the part they first land on the island. I thought the movie was going to be dull (even with a giant ape) until I saw that they had _dinosaurs_! Then I was hooked. One of my first theatrical movie memories was Disney’s **Sleeping Beauty** on its initial 1959 release. ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2005, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-your-first-movie-memory/310522/17 "2005-06-30T16:15:50Z")
> [@ArrMatey!](#): > > I remember it as if it were yesterday. A local theater (which still stands, but has gone multi-screen corporate, sadly). A warm friday afternoon. My mother wanted to take me and my friends to see a movie for my birthday. ‘The Jungle Book’ was in theaters, but she wasn’t sure if it was suitable for children our age, so she took me the day before to see my reactions. > It opened with a black and white Zorro short, which began my life-long infatuation with said character. The Lone Ranger with a sword! How could I dislike that?! > Then The Jungle Book. I remember being in awe of the movie, and singing a lot of the songs from it all the way home (okay, so it was only two miles. It’s not like I was trying out for the Mormon Tabernackle Choir or anything). > One thing I brought out of it (and seeing both movies again the next day with my friends) was a certain… Sacredness… Of the theater. My mom and I were pretty much the only ones at the Friday afternoon matinee, and it felt like this entire mystical, darkened space was just -for me-. I still go to movies in the theater looking for that feeling. Sometimes I find it, sometimes I don’t. > _sigh_ > good memories. Beautiful post, **ArrMatey!** , and an echo of a sentiment I have maintained for a long time. In my own life I have had at least as much reverence for the power of movies (good movies anyway) to mold perceptions and even beliefs, as for anything learned in church. In fact, I always wondered why church had to be so dull. The amazing thing to me is how the movie moguls and script writers all seemed to be presenting the same basic ethos. Not meant as a hijack to my own thread, but I just had to respond to this amazing post! ---
**Author:** ![fishbicycle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aeb1de/32.png) [@fishbicycle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fishbicycle)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2005, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-your-first-movie-memory/310522/18 "2005-06-30T16:21:28Z")
I remember my grandmother taking me to see _Bedknobs And Broomsticks_ when it was first-run. I have more mental images of the theatre than the movie - The Delta in Hamilton, Ontario. It was straight out of the 1940s, with a cubicle in the lobby for the ticket seller, and lots of wrought-iron grating and railings, rich red draperies witih gold tassels, big, plush seats. The place was like that up until the late 1970s, when it fell into disrepair and ended up as a repertory theatre where heads would go to watch “Let It Be” and “The Wall” and “The Song Remains The Same” while passing around joints. I don’t know if it’s still there or not. ---
**Author:** ![norinew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/eb9ed0/32.png) [@norinew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/norinew)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2005, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-your-first-movie-memory/310522/19 "2005-06-30T16:28:06Z")
When I was five, my aunt asked my four sisters and I whether we wanted to go get new shoes for school or go to the movies. Naturally, we all wanted to go to the movies! So she took us to see The Sound of Music. Then she took us to get new shoes for school. ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2005, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-your-first-movie-memory/310522/20 "2005-06-30T16:36:19Z")
I hated Don Knotts turning into a fish in _The Incredible Mr. Limpet_ then, and I hate it now. It still ranks as the most hated movie I’ve ever seen. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-your-first-movie-memory/310522.md?page=2)