1945 Montegrande, Argentina

Rosa Farinas
Born in 1939
Montegrande, Argentina
Interviewed on 9/10/19
by Amelia Farinas

Probably the first movies I saw were when I was like six years old. My mother took me. We lived, not where we lived after, but a more city place, next to Buenos Aires. I don’t remember the titles of the movies. I remember scenes, parts of it, but I don’t remember the titles. One very old movie I remember is with the fat guy and the skinny guy. In Spanish it’s El Gordo y El Flaco – Laurel and Hardy! I saw those movies, and some scenes made such an impression on me. One of them, I don’t remember if it was the fat one or the skinny one, went through a window; sometimes the buildings had windows in the floor, at least at that time in Buenos Aires, so accidentally the window broke and he fell through and got cut with the broken glass. I started crying and yelling and my mother had to take me out of the movie theater.

The theater was in Montegrande. Cine Teatro, it was called. In every town, the bigger the town, the more movie theaters they had. Like where we lived, which was almost the last town and then there was countryside, there was just one movie theater. The town was Luis Guillón, but it was part of Montegrande. That was where the cinema was, and I went to school also in Montegrande. Later, I moved to the countryside, and when I was in the countryside I didn’t have chances to see movies. But in Montegrande it was very easy to go, the cinema was four or five blocks away from my house.

The theater was nice. They were like today, with the same seats – probably not so nice, they were a little hard. They were clean, but when we left the theater it was a mess, with all the candy on the floor. When we went to the theater, they would be showing three movies. So it started at 1 o’clock, and ended at 6 o’clock. And you’d see one, two, three movies! You could leave if you wanted but we wanted to get the most for our money. 

They had breaks in between, to buy some sweets that they were selling. They had like a table made of wood, and something to hold the table around their neck, and they were full of candy that they would offer to us. My mother didn’t like to buy candy for me often. Sometimes, but not very often. If we went to the cinema, we just went to see the movie. Sometimes we took sweets with us and ate it in the intermezzo. There was one thing that they sold, pirulines. It was a round thing made of caramel, like a hard candy, but instead it was a long bar. So you peeled it to one side, on the top, and then you ate it rolling it in your mouth to make a point. So as you were eating it you were making a point, and bad kids, they would poke you with it. 

The first movies, they were just acting, and there was no dialogue. When we went to the theater, they would show three movies, and one of them would be one of those silent movies. I loved movies from Charlie Chaplin. I saw many movies with him but I don’t remember the titles. I remember the way he walked – he was walking with his feet like this, duck footed. The shoes helped him, they were special shoes, but walking like that was the main thing for him. And the hat he wore, he always had a tall hat and a cane. He had black pants and a black coat, with everything very tight, and like they used to have at weddings with suit tails. And that was “Carlitos Caplin”. It was all to laugh about, very funny. 

When I was six I went with my mom, but when I was like ten, eleven or twelve, I went with my brother. My mother would say, if you go with your brother, then you can go, but not alone. My brother was four years younger than me, but I had to go with my brother as a chaperone. We went when my brother wanted to go, but my brother usually didn’t want to go with me. I would cry, and tell him “Please, come with me. I’ll give you something. I’ll make you a cake!” He said “No.” He was tough. And I was really mad. He was strange; he liked to play in the garden and pick up bugs and butterflies, and he was entertained with that. He liked that, but I liked the movies better. Back then, going to the movies was practically the only thing you could do. We didn’t have TV. Going to the movies was the only entertainment.