1944 Seaford, Delaware

Nancy Spargo Goodridge
1939
Seaford, Delaware
Interviewed on January 28th, 2019
by Linda Mao

The first movie I remember—this is supposed to be when I was a little girl, right? The Wizard of Oz, in 1944 or 1945. Somewhere around then. My first full length movie. I was five, I think. Maybe four. As a young child, I lived in a small town in Delaware, called Seaford, during the Second World War. I was with my mother, and my father, and my brother, because the movies used to be a family thing. Then, when we were teenagers, we would go in groups. And then when I was dating—that was a thing to do—you know? We’d have a milkshake. Anyways, going to the movies was an event in this small town. So we would all get together and go to the movies, usually by car. It was very colloquial. There was only one movie theater, and that was the big entertainment then. These films were a treat.

The theater was—let me think. It was on Main Street in Seaford, Delaware, and it was called—the State Theater, I think. Very, very creative. The State Theater. It had blue mirrors. It had a blue mirror facade. I remember that. Oh yeah, it was something. But no, there were no ushers. It was a very small theater. There had to be a concession stand, but I don’t know if we ever bought anything, because we would always go to the movies after dinner. Pretty much what they had was candy, which we did not eat much of, and popcorn, which we also didn’t eat much of. I don’t think we ever just sat there and ate big bags of popcorn.

In the 30s and 40s, they would have 20 minutes of shorts. News reels shorts, because there really wasn’t a six-o’clock news back then. So the movies was where you got pictures of what was happening in the war, and then they would have—this sounds nutty—but they would have like Tarzan, or you know, some cartoon clip for about five minutes before they would share the movie. It was—it was kind of strange. Today, they have previews. But back then they didn’t have previews as much as they would have the world news.

I remember being very, very scared of the Wicked Witch of the West. I was terrified. As a little girl, someone was always eating a poisoned apple or dying or having something strike like that when we thought they were going to be fine. It was traumatic, you know, getting to know some of these more sympathetic creatures and then having them die. That’s pretty awful. I remember my mother kept saying, “Nancy, it’s only a movie, it’s not real.” Because I’d be sobbing!

I’ve had to have seen The Wizard of Oz three or four times since then. You would think it appeals to younger people, with the sense of amazing. But it’s really—it’s got a lot of lessons, a lot of symbolism. It had a little bit of everything. I thought Judy Garland was such a little girl, I mean, here she was—she had to be something like 13 or 14 when she made the movie. And of course, she danced and sang, and was, you know, amazing. I didn’t care for her as she grew older, but in that movie, she was just amazing for the amount of talent she had. I came away feeling like I was a dummy. I couldn’t dance, I couldn’t sing, and I couldn’t remember lines like she could. Acting was definitely incredible. Overall, it just was a really well done movie! Amazing.