My grandmother got the great idea of sending me and four of my little friends to the movies for my 5th birthday. It was a small town, and only one movie theatre. So off we went. To see H.G. Wells’ “War of the Worlds.” My friend Barbie says she never actually saw it because she was under her seat. I remember refusing to come out of the theatre because the world was gone and all the people were dead. I didn’t see another movie until my family went to see “Ten Commandments” at a drive-in years later. So I gave up on movies at 13. My college friends saved me, with “Jules and Jim,” and all those wonderful French movies from about that period. There was one close call when someone took me to see “Satyricon,” and I had to leave. But of course then “Sound of Music” and “Mary Poppins,” soon enough “Funnny Girl” and “Madame Rosa” and “Lion in Winter,” and I’m a die-hard movie fan to this day…

The first movie I remember seeing was ‚Desiree’. Marlon Brando played Napoleon, and it was love at first sight. When the movie ended, we went to our car which was in a parking lot adjacent to the theatre. The theatre had a side door which seemed to lead to an area behind the screen. I was so sure that Marlon Brando would come out of this “stage” door. I begged my mother to wait until he appeared.

Bambi! I remember closing my eyes when his mother died and getting down behind the seat in front of me and peeking over waiting for that part to end. Bev.

The first movie I ever seen in a theater was Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, not remembering much of the movie because I was mesmerised and in awe of the grand”ness”. Plus, the popcorn.

The first movie I seeing in a theater was “Old Yeller”. I remember the strong bond between the dog and the boy and just knew that old yeller understood why his master had to kill him. That young boy took his first step into manhood when he pulled that trigger. I cried.

it was bambi for me, too….and i was somewhat traumatized by it….i was a real emotionally overly-sensitive kid….and actually i am pretty much that way as an adult when it comes, especially, to animals, ( yes even animated ones!) the concept of tragic death, etc… the lion king killed me and i was almost 40 when i saw it! looking back on bambi and some of the others i have to conclude that i don’t think disney really ‘liked’ children very much…but wanted to make them cry! don’t EVEN get me started on ‘old yeller’….and THAT was not animated!! whaaaa!!!!

I was with my grandfather during that summer in 1942, he took me to see a film which must have been a French production , I do not remember it at all, I was 10 .What I do remember is my grandfather telling me that the movie did not make sense. One minute she was in the bedroom and the next minute she is in the kitchen, so how did she get there? He expected a blow by blow with every move recorded. he was a big fan of opera’s and variety stage shows but the movie left him cold. I remember the critique but not the film.

I might have been four. It was a big family outing with lots of excitement. Cyd Charisse in Silk Stockings…I remember Daddy carried me across the busy street downtown, so I was little. And I was excited, ‘cause being the youngest, this was the first time I “got to go!” on a family outing. But I don’t remember a thing about the movie. I think I fell asleep. I remember most of “Bambi”. That was the next one. Wasn’t downtown, just at the neighborhood theater with Mother and my older brother and sister. But I crawled under the seat when the hunters came, and fell asleep again. “Darbie O’Gill and the Leprochauns” is the first one I remember seeing all the way through. And that banshee terriried me deeply, kept we awake night after night for years after that. And “The King and I.” First movie to make me cry. And then “Ben Hur”. Big deal, downtown, with Daddy. But once again, I hid my eyes in Daddy’s sleeve when he found his mother and sister in the Lepers cave, fell asleep and didn’t wake up til the chariot race. “The Miracle Worker” was the one that made me want to be an actress. I’d already read two or three books about Helen Keller, but the movie really told the story. I still cry, just thinking of Ann Bancroft shouting, “She knows!”