A kiddie matinee of Samson and Delilah with Victor Mature and Hedy Lamarr. Samson knocks over the temple and a BF rock lands on a guy’s chest and blood gushes from his mouth. In Lurid Technicolor.
They had a different idea of what constituted kiddie fare in those days and it warped my taste in movies forever.
My mother bought the soundtrack on 33 1/3 RPM before we even had a player that worked at that speed. I still have the record. It’s a 10" with a picture of Vic and Hedy on the front. Every now and then some jazz group will do a version of Delilah that brings back memories of that flic. I thought Samson was way cooler than Jesus, and that Hedy Lamarr was the sexiest woman alive. Hefty thoughts for a 9-year-old.
Blazing Saddles sorta took the edge off that, though…
Gus at the drive in. I was 5. What I remember the most is kicking the football like Gus the next day, and being mad that it didn’t go nearly as far.
I was ready to post that my grandparents took me to see the Disney movie **Candleshoe ** in the summer of 1975, when I was 7 going on 8.
But a quick check on IMDB reveals that **Candleshoe ** didn’t come out until 1977! Now I can’t trust my memory. Surely I went to a movie theater earlier than that. But I can’t think what I’d have seen. Something Herbie-related, perhaps.
ET, for my fourth birthday (March of 1983). I know it came out in '82, but it was still in the theater in '83. Also seen in that year: Return of the Jedi.
I know I saw a theater release of Bambi sometime when I was really young, but I don’t remember if it was before or after ET.
bows Honored to share one of my most ‘magical’ memories. Glad it resounded with you. 
You were THREE when The Little Mermaid came out???
I feel so old.
Anyhow, my earliest movie memory is a very very vague memory of seeing some movie involving Raggedy Ann. Which, searching the IMDB, must be this, assuming I didn’t make that memroy up entirely. But that’s the right time frame.
I also saw Star Wars at a very young age, but the first time I saw it, there was a power failure right before the attack on the Death Star.
Probably 1982 – it was re-released theatrically that summer. I know, because it’s the first time I actually saw the movie (although I grew up on the record and storybooks. In the pre-videotape era you often had to wait long times to see re-releases. I didn’t get to see Peter Pan and Fantasia until I was in college.)
I remember that, for some reason, the local bank ( 
) was screening three old classics on three successive nights. My parents chose to take me the night they were playing Frank Capra’s Lost Horizon with Ronald Colman, Sam Jaffe, Jane Wyatt, Edward Everett Horton, Thomas Mitchell, and H.B. Warner. I must have been 5 or something–really young, but it made a definite impression on me, and I’ve loved old movies ever since.
I know that my parents took the family (parents and 4 boys) to the drive-in, but I have no recollection of what we saw. Given that we (the boys) probably beat the living crap out of each other, dumped popcorn all over the place, and in general made life a living hell for my parents within the confines of the car, I doubt that we stayed through the whole thing.
The first movie I have a distinct recollection of seeing at the theater is the original release of Planet of the Apes. I have a very vivid memory of being scared, scared, scared when the shot of the first gorilla on horseback comes on the screen (in the cornfield when all the humans are first captured).
I remember seeing The Shaggy Dog. We had to wait outside in the cold freezing rain. I had a Little Golden Book with a photo of the dog on a turquoise background on the cover. I remember rain getting in my eyes and making the dog on the cover “vibrate.”
Later, I remember Fred McMurray turning in the shaggy dog.
My first memory is seeing The Sound of Music. We were in some fancy theater with ornate moldings - it was all white with deep red curtains.
But that can’t have been my first movie! I turned 9 in 1967. I saw Bambi, and Swiss Family Robinson, and Sleeping Beauty, all those classics.
Back in the day, our parents would drop us off at the theater. Willie Wonka ruled!
A double feature of Old Yeller and Savage Sam. The only thing I remember is the corn crib scene, although my dad remembers me talking incessantly throughout both features as if we were still in front of our black & white.
Valdosta GA, circa 1966, a drive-in called the Sky Way or Sky-something at any rate. Heavy metal thingamabobbles you hooked to the window-glass after rolling it partway down, that the sound came in on. Mary Poppins.
I remembering finding it fantastic and full of activity and song and color, but hard to follow, hard to think back on and recall the sequence of events. I had a hard time staying awake for the whole thing.
Didn’t see it again for decades. Finally at some point in my 30s I rented it and found it less fantastic than I’d recalled it but still hard to follow. Damn, this thing barely has a plot at all, it’s just an excuse to string a sequence of production numbers together!
Ummm, yeah, musical! :smack:
Isn’t it odd how early impressions often don’t get updated to incorporate later information? I did not have an impression of “musicals” when I was 7 so for the rest of my life I remembered Mary Poppins not as a musical but as a fantasmagorical whirlwind of a movie that was hard to follow.
And again I found it hard to stay awake for the whole thing.
It was the summer of 1976. The family car was packed with PJs pillows and blankets. In those days two you ng boys could sleep easily in teh back one across the back seat the other below behind teh front seats on the floor. As a Kid I din’t seem to mind the little hump that seperated the left and right front seats.
We played infront of the gigantic screen as the fading daylight turned into darkness. I rememeber the playground just emptying as the first image hit that towering screen. My Brother and I crawled into the back to find stale popcorn and rubbery hot dogs waiting for us. It was a banquet.
My dad had two speakers hooked to the windows (I was sure he was only supposed to have one) and the volume was turned low. I don’t rememebr the first feature except it had something to do with a windmill and a kidnapping.
We tried to stay up as late as we could. The house rules didn’t apply in that giant parking lot. When the movie was half over we all treked to the washroom.
The cold night air and the brightness of the bathroom are still vivid to me. It was unreal. That burning of the eyes from fatigue and the giddiness that comes from doing something new and exciting made for an odd mixture that left butterflies in my stomach. And as much as my body tried to beat me I fought off sleep.
We were supposed to have fallen asleep for the second feature. I pretended to be asleep to the strains of “let’s all go to the lobby” and almost succumbed.
Then teh second feature came on. Jaws. I sat there wrapped in blankets just staring at the screen beyond the smudged windshield. At least until the little boy on the raft was eaten. At that point I buried my head in the back covered my ears with my pillow and somehow, despite the fear, fell asleep.
I still love that movie… it always reminds me of that night.
It was the summer of '63 , and I was 3 years old . We were going to the drive in to see one of the Godzilla movies , I couldn’t begin to tell you which one . I remember being SO excited about going , my parents had a cooler sitting by the door , and I was sitting on top of it with my Beanie doll (Anyone else remember Beanie & Cecil ?) . I don’t remember much about the movie , I probably fell asleep in the middle of it , but I can still remember that shivery feeling of anticipation , sitting on that cooler .
Damn , I miss drive ins ! They were SO much fun .
A departed friend of mine introduced me to drive-ins about 5 years ago. He had a young son (age 2-3ish at the time) and wanted to go see movies with his boy and his wife, but knew the boy would need attention, changing, and the incesant noisiness that can ruin a movie for other folks, so he insisted we find a drive in. The one we found was a long, long way away from his place, and about half a mile from where I lived. It was another great experience. I can’t really justify doing it now (especially as the days of hanging with said friend are gone), but it was such a -different- experience, and as movies were already something very special to me, it’s one I’ll treasure.
I remember my Mom took me to see Jaws in the theater when I was seven (what was she thinking?) We had got the big multi-pack of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and had them all laid out on the arm of the seat between us for easy munching access (for after the popcorn was all gone of course.) It was the scene where that “dun-DUN-dun-DUN-dun-DUN” music first came on and I was terrified and bunched up in the back of my seat. The music crescendoed, the chick got eaten, my arms and legs shot out in fear, and my Peanut Butter Cups were launched across the theater in the process.
Needless to say we didn’t make it to the beach that summer.
Oooh! Oooh! Me, too. Specifically where:
[ul]
[li]She kicks the just-out-of-reach water jug into the skeleton reaching for it.[/li][li]She’s finished the poisoned apple and the death’s head appears, then fades to a lucious red.[/li][li]Finally (and indirectly) when she’s taken the big plunge. The two vultures nod at each other, launch off their branch, and slowly circle down into the abyss.[/li][/ul]
Am I weird or what?
DD
My earliest movie memory? Star Destroyer. I was two. Warped me for life.