Early 1984, I was 12 years old. I went with my girlfriend, her older sister, and sis’s boyfriend, to see a silly movie that I doubt anyone remembers, called Angel.
1971’s bikesploitation film Angels Hard As They Come,
I was 9. Our neighbors took me. I wonder what they heck they were thinking. Gang rape, murder, violence, and boobies. I haven’t seen it since.
The first one that I am positive I saw in the theatre was the Dirty Harry movie The Dead Pool when I was 14.
I think I might have seen Robocop in the theatre, but I could be wrong. (I definitely saw Robocop 2 in the theatre, so I may be mixing those up.)
I feel like I must have seen The Blues Brothers in theaters and vaguely remember doing so (obviously it was a big deal around Chicago) but the first vivid memories I have of seeing an R rated movie in theaters was either Police Academy or Revenge of the Nerds. Not sure which of those 1984 films came out first. RotN is noteworthy in that my mother just dropped us off at a theater and they let my sister and I (13 & 11 respectively) buy tickets and watch it. I don’t think she really knew what the movie was about.
We had a different ratings system in New Zealand in the 80s, we broke R down into R13, R16, and R18. I have no idea how you all remember anything like ratings, but my best guess for me is Police Academy.
Richard Pryor, Live in Concert. My dad took me, after having seen it himself and deciding it was worth sharing. I was 10 years old. My younger brother stayed at home. Fantastic experience.
My dad was a truly terrible father, physically and emotionally abusive, and I cut him out of my life thirty years ago. But he had excellent taste in culture and media, and he didn’t object to his kids hearing some blue language. I’ve been similarly open-minded with my own kids as I introduce them to classic movies — minus the abuse, of course.
The Little Drummer Girl (1984), with Diane Keaton. I was 10, my dad was out of town, and my little sister was sleeping at a friend’s, so my mom decided to take me out to a movie. I guess she had liked the book and I know she loved Keaton, and I was smart for my age. I still had trouble following the plot, though, and the violent/sexy stuff made me a little uncomfortable, but all in all it was a good night out.
So I wanted to say Logan’s Run in 1976, but looking it up it was PG despite some nudity and violence. So, either The Omen (1976 - but I have an odd feeling I saw that a few years later) or more likely a mostly little-remembered by most Clint Eastwood vehicle from 1977 - The Gauntlet.
Like Milhouse and friends, who got all het up in anticipation of sneaking into an R-rated movie, a friend and I went to see Marathon Man, with similar high hopes. I think you did get to see Dustin Hoffman’s nipple once while being tortured by nazis, but it just wasn’t what I’d hoped as a 16 year old boy.
I actually remember this vividly. My friends and I got it in our heads that we wanted to see Psycho 2. I am not even sure why. My guess is the only thing we knew about Psycho was the shower scene and that was what made us want to see it.
We had already seen a bunch of slasher movies on HBO (I still remember the first one my parents let me watch was My Bloody Valentine probably like a year or two earlier) so I guess it wasn’t such a big deal and one of my friend’s parents brought us to the theater (we were probably 10 or 11 years old at this point) and bought us the tickets. I remember teenage ticket woman in the booth saying, “This is a very scary movie. You sure you want to do this?”. But in the end the parent bought the tickets and we saw it.
I have zero memory of the movie itself but still remember the conversation outside at the booth. BTW, the parent just bought us the tickets and didn’t go in. It was a different time and they let three 10 year olds go in by themselves but that was my first rated R movie in a theater.
Hannie Caulder 1971 with Robert Culp and Raquel Welch, Ernest Borgnine, Strother Martin
The sexual assualt is violent and gave the film a R rating. The revenge killings of the three brothers is also very violent.
Borgnine, Strother Martin and Jack Elam were extremely vicious in this film. Strother made a career playing unbalanced killers.
My mom told the box office that I had permission to watch the film. She didn’t realize a film could be so violent in 1971. Her experience was Jimmy Stewart and John Wayne Westerns.
Either McCabe & Mrs Miller or The Hunting Party in 1971. Both westerns but starring people that I liked.
That’s always the danger for the laissez-faire kind of parent, that a movie with a title which seems to indicate it is a kid flick turns out to be nothing of the sort.
I saw both The Graduate and Rosemary’s Baby in 1968, which was the first year the MPAA ratings started. Prior to that, in 1963 I managed to get into a theater that was showing Irma la Douce, which was considered too racy for under 18 viewers. I was 16 at the time.
Bzzzt!
The Hawaiians, despite the naked boobs, was rated GP. I remmber because one Comedienne joked that “GP” stood for :Get Popcorn", which is what she instructed her son to do when that scene came on. Later, apparently because people thought “GP” stood for “General Patronage”, they changed it to “PG”, for “Parental Guidance.”
I think my first R-rated movie was The Graduate, too.
If the drive-in counts as a theatre, as per post #12, then Alien. I was waaay too young.
Have to ask: did any of these experiences warp your minds, morals, or result in horrific nightmares for a month straight, or such?
‘The Warriors’ in 1979. I was 14 years old. Enjoyable first ‘R’ movie, but I remember being disappointed that there was no nudity. I thought at the time that all R-rated movies had nudity.
I never saw Angel, but it’s one of those movies I remember seeing at the video rental store for years just sitting on the shelf. Not Blockbuster Video, but those old school family owned video rental stores.
I was able to watch snippets of Alien at the drive-in but we were there to see Clash of the Titans.
In 1987, we went to see A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors when I was eleven. I was fine, until we got home and I threw something in my closet upon which some unholy noise emanated, scaring the hell out of me. After a little investigation, I figured out what happened was the junk shifted, pressing play on my Walkman, and the volume was set high enough to where I could hear the tape playing but didn’t recognize what it was.
I was in a tough spot. Admitting to my parents I was, as Will Smith put it, “scared as hell,” wasn’t an option because that would be the end of scary movies. So I just had to put on my big boy pants and sleep with my baseball bat close by that night.