1944, Cleveland Ohio and 1951, Pittsburgh Pennsylvania

Spencer and Barbara Fried

Born 1941 and 1943

Cleveland, OH and Pittsburgh, PA

Interviewed on February 1, 2025

By Daniel Fried

 

DANIEL: What is the first movie you remember seeing?

SPENCER: Probably in the 1950s, I guess. Probably…what’s the elephant movie? It may be either… it was a Disney movie–

BARBARA: You don’t mean Bambi do you?

SPENCER: Bambi may be the first one, or what’s the elephant that flew around…

DANIEL: Dumbo?

SPENCER: Dumbo the Elephant. One of the two, I’m not sure… Bambi, you know that was a sad movie when the mother got burnt, killed in the fire. But I think that’s the first one I ever remember.

DANIEL: And how old were you when you saw it, about?

SPENCER: Nineteen. (laughter) I was young enough that I was really afraid, and you know, really upset when the mother got killed.

BARBARA: six or seven?

SPENCER: Yeah, maybe six I’m guessing. That was in the 40s then.

DANIEL: Gotcha. And is there anything particular you remember about the movie that stood out?

SPENCER: Well, I remember the mother dying, and… Oh you know what? Before that– I’m changing my mind– I may have seen the seven dwarves. What’s the movie?

DANIEL: Snow White?

SPENCER: Snow White and the Seven Dwarves! 

BARBARA: (laughter)

SPENCER: Because I remember them s–

BARBARA: I’m seeing a pattern here!

SPENCER: Yeah (laughter) well, why would they take me to see Gone With the Wind, you know? (laughter) But I think I saw that first, and I remember the men singing “🎵Heigh-ho! Heigh-ho! It’s off to work we go!🎵” And, that’s about all. And I remember the princess waking up when the prince kissed her, she was asleep. If that’s the same movie…

BARBARA: Classic!

SPENCER: Yeah, and I think that was even before.

DANIEL: Gotcha. And who was with you when you saw it?

SPENCER: One or both of my parents.

DANIEL: How did you get to the theater or wherever you saw it?

SPENCER: They drove.

DANIEL: Were there any concessions? Did you have a favorite candy that you ate at the theater?

SPENCER: Well you know, at that particular time, we probably got– they had a counter in the lobby, and you buy candy there or popcorn, and at that time I don’t remember whether we had candy or not, but when I used to go every Saturday with my friends, and this was probably late 40s, we would always get popcorn. I think popcorn cost 10 cents or maybe 15, but I think 10 cents.

DANIEL: That would probably get you one kernel nowadays.

SPENCER: Yeah. (laughter) And the movie itself was about ten cents to get in. Ten or fifteen at the most. Yeah, but anyway, at that time for the Seven Dwarves, whatever the name of that movie is…

BARBARA: Snow White?

SPENCER: Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, I don’t remember, I was too young.

DANIEL: Gotcha. Do you remember the name of the theater that you saw it in?

SPENCER: The Uptown Theatre, which was one of the old beautiful theaters, and it had a balcony, and it had along the left and right side of the theater boxes, and the boxes were elevated and if you got there early you just could go into a box, and they had chairs that you could move around in the box. That was really nice, but it was the Uptown.

DANIEL: That sounds wonderful. Did it have ushers?

SPENCER: Yeah… I think it may have. Not all the time. On Saturdays when we’d go, there were no ushers for sure.

BARBARA: I don’t remember ushers.

SPENCER: I remember ushers!

BARBARA: Mhm!

DANIEL: And was this in Cincinnati or–

SPENCER: No, Cleveland.

DANIEL: Cleveland, oh right, yes. And so Cleveland in the mid-40s I suppose?

SPENCER: Well, I was born in 1941, so it was mid 40s, or mid to late 40s.

DANIEL: Gotcha. And then, beyond this, did you have a favorite genre of film?

SPENCER: On Saturdays, there were always adventure films of some sort. Cowboy films, or adventure of some sort. And then they always had shorts. What do you call it… Serials! In other words, they’d show about fifteen minutes of a serial, and–

BARBARA: Each week–

SPENCER: Each week! Yeah and–

BARBARA: In addition to the movie.

SPENCER: In addition to the movie. Occasionally there were double features where you saw two movies. And they always showed the news, and they’d always show a short, and they always showed cartoons. And the type of serials they’d have would be like Captain Video…or not that. Who was the space guy of the early 40s? I can’t remember. But he would be falling down off a big building, and it would end so you’d come back–

BARBARA: A cliffhanger.

SPENCER: Yeah. The next week you’d see him falling down but he catches a rope! You know. (laughter) Captain video was TV… I can’t remember…

DANIEL: Buck Rogers or somethin’?

SPENCER: Yeah! Buck Rogers! And, then there was some cowboy stuff… but yeah I liked cowboy movies, Roy Rogers. So they were always adventure things on Saturdays, pretty much.

DANIEL: Gotcha. How often did you get to the movies growing up? And as you got older did it become more or less frequent?

SPENCER: Well, as a kid I went almost every Saturday. Not in the Winter, of course, ‘cause we walked. When I was little, we walked to the theater. But then when it was cold or rainy we wouldn’t go. And I would go with friends, and we’d go every saturday. And then, of course, as I got older I would go less and less, but we still went a fair amount.

BARBARA: There was no TV…

SPENCER: There was no TV, that’s right! And so going to the movies was a load of fun.

DANIEL: When did you get TV?

SPENCER: We got TV… we lived on Parkland drive… and I guess in the… when would I have been in about the third grade… maybe I was fourth grade.

BARBARA: So that would be about, like, 9?

SPENCER: Yeah, maybe nine years old, or so.

DANIEL: So around 1950.

SPENCER: The first show I ever saw was John Cameron Swayze in Today’s News Today in black and white on a thirteen inch screen!

DANIEL: And would you say after you got the TV, that made you go to the movies less, or was it not really a replacement?

SPENCER: Not too much of a replacement, because there weren’t movies on TV to speak of, and if I went to the movies it was, at that time, maybe with my parents. 

DANIEL: Got it. And then what types of movies did you like as a teen, and then as a young adult?

SPENCER: I always liked adventure stuff. No chick-flicks! (laughter) And so those were the movies we would go to. Then as an adult, I don’t know if there was a particular genre that I particularly liked, but I always liked exciting movies, World War II movies, or what else… There were a lot of Westerns. Those were pretty good sometimes. Oh! And by the way, the two movies that made a big impact on me on Saturdays… one was Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein and the Wolfman! (laughter) I had never heard of Frankenstein, and I’d never heard of the Wolfman. All I’d heard of were Abbott and Costello who were really funny, and all of the sudden I couldn’t sleep for weeks! (laughter) I had a light on in the room. Really! And the second movie that totally shocked me was The Thing. There was a later movie called The Thing, but this was the first The Thing, and that was in the early 50s I guess. And again I didn’t know what it was about, and it was so scary I can’t believe it! I had to sleep with the light on. Another two weeks. (laughter) My father finally says, “you know, you’re twenty years old! Enough with the lights.” 

DANIEL: (laughter) The last question is do you have any other strong memories of the cinema?

SPENCER: The cinema? Well, we have a couple of things. One is, I don’t know if you ever saw Schindler’s List. That was so unbelievable. I didn’t know what the movie was about, and we went and boy, we couldn’t speak for about ten minutes. And I also liked The Longest Day, which was a black and white movie about World War II. That’s more recent, in the 60s probably. And then, oh there was one more that I can’t remember… oh well. But you know, I’m an action kind of guy!

DANIEL: Sounds good!

SPENCER: Okay, Barb!

DANIEL: If you’re ready!

Barb: Okay, I’m up. Oh no!

DANIEL: These will be completely different questions. I’ll be asking you–

BARBARA: Oh really?

DANIEL: Where were you? Why did you do it? Where were you on the night of the 31st?

SPENCER: Who was the accomplice? (laughter)

BARBARA: Guilty! (laughter)

DANIEL: (laughter) Alrighty, so same question. What’s the first movie you remember seeing?

BARBARA: So, like grandpa– oh, do you want a year roughly?

SPENCER: Grandma was born in ‘43.

BARBARA: I was born in ‘43, and we lived on a street and had a lot of friends on the street. We moved there when I was in kindergarten, so that would be ‘48-ish, and then maybe ‘49 or ‘50 we started going to the movies, like every Saturday. But it was mainly in the Summer or nice weather I guess. And we went to a ton of movies, they’re all sort of a blur, except for what grandpa mentioned, The Thing. (laughter) It was so horrifying! And what was horrifying about it is that they didn’t really show the monster. It was supposedly an outer space being that landed and got frozen into a chunk of ice in the Arctic somewhere, and these men, maybe they were Airforce men I think, they were up in the Arctic and they discovered this being in the ice. And they chopped away a block of ice with the being in it, and then they set a guy next to sit and watch it overnight, and all they show you is drip…drip…drip! And you know the ice is melting! Oh, it was scary! (laughter) And that thing, whatever that thing was, they don’t even show it! 

SPENCER: ‘Till the very end.

BARBARA: ‘Till the very end, and it was not even scary! (laughter) You know, they built it up so that…oh my God, it was really horrifying. And likewise, the light had to be on, and that was horrible!

DANIEL: How old were you when you saw this?

BARBARA: I would say six or seven.

DANIEL: Gotcha. Who was with you when you saw it?

BARBARA: Children from our street. We all friends used to walk together. We would walk to the movie theater, and our mothers would pack us lunches in a brown bag, and then we would buy our admission and we would buy candy to go with it.

DANIEL: What was your favorite candy?

BARBARA: Do you know what nonpareils are? They’re like chocolate circles and they have white dots on top, does that make sense?

DANIEL: Yeah, yeah.

BARBARA: Ok.

SPENCER: Did you ever hear of Jujubes? Those were horrible! They were so hard!

BARBARA: Yeah! (laughter)

SPENCER: And they were supposed to be soft.

DANIEL: Hm, I’ve never had that.

BARBARA: (laughter) I was more of a chocolate person.

DANIEL: Do you remember the name of the theater?

BARBARA: It’s the Manor Theatre, M-A-N-O-R, and this was all happening in Pittsburgh, that’s where I grew up.

DANIEL: Were there ushers at this theater?

BARBARA: Not that I ever saw. I mean there was someone that took your ticket of course, you know, or sold you tickets–

SPENCER: For me there were.

BARBARA: But I never saw an usher, no.

DANIEL: And so this was Pittsburgh you said, yeah?

BARBARA: Correct.

DANIEL: And then, growing up, as a kid did you have a favorite genre of film?

BARBARA: Favorite genre? My absolute favorite was when they had an all cartoon day, but that really doesn’t answer your question. There’s always maybe one day or weekend a year where they would have all cartoons, one after the other after the other. But normally, there’d be maybe one or two cartoons with a film. And–

SPENCER: Let me just, this is sort of funny, one of the scariest films I ever saw, just to show you, there was a cartoon, Little Lulu. Little Lulu was about a five minute cartoon, but they had a full-length feature of Little Lulu who was a young girl, and it was a cartoon, and they had ghosts in the cartoon, and Little Lulu was running, and they were chasing her–That scared the heck out of me! (laughter)

BARBARA: (laughter) Alright! I’m still trying to think of what type of movie I favored… You know just going to the movie was such an adventure… later on when I was older maybe?

DANIEL: Yeah, when you were a teen, and then when you were a young adult.

BARBARA: Yeah, I loved Alfred Hitchcock movies, and just, you know, romance or that kind of thing. Like, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, or just stuff like that.

SPENCER: I remember a movie when I was younger. My father took me to the art museum once just to see the black and white Douglas Fairbanks movie of Zorro.

BARBARA: Oh, really?

SPENCER: And there was no sound. 

BARBARA: Oh, interesting.

SPENCER: And another time he took me to the Uptown, and we saw The Wake of the Red Witch, and it was about a ship. And I can’t remember the plot exactly, but I do remember this guy was in a diving suit, you know, with a big helmet and a window, and the last scene is somebody cuts the cord–

BARBARA: His face fills up with water!

SPENCER: The water is coming up inside of his face! (laughter)

BARBARA: Yep! Always! Yes! (laughter)

SPENCER: That was sort of scary.

BARBARA: Yeah! Ok, sorry for the interruption! (laughter)

DANIEL: (laughter) All good! I love it all.

BARBARA: (laughter) Me too!

DANIEL: So as a teen you liked Hitchcock movies, and then as an adult or as a young adult, I guess, how did it change or did you kind of stick with that?

BARBARA: Yeah, I liked movies about people, relationships, you know all that kind of – chick flicks! (laughter)

DANIEL: And how often did you go to the movies growing up?

BARBARA: Once a week. I mean when we were little, like grandpa said, there was no TV, or even in the early days of TV it was extremely limited. Like you would have a show or two, and then you know what a test pattern is? They would have like a pattern, there was no program, it was just something to tune. It’s hard to explain.

DANIEL: Right, yeah.

BARBARA: Yeah, early TV is–

SPENCER: Tell him about the raffle.

BARBARA: Oh! I had a life changing experience in a movie theater that I’ll tell you about. So, this is a whole long story, but this may be too much information just for your own use.

DANIEL: No, all good!

BARBARA: So, I never knew this, but evidently the movie business from beginning to end was often a Jewish business, but that included theater owners. Theater owners across the country, unbeknownst to me, I mean it didn’t matter, happened to be Jewish. It was sort of a, you know, “friends help friends” kind of situation. I’m talking back in the 1950s. So that’s background. I had no knowledge of this. So one day, the theater, instead of having a movie, had all sorts of live entertainment. Like one guy who would – It was really like advertising when you think back – would do yo-yo tricks, and then we would all want to go out to buy the yo-yo, you know, various things like that. And another part of it was a raffle for an adorable puppy-dog. And you know there were hundreds and hundreds of children, and of course I wanted to win that dog so much! So they spin all the tickets in the drum, and they dramatically pull out a ticket, and my best friend won! But here’s the deal– I knew her uncle owned the theater! And in that minute I realized things weren’t fair in the world. (laughter) It was so eye opening! I mean I was only seven years old, and I went, “Oh! That’s how things work! Ah!” You know? And I wasn’t upset, it was sort of like a learning experience, you know?

DANIEL: Yeah!

SPENCER: Another–

BARBARA: Oh wait, one sec!

SPENCER: Another thing they used to do which was a lot of fun– they’d have a short in the movie of a race. Like of these men racing, or cars racing, or horse racing, and when you went into the theater they’d give you a stub with a number on it. And they’d make this real long, the horse race would take about 20 minutes or something. (laughter) And suppose you had number 9, and number 9 would be winning and winning, and then number 6 would pull ahead, and the winner if you had the right stub would win a prize. But they only issued one stub for the winner.

BARBARA: Oh!

DANIEL: I see!

SPENCER: And they’d give that to someone who they knew, you know. Nobody would ever win but the owner’s son!

BARBARA: Yeah, right! What a coincidence! (laughter)

DANIEL: Lucky guy!

SPENCER: And we were too dumb to realize that. 

BARBARA: Yeah! Well all I have to tell you is I loved that puppy, it was best friend who lived across the street from me, so I was over at her house all the time playing with the puppy, so it wasn’t, you know– it was fine, it was just so shocking to learn how the world works! Oh gosh. So that’s my add-on story.

DANIEL: And then lastly, when did you get a TV?

BARBARA: We were the first ones on our street to get a TV, so it was about, I would say ‘49, ‘50, somewhere in there.

DANIEL: And after you got a TV, you said that programming was pretty light, but would you say that it led you to go to the movies less, or did you basically keep on going?

BARBARA: It didn’t affect movie-going for a very very long time, like almost in the 2000s. This is just my opinion. Because we used to always go to movies, it was– I think when COVID came was sort of the end of that. It was always a way to, you know, get out, be with people. And all that. But now, I don’t think we’ve been to a movie since 2020.

SPENCER: Just once, I can’t remember…

BARBARA: Maybe once, but–

SPENCER: We saw Top Gun 2.

BARBARA: Oh, and we saw… Barbie!

SPENCER: Oh yeah, Barbie.

BARBARA: But anyway, so in other words it’s rare, since– I think COVID. But before that we definitely did a lot of movie-going.

DANIEL: Got it. Alright, thanks so much to both of you!

Notes: 

Spencer and Barbara Fried are my paternal grandparents. Spencer was born in 1941 in Cleveland, Ohio, and Barbara was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1943. Both were born to Jewish families. While we weren’t sure at the time of the interview, I have since determined the most likely year for my grandfather to have first watched Snow White to be 1944. In that year, the Disney Studio re-released the film to raise revenue during the Second World War.