# Earliest film-going experience you can remember? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 27, 2012, 7:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earliest-film-going-experience-you-can-remember/614132 "2012-02-27T07:57:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![NDP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ndp/32/55_2.png) [@NDP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NDP)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2012, 7:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earliest-film-going-experience-you-can-remember/614132/1 "2012-02-27T07:57:01Z")
I know we’ve had this thread before but there was a taped segment about this topic on this year’s Oscars and made me curious again. So fellow Dopers tell about it. What year was it, how old were you, and what movie did you see? First experiences are preferably limited to those had in actual theaters but if you if you saw your first movie at a drive-in and the story’s interesting, go ahead and tell it. ---
**Author:** ![Saltire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saltire/32/553_2.png) [@Saltire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saltire)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2012, 8:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earliest-film-going-experience-you-can-remember/614132/2 "2012-02-27T08:07:35Z")
It must have been 1968, I was about 3.5 years old, and it was the Rex Harrison _ **Doctor Dolittle** _. I’m afraid I don’t remember much about the circumstances, but I do remember the movie. A better story attaches to a later experience. I was probably 6, and the whole extended family took two cars to the drive-in and saw a double feature of _ **Support Your Local Sheriff** _ and _ **The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming!** _. The movies are really funny, but all us kids got the most enjoyment out of watching my Aunt Pat laugh herself silly. She always makes funny things funnier by her reactions. ---
**Author:** ![Teufelblitz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c89c15/32.png) [@Teufelblitz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Teufelblitz)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2012, 8:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earliest-film-going-experience-you-can-remember/614132/3 "2012-02-27T08:17:19Z")
> [@Saltire](#): > > It must have been 1968, I was about 3.5 years old, and it was the Rex Harrison _ **Doctor Dolittle** _. I’m afraid I don’t remember much about the circumstances, but I do remember the movie. > > A better story attaches to a later experience. I was probably 6, and the whole extended family took two cars to the drive-in and saw a double feature of _ **Support Your Local Sheriff** _ and _ **The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming!** _. The movies are really funny, but all us kids got the most enjoyment out of watching my Aunt Pat laugh herself silly. She always makes funny things funnier by her reactions. Ten years later, I would see Superman as my first movie ever viewed in a theater. I was four. Mother developed a fear of towels and theme songs soon after. ---
**Author:** ![Batsinma\_Belfry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ea5d25/32.png) [@Batsinma\_Belfry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Batsinma_Belfry)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2012, 8:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earliest-film-going-experience-you-can-remember/614132/4 "2012-02-27T08:34:31Z")
1967 -\*\* Bonnie and Clyde\*\*. My family saw it at the drive-in when I was 4. I had nightmares for weeks. Until then, the most violent thing I had seen was\*\* Gunsmoke\*\*. ---
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2012, 9:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earliest-film-going-experience-you-can-remember/614132/5 "2012-02-27T09:18:08Z")
Star Wars, 1977. Probably one or two drive in movies before that, but I don’t remember what they might have been. ---
**Author:** ![Bill\_Door](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@Bill\_Door](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bill_Door)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2012, 10:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earliest-film-going-experience-you-can-remember/614132/6 "2012-02-27T10:45:19Z")
1958 and _The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad_. Great movie. ---
**Author:** ![garygnu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/garygnu/32/2924_2.png) [@garygnu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garygnu)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2012, 10:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earliest-film-going-experience-you-can-remember/614132/7 "2012-02-27T10:53:35Z")
The earliest that really pops in my memory was a double feature of _Labyrinth_ and _Short Circuit_. Assuming it was summertime of 1986, I was 7. I remember the aisle off the theater and the concession stand between movies more the the films. ---
**Author:** ![Jack\_Batty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jack_batty/32/3201_2.png) [@Jack\_Batty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jack_Batty)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2012, 10:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earliest-film-going-experience-you-can-remember/614132/8 "2012-02-27T10:58:18Z")
I think I was about six. _Bedknobs and Broomsticks_. I was obsessed with it after I saw it. I remember loading up with Bedknobs coloring books and stickers and toys. I think that movie may also have marked the beginning of my love of soccer, in a weird way. It’s one of my earliest memories, period. ---
**Author:** ![Lsura](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7993a0/32.png) [@Lsura](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lsura)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2012, 11:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earliest-film-going-experience-you-can-remember/614132/9 "2012-02-27T11:00:18Z")
> [@Koxinga](#): > > Star Wars, 1977. Me too. I was 4, and don’t particularly remember the movie, but do remember being COLD in the theater. ---
**Author:** ![Alka\_Seltzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c89c15/32.png) [@Alka\_Seltzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alka_Seltzer)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2012, 11:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earliest-film-going-experience-you-can-remember/614132/10 "2012-02-27T11:40:15Z")
Earliest I can remember was **The Fox and the Hound** , which came out in 1981. I’d have been just over 5. My impressions of it are very vague, but I remember being somewhat upset about it when the fox was being chased. ---
**Author:** ![Maastricht](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a88e57/32.png) [@Maastricht](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maastricht)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2012, 11:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earliest-film-going-experience-you-can-remember/614132/11 "2012-02-27T11:58:50Z")
Disneys Fantasia, when I was six or so. Blew me away. Parts were scary, (the broomsticks!) parts were beautiful…I never thought of classical music as something dull afterwards ever again. The Lady of the Lake, an adaptation of the Arthur legend. With a sexy Helen Mirren. No wonder I still found her sexy forty years later. ---
**Author:** ![What\_the](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f4b2a3/32.png) [@What\_the](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_the)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2012, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earliest-film-going-experience-you-can-remember/614132/12 "2012-02-27T12:01:53Z")
Babes in Toyland at a drive-in in SoCal when I was about 4. ---
**Author:** ![El\_Kabong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_kabong/32/496_2.png) [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2012, 12:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earliest-film-going-experience-you-can-remember/614132/13 "2012-02-27T12:03:26Z")
I believe I’ve mentioned this before, but I was around seven, and the first fillms I ever saw in a theater were a double bill of _20,000 Leagues Under the Sea_ and _Mothra_. Both were pretty spectacular, but regarding the latter flick, about the time the tiny little female twins showed up singing that 747-sized moth back to its home, my mind was well and truly blown. ---
**Author:** ![VunderBob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/839c29/32.png) [@VunderBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VunderBob)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2012, 12:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earliest-film-going-experience-you-can-remember/614132/14 "2012-02-27T12:08:00Z")
I vaguely remember my mother taking me to see \*Mary Poppins \*on the big screen. I would have been roughly 5. ---
**Author:** ![Caricci](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/85f322/32.png) [@Caricci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Caricci)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2012, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earliest-film-going-experience-you-can-remember/614132/15 "2012-02-27T12:28:29Z")
I know that the first movie I was taken to see was _The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming_, but I don’t remember any of it because I was about a month old (it was a drive-in). My first memory of going to the movies involves a lot of red velvet and even stools at the back of a theater, but I don’t remember if it was Bambi or Snow White - I don’t remember watching the movie at all! It’s this blurry memory of suddenly being there and leaving. I also remember going to \*The Sound of Music \* with my twin and my father; my mother was too pregnant to go so we must have been under four years old. The problem with this plan was, who was going to take us to the bathroom? We refused to go in the men’s room, my father refused to go in the ladies room (of course), going to the parking lot and peeing behind the car was discussed and I think some random lady finally took us. ---
**Author:** ![ASanders](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asanders/32/3367_2.png) [@ASanders](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ASanders)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2012, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earliest-film-going-experience-you-can-remember/614132/16 "2012-02-27T12:53:02Z")
Bambi, in the theater. Mid-60s, I guess. ---
**Author:** ![Sigmagirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c89c15/32.png) [@Sigmagirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sigmagirl)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2012, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earliest-film-going-experience-you-can-remember/614132/17 "2012-02-27T12:54:27Z")
I remember having gone to see _The Sound of Music_. I don’t remember anything about the actual film. ---
**Author:** ![GovernmentMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e9c0ed/32.png) [@GovernmentMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GovernmentMan)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2012, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earliest-film-going-experience-you-can-remember/614132/18 "2012-02-27T13:12:13Z")
either Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II or Hook ---
**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:** [February 27, 2012, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earliest-film-going-experience-you-can-remember/614132/19 "2012-02-27T13:21:48Z")
> [@Bill\_Door](#): > > 1958 and _The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad_. Great movie. One of my first movies, too, but I’m sure I saw it on a re-release at a matinee. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2012, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earliest-film-going-experience-you-can-remember/614132/20 "2012-02-27T13:27:58Z")
Never saw a movie before my mother took me to see a double feature at a neighborhood indoor theater. It was _[Heidi](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0028988/)_, with Shirley Temple, and _[White Mane](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0044518/)_, both in glorious black and white. She didn’t let us stay to see _White Mane_, since she said the horse died in the end. (This wasn’t a first-run theater, and it wasn’t 1937.) 20 years later, I played music and directed stage shows in the same theater, which had been converted back to a stage venue. The 2nd movie I saw was 4 years after the first, a [Jerry Lewis & Dean Martin](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049322/) flick, in color! _Parents_ magazine didn’t think much of it for kids, so it was difficult to get permission. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earliest-film-going-experience-you-can-remember/614132.md?page=2)