1935 Brooklyn, New York

Norman Weiss

Born 1935

Brooklyn NY

Interviewed on 1/31/2024

by Daphne Raskin, his granddaughter

My first movie was Fantasia, and the thing I remember about it is the music. It was really dark, scary music. I was five years old, and I remember ducking under the seat so I wouldn’t have to look at the screen. I was with my mother. There were these swirling images that went along with the music, and the screen would go from dark to light. Maybe that’s what made the movie good, but I had never heard anything like classical music before and was just not prepared! Fantasia is still a movie that people would remember – movie people, I mean. If you wanted, you could Google ‘Fantasia’ and learn about it and the person who composed it.

Most Saturday afternoons as a kid, roughly between eight and fourteen, I would go with friends from my apartment house and the greater neighborhood to the Midwood Theater on Avenue J in Brooklyn.  The neighborhood was all very walkable if you could walk. I lived on 16th Street and would walk one block to 16th Street and Avenue J, and then the Midwood Theater was around 13th or 14th Street. For a quarter you could get two feature movies, a newsreel of news of what was happening in the world, cartoons or shorts like maybe Bugs Bunny or Mickey Mouse, and then you would get the Coming Attractions. You’d leave the theater bleary-eyed because you had been sitting in the dark for four hours!

Because there were mostly kids in the theater on Saturday afternoons, there were these women called ‘matrons.’ These were women who were hired for their cruelty towards children. [Laughs.] You had to be very well behaved because if you made too much noise, they’d either give you a look or throw you out. I don’t remember many other adults in the theater. You know, kids can make a lot of noise and be disruptive. So that was the matrons’ job – I was kidding when I said they were cruel – the women were doing what they had to do to maintain order! If you were a wise guy or something like that, you got yourself into trouble. I don’t think I was ever kicked out. It’s possible, but no, I don’t think so.

I don’t remember eating anything at the movies. The first time I smoked a cigarette was in the balcony of the Midwood Theater. Kids sneaked cigarettes in those days. On our way home from the movies, we would often stop to get a Charlotte Russe. A Charlotte Russe – it was like a little round paper container with a little bit of sponge cake with whipped cream and a cherry on the top! That was a Charlotte Russe, and it was just like a little Charlotte Russe store. A hole in the wall that sold Charlotte Russe. There were bakeries on Avenue J but no, that’s not where we got them.

The movies I liked the most were war movies. I think I was six when Pearl Harbor was bombed. From ages six to nine, there was the war. During those three years, Hollywood made a lot of movies like “Back to Bataan,” “30 seconds over Tokyo,” and I think “GI Joe.” I liked these movies because I liked the fighting and the military activity. That’s what people were into in those days. You know, you’d see Americans beating the Japanese and the Germans, and you’d feel patriotic.

As I got to high school, a new set of friends and I became interested in art films. That was a distinct change in my movie interests. These were usually Italian or French or I guess even English movies. There were certain theaters in Brooklyn that exclusively showed foreign films. The Elm was one of them, and the Jewel was another. The Elm was within walking distance, but The Jewel was several streets away, so you took the trolley. I don’t think you can find theaters that only show foreign film anymore. Or at least I haven’t seen one in years. There was a Swedish director …  oh gee whiz … Bergman! Bergman was wonderful. We would see all his movies like “The Virgin Spring” and “The 7^th Seal.” And there were French directors. There was one comedy called “Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday.” I’ve even seen it in reruns on Turner Classic Pictures. I forget the actor, but his style was almost pantomime. His movements were so stylized it was hysterical. If you ever have the chance to see “Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday,” take it! I didn’t see very many American movies in those high school days because they were not as interesting to me as the European ones.